September 1944

BILL’S COMMENTS ON WYLlE IDEAS, HUNCHES

Philip Wylie’s piece in this issue of The psychological technique.” What a boon In fact, it is already becoming evident that would have been to us who wrestle that the scientific world is becoming more Grapewhe will endear the man to every every day with the agnostic newcomer. If appreciative of our methods than we are A.A. And why? Because, of course, he’s only we could give him a straight does of of theirs. In this respect they are so very alcoholic! Neither can anyone that “transcendant symbo!” and have it commencing to teach us humility. miss the author’s generous and self- over with! We wouldn’t have to bother sacrificing spirit. Forgetting his own Listen again, as our friend Dr. Harry with that tedious business of waiting Tiebout, psychiatrist, closes his paper, worldly importance, he snaps his fingers while our prospect batters himself into at what the public may think; he discards “Basic Techniques of Alcoholics sufficient open-mindednessto accept the Anonymous,” before the American his reputation in order to share with us possibility of a “Power greater than his chamcte~:A traveller who has felt his Psychiatric Association: “The lesson far himself.” the psychiatrists is clear, it seems to me. own way out of the night, he tells how he But, as Mr. Wylie broadmindedly discovers haven. We could ask no better Although we admittedly deal with observes, it doesn’t matter too much how spirit of anyone. Mr. Wylie can be a emotional problems, we, as a group the transforming spiritual experience is member of A.A. the very day he says so! which tends to be intellectual, distrust brought so long as one gets one that It is a tradition among us that the emotion too much. We are self-conscious works for him. Somehow the alcoholic individual has the unlimited right to his and a little ashamed, when we are forced must get enough objectivity about himself own opinion on any subject under the to use them, and always apologetic with to abate his fears and collapse his false sun. He is compelled to agree with no our confreres if we suspect they have pride. If he can do all this through his one; if he likes, he can disagree with reason to think our methods are too intellect, and thereafter support his life everyone. And indeed, when on a “dry emotional. In the meantime, others, less structure upon a “transcendant symbol,” bound by tradition, go ahead to get bender,” many A.A.s do. Therefore , no more power to him! Most A.A.s, however, A.A. should be disturbed if he cannot results denied to us. It is highly would think this design for living pretty fully agree with all of Mr. Wylie’s truly imperative for us as presumably openinadequate. They would consider minded scientists to view wisely and long stimulating discourse. Rather shall we downright humility and faith in the power reflect that the roads to recovery are the efforts of others in our field of work; of the Living God a much stronger many; that any story or theory of We may be wearing bigger blinders than medicine. A.A. draws frankly upon recovery from one who has trod the emotion and faith while the scientific we know.” And again, as he says, “A highway is bound to contain much truth. intellectual would avoid these resources religious, or spiritual experience, is the Mr. Wylie’s article is like an abundance of as much as he can. Yet the more act of giving up refiance on one3 own fresh fruit. Perhaps we should take the intellectual techniques do work omnljwtence.” advice of the housewife who says, “We sometimes, reaching those who might As we A.A.s are people who are I shall eat all we can, and then can what supposed to have given up all our own never be able to take the stronger dose. we can’t.” Besides, they remind us, when over “omnipotence,” I’m sure that Mr. Wylie What caught my attention most was his proud of our own accomplishment, that will be read with the attentive interest he reference to the spiritual experience, “a A.A. has no monopoly on reviving deserves! la Jung,” seemingly induced “by scientific alcoholics. ‘ Bil

October 1944

CENTRAL OFFICE NOTES: A Date With Destiny?

Somebody once said, “A,s much An example: Not long ago Dr. matter. You will be taking your natural as you may grow, as many recoveries as E.M. Jellinek, of Yale University, came to abilities and A.A. experience into a very there may be, I think the eventual by- us. He said, “Yale, as you know, is different field. We don’t see how that can products of A.A. will be greater than A.A. sponsoring a program of public education affect your amateur status with us. itself.” on alcoholism, entirely non-controversial Suppose you were to become a social Everywhere now, we hear such in character. We need the cooperation of worker, a personnel officer, the manager remarks. They come from all kinds of many A.A.s. To proceed on any of a state farm for alcoholics, or even a people. Doctors think of applying our educational project concerning minister of the Gospel? Who could methods t o other neurotics; clergymen alcoholism without the goodwill, possibly say those activities would make wonder if our humble example may not experience and help of A.A. members you a professional A.A? No one, of vitalize their congregations; businessmen would be unthinkable.” course.” find we make good personnel managers So, when the National Committee They went on, “Yet we do hope – they glimpse a new industrial for Education on Alcoholism was formed, that A.A. as a whole will never deviate democracy; educators see power in our an A.A. member was made its executive from its sole purpose of helping other non-controversial way of presenting the director: Marty M., one of our oldest and alcoholics. As an organization, we should truth; and our friends wistfully say, “We finest. In this issue, she tells The express no opinion save on the recovery wish we were alcoholics – we need A.A. Grapevine of her work. As a member of of problem drinkers. That very sound too.” A.A., she is just as much interested in us national policy has kept us out of much Why these stirrings? They must all as before – A.A. is still her avocation. But useless trouble already, and will surely mean, I am sure, that we have suddenly as an officer of the Yale-sponsored forestall untold complications in the become much more than recovered National Committee, she is also future. alcoholics, A.A. members only. Society interested in educating the general public “Though A.A. as a whole,” they has begun to hope that we are going to on alcoholism. Her A.A. training has continued, “should never have but one utilize, in every walk of life, that wonderfully fitted her for this post in a objective, we believe just as strongly that miraculous experience of our returning, different field. Public education on for the individual there should be nd ‘ almost overnight, from the fearsome land alcoholism is to be her vocation. limitations whatever, w e p t hk own of Nowhere. Could an A.A. do such a job? At conscience. He should have the complete Yes, we are again citizens of the first, Marty herself wondered. She asked right to choose his own opinions and world. It is s distraught world, very tired, her A.A. friends, “Will I be regarded as a professional?” Her friends replied, “Had outside activities. If these are good, A.A.s very uncertain. It has worshipped its own self-sufficiency – and that has failed. We you come to us, Marty, proposing to be everywhere will approve. Just so, Marly, a therapist, to sell straight A.A. to do we think it will be in your case. While A.A.s are a people who once did that very thing. That philosophy failed us, too. alcoholics at so much a customer, we Yale is your actual sponsor, we feel sure should certainly have branded that as that you are going to have the warm So perhaps, here and there, our example professionalism. So would everybody personal support of thousands of A.A.s of recovery can help. As individuals, we have a responsibility, maybe a double else. wherever you go. We shall all be thinking “But the Nation Committee for how much better a break this new responsibility. It may be that we have a Education on Alcoholism is quite another generation of potential alcoholic kids will date with destiny. have because of your work, how much it

might have meant to us had our own mothers and fathers really understood alcoholism.” Personally I feel that Marty’s friends have advised her wisely; that they have clearly distinguished between the limited scope of “A.A. as a whole” and the broad horizon of the individual A.A. acting on his own responsibility; that they have probably drawn a correct line between what we would regard as professional and amateur. Bill

July 1945

HISTORY OFFERS GOOD LESSON FOR A.A.

A.A.s need to warn each other Older temperance organizations The Washingtonians were about becoming too confident. Over- had to stand aside – or climb onto the confident. They rebuffed overtures of confidence can have sorry bandwagon. The new society was getting older temperance organizations, they consequences. Individual A.A.s need to the headlines. It organized a mass scorned old methods. Local groups went take the warning to heart; A.A. as an meeting in City Hall Park in New York their separate ways, made their own organization of individuals can also profit City in 1841 that attracted more than mistakes, learned their own lessons. from it. 4,000 listeners – the speakers stood on Some, with larger membership, dipped All of us, attending meetings of upturned rum kegs – and it had 1,800 into their treasuries to finance their own our various groups, have heard, and new members when it closed its publications. There – was no over-all taken part in, conversations like this: campaign in that city. direction of educational policy. Editors of “D’ja see that story about A.A. in There were triumphal parades in local society publications got into this week’s Squint?” “Not yet, but Joe was Boston – where historic Faneuil Hall was squabbles with editors of other talkin’ about it. Any good?” “Yeah, a jammed to the doors to hear the speaker temperance papers. pretty good piece. You know, those – and in other eastern cities, Speakers editors must think we got somethin’.” toured the West and South. Factions Within “Sure, they wouldn’t be giving us space, The press of the day gave the what with the war and all, if they didn’t society uncounted columns of publicity. There was division, in those times, think a lot of their readers wanted to The society petered out. among the older organizations. Some of know about us.” The “why” contains a lesson – and them plumped for total abstinence as a Rosy contentment settles over a moral – for A.A. rule of conduct; others hedged and speakers and listeners. There was no ONE reason, of wanted to direct their efforts against use How many of the readers of The course. A reason was that older of spirituous liquors, accepting use of Grapevine have heard about the temperance organizations hired some of wines and beers as normal conduct. Washington Temperance Society? the society’s better speakers. That Some of the more hardy souls already . IT was quite an organization in its reason couldn’t have wrecked the society were clamouring for legislationthat would time – in the 1840’s. Its organizers called if it had had its feet solidly on the ground. outlaw the traffic in beverage alcohol. All themselves “reformed drunkards” and Another reason was that of these factions pulled and hauled on they set about “reforming” other politicians looked hungrily at its swelling the society’s members. drunkards. membership. Some of them climbed Older temperance organizations Does the idea seem familiar? aboard the wagon (there is inference that were finding it increasingly difficult to in those times, at least, some politicians interest the public in their aims. The Claimed 100,000 In 3 Years could qualify for membership) and they Washingtonians with their unique helped to wreck local groups through methods – their missionary work among They did all right, too. They got their efforts to line up votes. drunkards, their open-air parades and going in the spring of 1840, in Baltimore. The Abolition movement was mass meetings, their “experience” In early 1843, they were claiming that gaining strength and there was division programs that afforded a thrill-seeking they had persuaded 100,000 habitual within groups as men took their stand on public the opportunity of enjoying drunkards to sign the pledge. the issue of slavery. vicariously the degenerate experiences of

2 sodden sinners – were stealing the show. Washingtonianswere not atheists; A.A. IS new, a new partnership The older organizations borrowed it just hadn’t occurred to them that God with God in a useful endeavor. History Washingtonian speakers and methods to as we understand Him could help them NEED NOT repeat, in the case of A.A., draw larger audiences to their meetings. to stay sober. In fact, some of them the sorry story of the Washingtonians’ Because the Washingtonian believed that if they invited God into their rise and fall. movement, in its beginnings, was councils, sectarianism also would push There are, however, lessons to be concerned only with the reclaiming of its way in, and their movement would be learned from history. drunkards and held that it was none of its taken over by one or another of the C.H. K,Lansing Mich. affair if others used alcohol who seemed churches. ————-to be littie harmed by it, the makers and The society wasn’t on God’s side *The editorial quotation is from sellers of alcoholic beverages looked and, consequently it disintegrated. John Allen Krout’s book The Origins upon the new movement with a tolerant, of Prohibition, published by Alfred even approving eye. The habitual drunk Source of Strength A. Knopf, Inc., in 1925. was no more welcome in the nineteenthcentury grog-shop than he is in the An editor of that day wrote: present day cocktail lounge. “That the exclusion of all religious forms and the entire abstraction of one Fatal Omission religion from temperance, was necessary for the reclamation of the drunkard, we But in its zeal to increase its have never believed….The drunkard may membership as rapidly as possible, the have felt hostile to religion while in the society pledged many persons to total bar-room and amid the fumes of liquor, abstinence who were intemperate and he may feel so after he has drinkers, probably, but who were not reformed and been taught to believe that alcoholic in the present-day definition of he is better than a Christian, but never the term. did a poor drunkard go up in sincerity to The Washingtonian movement sign the pledge, without feeling himself a might have survived, however, might prodigal, commencing a work of return to have triumphed over its mistakes, and its his Heavenly Father, and needing that enemies (and well-wishers), except for Father’s help; and who would not have one fatal omission. gratefully knelt and listened to a prayer Its organizers believed they could for that help on his new endeavors. And get along without a Higher Power. we believe that if the hundreds of It wasn’t a particularly religious thousands of signatures in our country time. And inebriates, then as now, had had been accompanied with prayer and generally lost touch with Him. Many of some religious enforcement, their power them, in fact, were outspoken in their and efficiency would have been denunciations of all of His works, incomparably stronger.”‘ especially as demonstrated in the ISit necessarily true that-there’s activities and attitudes of so-called notthg new under the sun,” or that Christian folk. The meetings of the “history repeats itself?” society’s groups were conducted usually without reference to Him.

August 1945

Modesiy One Plank for Good Public Relations

By Bill M

During its brief few years in the public any reason for self-congratulations.Older It Did Happen Then eye, Alcoholics Anonymous has received A.As who know the record are hundreds of thousands of words of ~nanimous in their feeling that an Those who read the July Grapevine newspaper and magazine publicity. Intelligence greater than ours has surely were startled, then sobered, by the These channels have been augmented been at work., else we would’never have account which it carried of the recently by radio commentators and, avoided so many pitfalls, could never Washingtonian movement. it was hard here and there, A.A. sponsored radio have been so happily related to our for us to believe that 100 years ago the broadcasts. Hardly a word of criticism or millions of friends in the outside world. newspapers of this country were carrying ridicule has ever been uttered about us. Yet history records the rise, and let us enthusiastic accounts about 100,000 While our publicity has sometimes lacked not forget, the fall of any number of alcoholics who were helping each other a certain dignity we can scarcely promising and benign undertakings stay sober; that today the influence of complain of that. After all, drinking is not political, religious and social. While some this good work has so completely such a dignified business! did outlive their usefulness the greater disappeared that few of us had ever We surely have reason for great part died prematurely. Something wrong heard of it. gratitude that multitudes of writers, or unsound within them always became Let’s cast our eyes over that editors, clergymen, doctors – friends of apparent without. Their public relations Grapevine p i e c e a b o u t t h e every description – have continued so suffered, they grew no more; they Washingtonians and excerpt a few sympatheticallyand so enthusiastically to bogged down to a dead level or fell sentences: “Mass meeting in 1841, at urge our cause. As a direct result of their apart. City Hall Park, New York City, attracted efforts thousands of alcoholics have Personal glorification, overweening 4,000 listeners. Speakers stood on come to A.A. It is a good record. pride, consuming ambition, exhibitionism, upturned rum kegs.” “Triumphal parades Providentially good, when one considers intolerant smugness, money or power in Boston. Historic Faneuil Hall jammed.” how many mistakes we might have madness, refusal to admit mistakes and ( Overdone self-advertising made; how deeply, had other policies learn from them, self-satisfaction, lazy complacence – these and many more are exhibitionism? Anyhow, it sounds vey been followed, we might now be alcoholic, doesn Y it9 “Politicians looked involved. In the “wet – dry” controversy the garden varieties of ills which so often hungrily at the swelling for example. Conceivably we might even beset movements as well as individuals. While we A.A.s, as individuals, have membership…helped wreck local groups have fallen out with our good friends, suffered much from such defects, and through their efforts to line up votes.” religion and medicine. None of these (Lookslike personal ambition again, also things have happened. We have been must daily admit and deal with them in our personal lives if we are to stay sober unnecessary group parfic@ation in unbelievably fortunate, thank God. and useful, it is nevertheless true that controversial issues; the hot political such attitudes have seldom crept into our issue was then abolition of slavery.,) But by the Grace of Godpublic relations. But some day they “The Washingtonians were might. Let us never say, “It can’t happen confident…they scorned old methods.” While this makes fine success story here.” ( Too cock-sure, maybe. Couldn’t learn reading, it is not, to our way of thinking,

from ~thersand became competitive, not regard our observations as aimless insfead of cooperative, wwifh other criticism. Had we lived in their day we organizations in their field) might have made the same errors. Like A.A., the Washingtonians Perhaps we are beginning to make some originally had but one object: “Was of them now. concerned only with the reclamation of So we need to constantly scrutinize drunkards and held that it was none of its ourselves carefully, in order to make affair if others used alcohol who seemed everlastingly certain that we always shall little harmed by it.” But later on came this be strong enough and single purpose development: “There was division among enough from within, to relate ourselves the older local organizations – some rightly to the world without. wanted wines and beers – some Now then, does A.A. have a public clamored for legislation to outlaw alcohol relations policy? Is it good enough? Are – in its zeal for new members many its main principles clear? Can it meet intemperate drinkers, not necessarily changing conditions over the years to alcoholic, were pledged.” (The angina/ come? strong and s i w e group purpose was Now that we are growing so rapidly thus diss@ated in fmitless controversy into public view, many A.A.s are and divergent aims.,) becoming acutely conscious of these questions. In the September Grapewhe Editorial Squabbles I’ll try to briefly outline what our present public relations practices are, how they And again, “Some of the Washington- developed, and where, in the judgment of ian local groups) dipped into their most older A.A. members, they could -treasuries to finance their own perhaps be improved to better cope with publications. Editors of local papers got our new and more pressing problems. into squabbles with editors of May we always be willing to leam from temperance papers.” (Apparently the experience! dif/icuIv was not necessanv the fact they had local pubbcat7on.s. It was more due to the refusal of the Washingtonians to stick to their obginal purpose and so refrain from fighting anybody; also to the obvious fact that they had no natlbna/ pubbc relations poky or tradition wwhh all members were w i h g to follow.) We are sure that if the original Washingtonians could return to this planet they would be glad to see us learning from their mistakes. They would

September 1945

“Rules” Dangerous, But Unity on Public Poficies Vial to Future of A.A. By Bill

(Second in a series of articles presentingbasic A.A. aufhodity, be it ever so partial or benign, authority how can they have any public policies for discussion.) seldom works long or well in our affairs. relations policy at all? That’s the very Alcoholics (no matter if ragged) are yet defect which ruined the Washingtonian Does Alcoholics Anonymous have a the most rugged of individualists, true alcoholics a hundred years ago. They public relations policy? Is it adequate to anarchists at heart. mushroomed to 100,000 members, then meet our present and future needs? collapsed. No effective policy or Of course nobody claims this trait of authority. Quarrelled among themselves, Though it has never been definitely ours to be a sterling virtue. During his so finally got a black eye with the public. formulated or precisely stated, we certainly have a partly formed public first A.A. years every A.A. has had plenty Aren’t these A.A.s just the same kind of of the urge to revolt against authority. I relations policy. Like everything else in drunks, the same kind of anarchists? know I did, and can’t claim to be over it A.A., it has grown up out of trial and How can they expect to succeed where yet. I’ve also served my time as a maker error. Nobody invented it. Nobody has the Washingtonians failed? of rules, a regulator of other people’s ever laid down a set of rules or Good questions these. Have we the conduct. I too, have spent sleepless regulations to cover it, and I hope no one answers? While we must never be too nights nursing my ‘wounded” ego, ever will. This is because rules and sure there is reason to hope that we wondering how others whose lives I regulations seem to be little good for us. have, because forces seem to be at work sought to manage could be so They seldom work well. in A. A. which were little evident among unreasonable, so thoughtless of “poor” Were we to proceed by the rules, our brother alcoholics of the 1840s. me. I can now look back upon such somebody would have to make them For one thing our A.A. program is experiences with much amusement. And and, more difficult still, somebody would spiritually centered. Most of us have gratitude as well. They taught me that have to enforce them. “Rulemaking” has found enough humility by facing the fact the very quality which prompted me to often been tried. It usually results in that alcoholism is a fatal malady over govern other people was the identical controversy among the “rule makers” as which we are individually powerless. The egocentricity which boiled up in my fellow to what the rules should be. And when it Washingtonians, on the contrary, thought A.A.s when they themselves refused to comes to enforcing an edict – well, you drinking was just another strong habit be governed! all know the answer. When we try to which could be broken by will power as enforce rules and regulations, however reasonable, we almost always get in so – Non A.A. Questions expressed in pledges, plus the sustaining force of mutual aid through an “dutch” that our authority disappears. A understanding society of ex-drunks. A non-A.A. reader can be heard to cry goes up, “Down with the dictators, off Apparently they thought little of exclaim, “This looks very serious for the with their heads!” Hurt and astonished personality change, and nothing at all of future of these people. No organization, “Control Committee” after “Control spiritual conversion. no rules, no authority? It’s anarchy; it’s Committee,” “leader” after “Leader” Mutual aid plus pledges did do a lot for dynamite; it’s ‘atomic’ and bound to blow makes the discovery that human them but it wasn’t enough; their individual up. Public relations indeed! If there is no

egos still ran riot in every channel save Ultimately, these truths govern his life alcohol. Self-serving forces riaving no Flexibility Is Vital and he comes to live under their real humility, having little appreciation authority, the most powerful authority that the penalty for too much self will is One qualification, however. A policy known, the authod?y of his full consent, death to the alcoholic, having no Greater isn’t quite like a fixed truth. A policy is wil/inggiven. He is ruled, not by people, Power to serve, finally destroyed the but by principles, by truths and, as most something which can change to meet Washingtonians. variable conditions, even though the of us would say, he is ruled by God. basic underlying truths upon which it is Now some might ask, “What has all Unity Thus Far founded do not change at all. Our policy this to do with an A.A. public relations policy?” An older A.A. would say, might, for example, rest upon our 12 When, therefore, we A.A.s look to the Steps for its underlying truths, yet remain “Plenty.” While experience shows that in future, we must always be asking A.A. no policy can be created and reasonably flexible so far as the means ourselves if the spirit which now binds announced full blown, much less or method of its application is concerned. us together in our common cause will effectively enforced by human authority, Hence I earnestly hope thousands of always be stronger than those personal we are, nevertheless, faced with the A.A.s start thinking a great deal about ambitions and desires which tend to drive problem of developing a public relations these policy matters which are now us apart. So long as the positive forces policy and securing for it the only becoming so important to us. It is out of are greater we cannot fail. Happily, so authority we know – that of common our discussions, our differences of far, the ties which bind us have been understanding and widespread, if not opinion, our daily experiences, and our much stronger than those which might universal, consent. When this consent is general consent that the true answers break us. Though the individual A.A. is secured we can then be sure of must finally come. under no human coercion, is at almost ourselves. A.A.s will everywhere put the As an older member I may be able to perfect personal liberty, we have, policy into effect as a matter of course, marshal the facts and help analyze what nevertheless, achieved a wonderful unity automatically. But we must at first be has happened so far. Perhaps I can even on vital essentials. clear on certain basic principles. And make some suggestions of value for the For example, “The 12 Steps” of our these must have been tried and tested in future. But that is all. Whether we are A.A. program are not crammed down our crucible of experience. going to have a clear-cut public relations anybody’s throat. They are not sustained In forthcoming articles I shall therefore policy will finally be determined by all of by any human authority. Yet we try to trace the development of our public us together – not by me alone! powerfully unite around them because (To be continued in the October GRAPEVINE) relations from the very first day we came the truth they contain has saved our to public notice. This will show what our lives, has opened the doors to a new experience has already taught us. Then world. Our experience tells us these every A.A. can have a real background universal truths work. The anarchy of the for constructive thinking on this terribly individual yields to their persuasion. He vital matter – a matter on which we dare sobers up and is led, little by little, to not make grave mistakes; upon which, complete agreement with our simple over the years, we cannot afford to fundamentals. become unsound.

OCTOBER 1945 The people who did th; saving job then, and The: . . Book.vIs Born. , ligious and social developments of all time. We wor~ldshow the. medical profession and the sky who have continued to save us much trouble ? . , x i*p.-4 By .Bill ->,- : pilots where they got on! A million alcoliolics since, are a class of individuals with whom most 3 IS . Y 8 in America; more millions all over the world! A.A.s are impatient. These people are the con- In rcccnt Cra~evirro~ articles attention Jras Why, wc only had to sobcr 1111 all tl~cscboys scrvntives. They are the “go slow,” “think it been drawn to the fact tliat A.A. je still in thc and @Is (and sell them God) whereupon they over,” “let’s not do that” type. Not many of process of forming a public relations policy, would revolutionize society. A brand new them are to be foond among us alcoholics but that fai!nre to crystallize a sound policy could world with ex-drunks running it. Just think of it’s certainly providential that we have always seriously cripple us. that, folks! had a few such around. Often accused of being During the first three years of A.A. no one publicity? ‘why of course! Millions of n drag on progress (as they sometimes are) gave a thought to pi~blicrclatioas. It was a words1 Money? Surel It would take millions, 1hey are nevertheless a priceless asset. ,They time of “flying blind,” when we feverisllly naturally. The matter of money and publicity bring the rest of us down out of the clouds; they sought the principles upon which we might stay would be a cinch-just a campaign of high make us fncc the realities of experience; they sober and assist the few alcoholics who came powered selling directed at our American foresee dangers which most of us would blithely around wanting to do likewise. We wcre entircly tycoons and editors would quickly settle that ignore. Sometimes their conservatism is overwitli the life and death question ol question. How could they resist when’tliey saw done; they needlessly “view with alarm for the personal recovery. It was strictly n man to man what we had? Just watch us drunks. Actually good of the movement.” Knowing that mere allair. Wc I~atln’t evcn ogreed upon a nnlnc for a few of us were pretty nearly as. bad as that! change is not necessarily progress they instincour movcment. There was no literature. No circus bark& was ever so enthusiastic o r tively resist change. They never wish to toke an By the fall of 1937 we could count rvl~at extravagant in his cries as,were some of us in irrevocable step; 111ey often shrink from those. looked like 4.0 rccovcred members. OIIC of us the fall pf 1937.. In, fact, I can recall having final decisions from which there is no retreat. Iind I~censobcr three years, another two and a done a great deal of the barking myself! . They keep out of trouble by making sure never I~alf,and a fair number had a year o r more he- Now suppose the promoters of thhsc pioneering lo get into it. hind tlrcm. As all of us had Ixen Itopclcss days had not been slowed down. Suppose that The first discussion of our public relations cases, this amount of time elapsed began to I)c our public relntions policy had been left fully in 1937 at Akron will always live in my memory. significant. The realization that we “had loi~ntl in their hands. Suppose they had been nble to The promoters could think of nothing but getsomctlling” began to take hold of us. No l o ~ ~ g c r raise millions, to flood the country wi!h A.A. ting the glad news of our recoveries to a milwere we a dubious expcrirnent. Alcolrolics coitld propaganda and wild claims. Where would we lion’ alcoholics, overnight if possible. If this slay soher. Crcat nrcnllers perhaps! While s o ~ n e be now? Nowhere, obviously. We would not were done, God ‘would’do the rest, they said. of us had always clung to this possibility, the Ilut the. conservatives did not think God did only have fallen out witli our best friends, redream tiow hnd real substance. If 4.0 alcol~olics business that way. ligion and medicine; we would surely have been could rccovcr, why not four hundred, four tl~ou- . ~ l ~ t w then~ ~ proceeded, ~ ~with’~ter- ~ ~ discredited among the very people we wished sand-evcn forty thousand? rific inibdct, to make the point that The Man of most to reach-alcoholic men and women. Much Once this spectacular notion gripped us, our Galiled had no press. agent; no newspapers, no money would have meant a large staff of prothinking underwcnt a sudden change. Our nlco. liolic imaginations certainly had a field day. fessionnl A.A. therapists or “do goodcrs,” and no -books n o t l h g but :word of promoters plus moncy would surely have meant mouth fdl carry the spirit fr6m ‘pefson to.per- By temperament most qt us are salesmen, proballyhoo on every subject under the sun from son, from group to group; Why should we devimoters. So we began talking very big. Mere ate from His example? Wcre wc about to prohibition to Communist Russia. Internally, if boxcar numbers wouldn’t do. We went aswe still existed at all, we would have been torn substitute ballylioo for personal demonstration? ‘ tronomical. Undoubtedly, we said, this was the apart by political controversy, religious dis. Were we to favor personal glorification in : beginning of one of the greatest medical, resension. It I~appened to the Washingtonians. public -. in place of quietness, liumility and Wllo, then, has saved us thus far? anonymity? 10

These were good questions; they made us ‘pro. The point is obvious. If’ these vital mntters moters stop and think. Though obliged to con- had been left entirely to the promoters like me, cede much to the conservatives on principle, we we would surely have gone hog wild and spoiled still felt their counsel was 111at of perfection. It everything. Had these affairs been left excluwasn’t practical. The conservatives retorted that sively to the conservatives it is ~ r o b a b l ethat while promoters had built many a successful few of our present membership would yet have enterprise they almost always bankrupt what heard of A.A. Thousands would have remained they had built if they wcre Icft long enough in miserable. Many would have been dead. cllargc. We promoters (and I was one of them) So it seems clear that sound policy can only came back with this: How, we inquired, could be made by rubbing the conservatives and the the “go slow boys” sleep nights’ xvlicn they re- promoters together. Their discussions, if free flected that after three long years we had pro- from personal ambitions and resentment, can be duced but three small groups; that America had depended upon to produce the rigl~t answers. a million alcoholics dying like flies; ~liatwithin ‘ For us, there is no other way.

gunshot of where we sat tlicre were perhaps Having now shown how our first step in puhhundreds who could get wcll if tllcy only knew lic relations was taken, I would like, in forthwlmt we knew? And did alcoholics in Californin coming pieces, to tell more of our recent experihave to wait for relief to get there by word of ences’in this field, wit11 emphasis on the desiramouth only? And wasn’t there grave dangcr of bility .of continued modesty, anonymity, nnd our successful methods being badly distorted un- fidelity to one objective only: That of cnrrying less reduced to writing and put in book form? A.A. to the alcoholic who wishes to recover. And if we made no written record of what we had found, might not columnists get funny and start deadly ridicule? Caution, we agreed, ought ‘ to be observed by all means, but still didn’t we need a book of our own, some publicity? Such was the gist of the discussion out of which came the decision to publish the book, Alcoholics Anonymius. This led to publicity, to the establishment of our Board of Trmtees (The Alcol~olicFoundation), and to the crention of the Central Ofice at New York where alcol~olics and their families can write for literature and direct help. Our rapid and seemingly healilly growth the past few years has pretty well demonstrated the wisdom of these early decisions.

DECEMBER 1945 WE’RE NOT PEHFECT YET, BILL CAUTIONS AT BANQUET . — — A gentle but eornest rerninder that “we still T i i r l h g to o “stock-taking” of A.A.’s success, won’t I~nppenhere,” Bill urged ill clos- LL1’I~~t hove p1e11tyof fnults” and thot A.A. will co~~tiituc Bill d o ~ ~ t i o ~that ~ e dwhen riding a “wnw of soc- iiig, “if we reoien~bcr,publicly nnd privntely, our to succeed ouly l)y ndheritig to the si~nplc”prin- ccss it is dinicult to appraise. We arc apt to forget ow11 simple principles of honesty, tolerance ond ciples of honcsty, tolernl~ccand I~u~nility” were the 11ii11liue 1)etwe&11SIICCCSS nntl fnilurc. he Iru~iiilit~, and tlint we live only by the Grace of the keynoles of Ilill’s tnlk nt the 11111 nririual sni~~c lirinciples that opply to i~idividirnlss11011ltl Gocl.” — – – I)o~~quet ill New York on Nov. 7. upply to 111cgroup rud to our rclatioi~sto tlic out- Fotlicr Timmins ~ e g n ‘ rthe ~ most stirring pnrt of t Approximately 1,500 persons i ~ ~ c l ~ i d i i i g 111111- side world. As i~~clivid~tuls, we l~nvcncgotivcs, ns 11iv tnlk with on occount.of n “bedrnggled, cxcited clrecls of A.A.s froin New York nncl out-of-tow11 well ns pdsitives, active or Intent. We’re still pretty tlrunk – Fred – who nenrly three yeors ngo inand their relatives and friends filled tlie Grand inlolei.ont ‘ soinclintes ni~cl frequeat I y we’rc ex- troduced me to one of the greatest social ~novenol1r00111of the IIotel Com~nodorcfor the nlfair * I~il)itioaists.We’still have plenty of faults nlitl I u~entsof modern times, a movement wliose impli- ,wl~ichwns sponsored this yeor I)y the New York think perhnps our public reputntion ns II group is cotioiis hnve not even begun to be reolized by the Cos~~~opolitan Clul). The IIOII-A.A.guest speaker I I C I I C ~thnn we arc.” worltl at large.” He recolled the evening that the wr~stlm Rev. R h e r Jnnies P. Tini111i11sof MIIII- nil1 ~lrcssed n~lonyn~ity ns one thing tlint Iiiis Innn “cnnic into my rectory – and poured into chesier, Conn., who dcliverecl n ~)nrticulnrly liclpcd A.A. trcniendously. Anotl~cr lie c:i~llatl illy curs su(;l~11 tulc of I ~ c ! w i l d e r ~ ~c~oc ~~~~t ,f u ~ i o ~ ~ clm~no~ic rind inspiriug h c c o u ~ ~oft his persoi~oI i I1 siclelino Icodersl~ip,” wl~ichlie cxpltiiricd as t l ~ c nncl utter despair ns I l~avcnever 1)efore henrd observation of A.A. oud its workers. “dcvelopn~entof on A.A. who becoines a leader in and to w l ~ i c lI~Iiope ncver to listen ngnin. That nesides Bill, other A.A. spenkers wcre Connie ‘ the group, stays dry, helps others old then steps night I looked iuto tlic mind of n man in lrell .. . ” M., and Bill F., with Greg M., serving os toast- aside. “By renouncing huninn autllority Ile can 1:roni tl~cre, Fotlier Timmins traced the exa~asterfollowirig on i~~troductioa 1)y Ed UI., rep- 1)ecome o spirit1101influence” in thc group. . pcricncc to nn intervierv with Fred’s fninily nnd r e s e ~ ~ t ithe ~~g Cosniopolitan Clul~. ‘ nil1 recolled the fate of the Wnsl~ingtonia~is of then to n psycllintrist’wlm steered tlic~nto A.A. nill’s talk coupled words of apprccintion lor h e ‘ 1840 who, after t~iuslirooniingto o claimed mem- “Fred welit .. . to A.A. .. .lic lrnd to fortify . record to date with o plea tlint A.A., collectively bership of 100,000, disintegrntrd ns an orgonizn- Iriinself with a couple of’ drinks hefore vcnt~iring and inclividuolly, hold steotlfnst to a s i ~ i ~ l c ~ iof css lion when they becn~nenilroiled ill coritroversies illto this stmnge, unknown territory of nn A.A. purpose nnd not be diverted into the I)y-pntlis of rcsulti~~g fro111 n depnrture from their originnl meeting. And here comes ,.* tlie mnrvel, tlie joyous cxtrruwoue ~ ~ ~ a l l contlr sissuca. objectives. u~~bclievnl~le marvel .. . tl~osewere the Inst two (1Let us remember the see~uing pnrudox tlmt t l ~ e “They had IIO a ~ ~ o t i ~ m i t ylie, “p o i ~ ~ t e d out, “and tlrinks h a t Fred, the’ l~opeless, irreclni~nnlle competition for personal Icntlcrship Lecnrue com- tlimnk, lms liad fro111that clay to this. I wns conmore we give, the Inore we sl~nllhnve,” lie said. “Of course, with us it is not only n question of 111oi1.They e~~gagctl in politics. Their newspnper frotilctl with the niirncle of A.A. .. . ” giving l ~ u talso of giving up. 1 had to give lip tlic editors Legnn to quorrel with each other nncl the “Fred followed the correct r o d of the A.A., n belief that I olone could solve my prol)lci~~; lint1 outsicle world. 111sl~ort,the Wau~ii~rgtonin~~s went road which oll~ernclclicls must trnvcl sooner or to give up sorne false prido; hnd to wake oii~ei~tls, out to settle the world’:, nlfnirs hefore they hncl liltcr, if in A.A. tl~cynrc”‘~i’nrrwlt l ~ crnvsgcs of n11c1hncl lo put son~eoac’s interests altcad of iiiy learned to mnringe themselves. They hod no t licir olsessiop. I le liud ocquircci’wlint I co~isidcr own. Most of d l , I hod to give up the iclcn of ~ n y capacity for minding their own 1)11siness. The .. tlic I~nsicvirtue necessary for any innn who wnnts OWII oi~i~~ipotence, to goin n I)nsis for fnitli ill lily i~egativcswitl~inthen1 overthrew the positives.” to work the A.A. program successfully, the virtue fellow~~~e andn faith in JIim wlio preuidcs over of humility. ill.”

66 It is aci~lrcrnn nhjcct nor n crawling virtue. In referring to the “religious element” in A.A., As h e word itself, from the 1,ntin Irnnrris (the ol,served, “Seven of the 12 Steps Father T i ~ n n ~ i n s ci~rth) signilics, it is n down-to-cnr~lr,renlistic in the A.A. way of life refer to Cod … All that view of one’s sclf, not 11sthe ccr~tcrof tllc universc I can sny is, that 111eIliglrer Power in those seven nnd the lord of the world, but ns o very s~nnllnnd .. Steps . grows upon nn alcol~olic,even if he has insignificnnt .unit in the vast sen of Iiumnnity. little or no religion at all .. . In A.A., if the ad- Whcn one looks at the lnntter objectively nnd not dict docs his work well and sinccrcly, something ~llro~rgh t l ~ cvcilv of self-deceit with wlrich the happens. The self-god is toppled from its pedestal nlcol~olicaddict beclouds reality, humility is nn nnd in its place a uew inloge bcgins to take form. active, common sense admission of n hard fnct It is the shape of n Power . .. … wl~ich becomes thnt nobody cnn shape the world to his liking, nor nn ever-increasing renlity in his life … “‘ even walk h e ways of this world successfully in lonely indepcndence. nut the nlcol~olic, isolated I by his terril~lcpride, nlnst needs try it.” The spenkcr frequcr~tlysurprised the audience with the pcnctrnhn 11ad mderstanding of his nnalysis of the ulcol~olic. “Who,” he said at one point, “can depict that soul-senring lo~~eliness of the alcol~olic?He lives .. . in the hosorn of his fnn~ily but he is as remote from tl~enias the inl~abitantof another They do not u ~ ~ d e r s t a a d lri~nnor he them. They look upon h i ~ na s a l~eedlessand irresponsible destroyer of their peace, a shirker of duty and a wilful devotee of the drendful vice of drunkenncss … T o t l ~ e n it~ ,SCCIIIS a sin~plcmolter of using his common sense and will power. nut the alcoholic knows it is not. Ile knows h t he is driven by some incon~prehe~~uive compulsion. S o his sensitive soul sl~rinksillto itself. He lies and evndes and cheats to protect it from the painful wounds iliflicted on it not only by his family, but by his friends and Iris associates in the busi~ieas and social world. Eve11 ill the midst of those who , love I~im,he lives alone, with no remedy against, the stark terrors of isolntion save h e old enemy, the n ~ ~ a c s ~ l l c ~ i c . ulcol~ol.”

January 1946 .

A Tradiitin Born Of Our Anonymity

(A continuation of the series begun in the July, book in which we could tell other “13th Way Out.” So Alcoholics 1945, issue presenting basic A.A. principles for alcoholics the good news. As the book Anonymous became first choice. That’s discussion). . , took form we inscribed in it the essence how we got the name for our book of of our experience. It was the prodyct of experience, a name for our movement In the years that lie ahead the thousands of hours of discussions. It truly and, as we are now beginning to see, a principle of anonymity wiU undoubtedly represented the collective voice, heart tradition of the weatest spiritual import. become a part of our vital tradition. Even and conscience of those of us who .had God does move in mysterious ways His today we sense its practical value. But pioneered the first four years of A.A wonders to perform! more important still, we are beginning to In the book Alcoholics Anonymous feel that the word “anonymous” has for Search for a Title there are only three references to the us an immense spiritual significance. principle of anonymity. The forward of Subtly but powerfully it reminds us that As the day of publication approached our first edition states: “Being mostly we are always to place principles before we racked our brains to find a suitable business or professional folk some of us personalities; that we have renounced name for the volume. We must have could not carry on our occupations if personal glorification in public; that our considered at least two hundred titles. known” and “When writing or speaking movement not only preaches, but Thinking,up titles and voting upon them publicly about alcoholism, we urge each actually practices a truly humble at meetings became one of our main of our fellowship to omit his personal modesty. That the practice of anonymity activities. A great welter of discussion name, designating himself instead as ‘a in our public relations has always had a and argument finally narrowed our choice member of Alcoholics Anonym~us,”‘and profound effect upon us, and upon our to a single pair of names. Should we call then, “very earnestly we ask the press millions of friends in the outside world, our new book me Way Ouior should we also to observe this request for otherwise there can hardly be doubt. Anonymity is call it Alcoholics Anonymous? That was we shall be greatly handicapped.” already a cornerstone of our public the final question. A last minute vote was Since the publication of Alcoho~cs, relations policy. taken by the Akron and New York Anonymous in 1939 hundreds of A.A. , How this idea first originated and Groups. By a narrow majority the verdict groups have been formed. Every one of subsequently took hold of us is an was for naming our book The Way Out. them asks these questions: “Just how interesting bit of A.A. history. In the years Just before we went to print somebody anonymous are we supposed to be?” before the publication of the book, suggested there might be other books and “After all, what good is this principle Alcoholics Anonymous, we had no name. having the same title. One of our early of anonymity anyway?” To a great extent Nameless, formless, our essential lone members (dear old Fitz M., who each group has settled upon its own principles of recovery still under debate then lived over in Washington) went over interpretation. Naturally enough wide and test, we were just a group of to the Library of Congress to investigate. differences of opinion remain among us. drinkers groping our way along what we He found exactly twelve books already Just what our anonymity means and just hoped would be the road to freedom. titled The Way Out. When this how far it ought to go are unsettled Once we became sure that our feet were information was passed around, we questions. set on the right track we decided upon a shivered at the possibility of being the

How Opinions Differ frequently invited to speak at such done for us. We also wish to lose the Though we no longer fear the stigma gatherings. Here and there a few A.A.s fear of admitting we are alcoholics. of alcoholism as we once did, we still find have dropped their anonymity Though we earnestly request reporters individuals who are extremely sensitive completely. Their names pictures and not to disclose our identities, we about their connection with us. A few come in under assumed names. Others personal activities have appeared in the frequently speak before semi-public public prints. As A.A.s they have gathering under our right names. We swear us to the deepest secrecy. They sometimes signed their names to articles wish to impress audiences that our fear their connection with Alcoholics Anonymous may ruin their business or telling of their membership. alcoholism is a sickness we no longer social position. At the other end of the So while it is quite evident that most fear to discuss before anyone. So far, so of us believe in anonymity, our practice good If, however, we venture beyond scale of opinion we have the individual of the principle does vary a great deal. this limit we shall surely lose the principle who declares that anonymity is a lot of childish nonsense. He feels it his of anonymity forever. If every A.A. felt bounden duty to cry his membership in The Principle Is Vital I free to publish his own name, picture and Alcoholics Anonymous from the house story we would soon be launched upon a Of course, it should be the privilege, vast orgy of personal publicity which tops. He points out that our A.A. obviously could have no limit whatever. fellowship contains people of renown, even the right, of each individual or group to handle anonymity as they wish. Isn’t this where, by the strongest kind of some of national importance. Why, he attraction, we must draw the line? asks, shouldn’t we capitalize their But ti do that intelligently we shall need to be convinced that the principle is a personal prestige just as any other A Suggestion organization would? good one for practically all of us; indeed In between these extremes the we must realize that the future safety and effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous If I were asked to outline a tradition shades of opinion are legion. Some for anonymity it might run as follows: groups, especially newer ones, conduct may depend upon its presenration. Each individual will then have to decide where 1. It should be the privilege of each themselves like secret societies. They do not wish their activities known even to he ought to draw the line how far he individual A.A. to cloak himself with as much personal anonymity as he desires. friends. Nor do they propose to have ought to carry the principle in his own affairs, how far he may go in dropping His fellow A.A.s should respect his preachers, doctors, or even their wives at wishes and help guard whatever status any of their meetings. As for inviting in his own anonymity without injury to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. he wants to assume. newspaper reporters – perish the thought! 2. Conversely, the individual A.A. Other groups feel that their communities The vital question is: Just where shall we fix this point where personalities fade ought to respect. the feeling of his local should know all about Alcoholics group as to their anonymity. If his group Anonymous. Though they print no out and anonymity begins? As a matter of fact, few of us are wishes to be more anonymous than he names, they do size every opportunity to does, he ought to go along with them advertize the activities of their group. anonymous do far as our daily contacts go. We have dropped anonymity at this until they change their views. They occasionally hold public or semi- 3. With very rare exception it ought to public meetings where A.A.s appear on level because we think our friends and associates ought to know about be a national tradition that no member of the platform by name. Doctors, Alcoholics Anonymous shall ever feel clergymen and public officials are Alcoholics Anonymaus and what it has free to publish his name or picture (in

connection with his Alcoholics Anonymous activities) in any medium of public circulation, or by radio. Of course, this should not restrict the free use of his name in other public activities, provided he does not disclose his A.A. connection. 4. If for some extraordinary reason, for the good of A.,A. as a whole, a member thinks it desirable to completely drop his anonymity he should only do so after consulting the older members of his local group. If he is to make a nationwide public appearance as an A.A. the matter ought to be referred to our Central Office. Of course, I am not for a moment thinking of these statements as rules or regulations; they merely suggest what would seem to be sound tradition for the future. In the last analysis every A.A. will have to search his own conscience. If we are going to evolve a clear-cut tradition about anonymity we shall do it through our usual process, viz: – trial and error, much discussion, collective judgment and common consent. To stimulate further discussion Iwould like, in an early issue of The Grapevine, to review our experience with anonymity. That we shall eventually come up with the right answers I can have no doubt.

March 1946

Our Anonymity 1s ~ 0 t hspiration and Safety

By Bill

mediums of public circulation. This would founders or leaders, so called, from Discussingthe subject of anonymity in becoming household names who might a previous Grapevine article, I tried to not, however, restrict the use of his name at any time get drunk and give A.A. a make the following points – that in other public activities provided, of black eye. No one need say that couldn’t anonymity has, for us A.A.s, an immense course, he does not disclose his A.A. -membership. happen here. It could. spiritual significance; that the principle Thirdly, almost every newspaper ought to be preserved as part of our vital reporter who covers us complains, at tradition; that since we have as yet no 4. If, for some extraordinary reason, a first, of the difficulty of writing his story sharply defined policy there is confusion member thinks it desirable to drop his anonymity locally he should do so only without names. But he quickly forgets in some quarters as to what anonymity after consulting his own group. If, as an this difficulty when he realizes that here ought to mean; that we need, therefore, A.A., he is to make a nationwide public is a group of people who care nothing for a perfectly clear tradition which all A.A. appearance the matter ought to be personal gain. Probably it is the first time would feel bound to respect. I also referred to National headquarters. in his life he has ever reported an offered same suggestions which I hoped organization which wants no personal might become, after further discussion, publicity. Cynic though he may be, this the basis of a national policy on If these suggestions, or variations of them, are to be adopted as a National obvious sincerity instantly transforms him anonymity. These suggestions were: into a friend of A.A. Therefore his piece policy, every A.A. will want to know more about our experience so far. He will is a friendly piece, never a routine job. It 1. It should be the privilege of each surely wish to know how most of our is enthusiastic writing because the A.A. to cloak himself with as much reporter feels that way himself. People personal anonymity as he desires. His older members are thinking on the subject of Anonymity at the present time. often ask how Alcoholics Anonymous has fellow A.A.s should respect his wishes It will be the purpose of this piece to been able to secure such an incredible and help guard whatever status he wants bring everybody up to date on our amount of excellent publicity. The answer to assume. seems to be that practically everyone collective experience. Firstly, I believe most of us would who writes about us becomes an A.A. 2. Conversely, the individual ought to agree that the general idea of Anonymity convert, sometimes a zealot. Is not our respect the feelings of his local group is sound, because it encourages Policy of Anonymity mainly responsible about anonymity. If his group wishes to alcoholics and the families of alcoholics for this phenomenon? be less conspicuous in their locality than he does, he ought to go along with them to approach us for help. Still fearful of Fourthly, why does the general public until they change their views. being stigmatized, they regard our regard us so favorably? Is it simply anonymity an assurance their problems because we are bringing recovery to lots 3. With very rare exceptions, it ought will be kept confidential; that the alcoholic of alcoholics? No, this can hardly be the to be a national policy that no member of skeleton in the family closet will not whole story. However impressed he may Alcoholics Anonymous shall ever feel wander in the streets. be by our recoveries, John Q. .Public is free to publish, in connection with any Secondly, the Policy of Anonymity is even more interested in our way of life. A.A. activity, his name or picture in a protection to our cause. It prevents our Weary of pressure selling, spectacular

promotion and shouting public innermost details of his personal life, principle of Anonymity so far as the characters, he is refreshed by our soon to find that, in this respect, he has general public is concemed and at the quietness, modesty and anonymity. It altogether too much publicity! We ought same time represents us as a group of well may be that he feels a great spiritual to suggest to him that he take things alcoholics who no longer fear to let our power is being generated on this account easy; that he first get on his own feet friends know that we have been very sick – that something new has come into his before talking about A.A. to all and people. own life. sundry; that no one thinks of publicizing IN practice then, the principle of If Anonymity has already done these A.A. without being sure of the approval of Anonymity seems to come down to this things for us, we surely ought to continue his own group. : With one very important exception, the it as a National Policy. So very valuable Then there is the problem of Group question of how far each individual or to us now, it may become an incalculable anonymity. Like the individual, it is group shall go in dropping anonymity is asset far the future. In a spiritual sense, probable that the Group ought to feel its left strictly to the individual or group Anonymityamountsto the renunciation ol way along cautiously until it gains concerned. The exception is: That all personal prmt@e as an instrument ol strength and experience. There should groups or individuals, when writing or National policy. I an confident that we not be too much haste to bring in speaking for publication as members of shall do well to preserve this powerful outsiders or to set up public meetings. Alcoholics Anonymous, feel bound never principle; that we should resolve never to Yet this early conservation can be to disclose their true names. Except for let go of it. overdone. Some groups go on, year after very rare cases, it is at this point of Now what about its application? Since year, shunning all publicity or any publication that nearly all of us feel we we advertise Anonymity to every meetings except those for alcoholics should draw the anonymity line. We newcomer, we ought, of course, to only. Such groups are apt to grow slowly. ought not &c/ose ourselves to the preserve a new member’s anonymity so They become stale because they are not general public. long as he wishes it preserved. Because, taking in fresh blood fast enough. In their – In our whole history not more than a when he read our publicity and came to anxiety to maintain secrecy they forget handful of A.A.s have ever dropped their us, we contracted to do exactly that. And their obligtition to other alcoholics in their anonymity so far as the general public is even if he wants to come in under an communities who have not heard that concemed. Some of these instances assumed name, we should assure him A.A. has come to town. But this have been accidental, a few have been he can. If he wishes us to refrain from unreasonable caution eventually breaks quite unnecessary and one or twp are discussing his case with anyone, even down. Little by little some meetings are apparently justified. Of course there must other A.A. members, we ought to respect opened to families and close friends. be a few policies which cannot that wish too. While most newcomers do Clergymen and doctors may now and sometimes, in the general interest, be not care a rap who knows about their then be invited. Finally the Group enlists suspended. Yet any who would drop their alcoholism, there are others who care the aid of the local newspaper. anonymity must reflect that they may set very much. Let us guard them in every In most places, but not all, it is a precedent which could eventually way until they get over that feeling. customary for A.A.s to use their own destroy a valuable principle. The Then comes the problem of the names when speaking before public or exceptions will have to be few, far newcomer who wishes to drop his semi-public gatherings. This is done to between, and most carefully considered. anonymity too fast. He N S ~ ~toSall his impress audiences that we no longer fear We must never let any immediate friends with the glad news of A.A. If this the stigma of alcoholism. If, however, advantage shake us in our determination group does not caution him he may’ rush newspaper reporters were present thy to hang on to such a really vital tradition. to a newspaper office or a microphone to are earnestly requested not to use the Great modesly and humilily are tell the wide world all about himself. He names of any of the alcoholic speakers needed by every A.A. for his own is also likely to tell everyone the on the program. This preserves the permanent recovety If these vliues are

such vital needs to the individua4 so must they be to A.A. as a whole. This principle of Anonymibbefore thegeneral puhic can, if we take it seriously enough, guarantee the A/coholics Anonymous movement these sten’ig attributes forever. Ourpublicrelationspolicy should main& rest upon the pnnctple of attraction and, seldom, if ever, upan promotion.

April 1946

Twelve Suggested Points for A.A. Tradition By Bill

Since personal calamity holds us in acquired sufficient experience to state Nobody invented Alcoholics bondage no more, our most challenging clear-cut policies on these, our chief Anonymous. It grew. Trial and error has concern has become the future of concerns? Can we now declare general produced a rich experience. Little by little principles which could grow into vital we have been adopting the lessons of Alcoholics Anonymous; how to preserve traditions – traditions sustained in the that experience, first as policy and then among us A.A.s such a powerful unity heart of each A.A. by his own deep as tradition. That process still goes on that neither weakness of persons nor the conviction and by the common consent and we hope it never stops. Should we strain and strife of these troubled times of his fellows? That is the question. ever harden too much the letter might can harm our common cause. We know crush the spirit. We could victimize that Alcoholics Anonymous must Though full answer to all our perplexities ourselves by petty rules and prohibitions; continue to live. Else, save few may never be found, I’m sure we have we could imagine that we had said the exceptions, we and our brother alcoholics come at last to a vantage point whence last word. We might even be asking throughout the world will surely resume we can discern the main outlines of a alcoholics to accept our rigid ideas or the hopeless journey to oblivion. body of tradition; which, God willing, can stay away. May we never stifle progress Almost any A.A. can tell you what our stand as an effective guard against all like that! group problems are. Fundamentally, they the ravages of time and circumstance. Yet the lessons of our experience have to do with our relations, one with Acting upon the persistent urge of old count for a great deal – a very great deal, the other, and with the world outside. A.A. friends, and upon the conviction that we are each convinced. The first written They involve relations of the A.A. to his general agreement and consent between record of A.A. experience was the book, group, the relation of his group to our members is now possible, I shall Alcoholics Anonymous. It was addressed Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole, and venture to place in words these to the heart of our foremost problem – the place of Alcoholics Anonymous in suggestions for An Alcoholics release from the alcohol obsession. It that troubled sea called Modern Society, Anonymous Tradition of Relaions contained personal experiences of where all of humankind must presently Twelve Poinls to Assure Our Future= drinking and recovery and a statement of shipwreck or find haven. Terribly relevant those divine but ancient principles which is the problem of our basic structure and Our A.A. Experience Has Taught Us have brought us a miraculous our attitude toward those ever pressing That: regeneration. Since publication of questions of leadership, money and Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939 we have authority. The future may well depend on 1.- Each member of Alcoholics grown from 100 to 24,000 members. how we feel and act about things that are Anonymous is but a small part of a great Seven years have passed; seven years controversial and how we regard our whole. A.A. must continue to live or most of vast experience with our next greatest public relations. Our final destiny will of us will surely die. Hence our common undertaking the problem of living and surely hang upon what we presently welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward. working together. This is today our main decide to do with these danger-fraught concern. If we can succeed in this issues! adventure – and keep succeeding – then, Now comes the crux of our 2.- For our group purpose there is but and only then, will our future be secure. discussion. It is this: Have we yet one ultimate authority – a loving God as

P He may express Himself in our Group as clubs or hospitalswhich require much services for which we might otherwise conscience. property or administration, ought to be so have to engage non-alcoholics. Such set apart, that if necessary, they can be special services may be well 3.- Our membership ought to include freely discarded by the Groups. The recompensed. But personal “12th Step” all who suffer alcoholism. Hence we may management of these special facilities work is never to be paid for. refuse none who wish to recover. Nor should be the sole responsibility of those ought A.A. membership ever depend people, whether A.A. or not, who 9.- Each A.A. Group needs the least upon money or conformity. Any two or financially support them. For our clubs, possible organization. Rotating three alcoholics gathered together for we prefer A.A. managers. But hospitals, leadership is usually the best. The small sobriety may call themselves an A.A. as well as other places of recuperation, group may elect its secretary, the large Group. ought to be well outside A.A. – and group its rotating committee, and the medically supervised. An A.A. Group groups of a large metropolitan area their 4.- With respect to its own affairs, may cooperate with anyone, but should central committee, which often employs each A.A. Group should be responsible bind itself to no one. a full time secretary. The trustees of The to no other authority than its own Alcoholic Foundation are, in effect, our conscience. But when its plans concern 7.- The A.A. Groups themselves ought General Service Committee. They are the welfare of neighbouring groups also, to be fully supported by the voluntary the custodians of our A.A. tradition and those groups ought to be consulted. And contributions of their own members. We the receivers of voluntary A.A. no group, regional committee or think that each Group should soon contributions by which they maintain A.A. individual should ever take any action achieve thi’s ideal; that any public General Headquarters and our General that might greatly affect A.A. as a whole solicitation of funds using the name of Secretary at New York. They are without conferring with the Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous is highly authorized by the groups to handle our The Alcoholic Foundation. On such dangerous; that acceptance of large gifts overall public relations and they issues our common welfare is from any source or of contributions guarantee the integrity of our principal -paramount. carrying any obligation whatever, is publication, TheA.A. Grapevine.All such usually unwise. Then, too, we view with representatives are to be guided in the 5.- Each Alcoholics Anonymous Group much concern those A.A. treasuries spirit of service, for true leaders in A.A. ought to be a spiritual entity having but which continue, beyond prudent are but trusted and experiencedservants onepN’marypurpose-that of carrying its reserves, to accumulate funds for no of the whole. They derive no real message to the alcoholic who still stated purpose. Experience has often authority from their titles. Universal suffers. wamed us that nothing can so surely respect is the key to their usefulness. destroy our spiritual heritage as futile 6.- Problems of money, property and disputes over property, money, and 10.- No A.A. group or member should authority may easily divert us from our authority. ever, /j7 such a way as to implicate A.A., primary spiritual aim. We think, therefore, express any opinion on outside that any considerable propertyof genuine 8.- Alcoholics Anonymous should controversial issues – particularlythose of use to A.A. should be separately remain forever non-professional. We politics, alcohol reform or sectarian incorporated and managed, thus dividing define professionalismas the occupation religion. The Alcoholics Anonymous the material from the spiritual. An A.A. of counseling alcoholics for fees or hire. groups oppose no one. Concerning such Group, as such, should never go into But we may employ alcoholics where matters they can express no views business. Secondary aids to A.A., such they are going to perform those full time whatever.

11.- Our relations with the outside world should be characterized by modesty and anonymity. We think A.A. ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our public relations should be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There is never need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our friends recommend us.

12.- And finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance. It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a truly humble modesty. This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us; that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us all. ————————————*————

May it be urged that while these principles have been stated in rather positive language they are still only suggestions for our future. We of Alcoholics Anonymous have never enthusiastically responded to any assumption of personal authority. Perhaps it is well for A.A. that this is true. So I offer these suggestions neither as one man’s dictum nor as a creed of any kind, but rather as a first attempt to portray that group ideal toward which we have assuredly been led by a Higher Power these ten years past.

P.S. To help free discussion. I would like to amplify the Twelve Points of Tradiion in future Grapevine pieces.

MAY 1946

I Ilnve lout~tlevitlcnccs of group policy on S O I ~ I C 1101 IIC possihlc for the nntior~nlollice to sponsor URGES POLICY q~~cs~ior~ wllicll s , policy vnrics from group lo n simple coursc of instruction on policies nnd group ant1 cvcn as to individuals within t h principles for tllc ncwcomcr so that lic might, groups hut have ~ J C C I I unable to get much in- right from the start, distinguish bctwce~i the fornintio~ins to all overall ncltio~~al policy. recognizctl nnd acccptecl policies and the per- FOR NEWCOMERS It sccnis to mc tl~iltin t l ~ cgrowth of groups sonal opinions of indiviclual mcmbcrs? from n fcw n~cml,crs rncctiiig in n home to On the basis of its history and present activity I llave read with more tllan pnssi~iginterest g a t h c r i ~ ~ g so l 100 to 200 or liiorc lnccting in I cnn visunlizc tllc growth of A.A. to the point thc lcad nrticlc in tlic March Gmpcvinc, Our I~nlls,ccrtnit~ntljr~stmcntsmay bc ncccssary nncl wlicrc it will rcprcsct~tn ta~igil)lcpowcr thro~lgli- A r ~ o n y r r ~ iIst ~ Ilotl~ I~ispiration nritl Safely by even tlc,sirnl)lc. I h ~ cto tlic ~ t ~ i r n o t ~ i c i ~ n groivlh l out the Innd; a power 111nt will continually in- Dill. It has supplied some of the oiiswcrs to nncl frrlr~rc possihili~ics of tllc orgnnizalio~i, crcnsc nntl tcl~rllo c o n ~ cworc n d niorc w~tlcr numirolls q~rcstions thnt l ~ n v c1)ccn developing would it ~ i o tbc dcsiral~lcto draw up, for gro111) thc scrutiny of t l ~ cpul)lic cye. If all m c ~ n l ~ c r s in rny nlind sincc I joincd up with A.A. somc usc, a stalenlent of ~ ~ a t i o n a l I)olicics a r ~ ddirect are wcll grountlctl ill nu trntlcrsturitling of nascvcn rno~itlrsago. all groups to i~lstr~ict nll I I C W ~ncmbcrson such tior~nlant1 group policy ncitllcr tlic mcmber nor I ca111c into A.A. lrnder my ow11 stcnm ns I polit:ics? 111large groups t l ~ ccor~trolo l inclivid- tllc gcncrnl ~ w b l i cwill LC co~~fusctl ns to wlint had known for quitc sornc t i ~ n cthat it was nec- 11i11swcitkc~lsa ~ ill tlcsirc for d s o ~ i ~g cr o ~ l ) sL ~ C consti~r~tcs policy ns tlisti~ictFrom pcrsonnl opincssary to do something nbout a situntion thnt size may exceed the capacity for proper nbsorp- ion. It is nccd~exito n i c n t i o ~ ~ thnt with cnibnrwas growing p r ~ ~ r ~ s ~ i ~ c l yI hnvc l~ntl worse. lion. Instruction in clear-cut ideas of national ;assing f r c q ~ ~ c n c yonc c~lcountcrs individunls co~~sidcrable timc on my 11n11dsnncl lmve utilizctl nncl group policy may, ill part, coml)erisnte for whosc personnl opinions could l~nrdlycoincide n largc part of it in A.A. work. I have nttcntletl the close persorlol influence in the small home with any consitlcred policy, citlicr group or mcctings of vnrious groups nt freqwnt intervals grotlps. ~iationnl. and have bccn rcgulnrly active in t l ~ cgroup to Tl~coreticnll~, n scries of Grrcpcvirrc nrticles I am Iiappy to soy that so far I hnve not had wllicli I belong. Tliese groups vnry in size from on policy might “fill the 1)ill” but actually I too m r ~ c ld~i l l i c ~ t l tin ~ maintaining complete son fcw I I ~ to 200 o r more mcn~bcrs. I hnvc con- doubt if the Crrc.pcuirrc renches one-tcnth of the y t l ~ c1)rogrnIn 1,111 f 1 1 1 l ~rcnlixc tliat 1 I ~ r i c ~OII sistently trictl to 111t:ct and tnlk to as many or men~l~ership.Jt would be a fine move to suggest h a w inucl~ to unlcarrl and lenrn. A.A. has dlc older membcrs ns possible, to learn their tllnt tlic March nrticlc nntl any sul)scquc~~t pieces ol~cncdto me n field of cndcavor in wllicl~,with ways of thinkirig nncl of practicing A.A. I four~d on policy I)c rcotl l~cforca regular mccting of God’s guitlancc, I can c l ~ c c r f ~ n~~l il d~without considera1)lc unanimity in the rmderstonding of every grotlp in t l ~ ccountry. A special paniplilet fcnr of evil, labor the remainder of my life. general princil~lcs; wick vnrinncc as to practice on nationnl policy n i d srrggcstions on group ‘- IIome nt Inst, in Ah.-Tom K., I’asrrdctrn, (which is tb lie cxpxtctl) and very few clear orgnnizatiori n r ~ dpolicies would Jill a longfclt cf I;/. idea?, i f any, on questions of n nationnl policy. licctl on tlle part o f many mcnil)crs. Would it

May 1946

Seekihg Guidance for Safe Use of Money By Bill

In Alcoholics Anonymous, does places and clubs for the sake of avoiding Yet some concern does remain, money make the mare go or is it the root money altogether. Experience has shown arising mostly in connection with our of all evil? We are in the process of that we very much reed these facilities, clubs, local offices and the national solving that riddle. Nobody pretends to so we must accept whatever risk there is headquarters. Because these places have the complete answer. Where the in them. customarily employ paid workers, and proper use of money ends – and its But how shall we keep these risks to amount of business management, it is misuse begins – is the point in “spiritual a minimum; how shall we traditionally sometimes felt that we may get bogged space” we are all seeking. Few group limit the use of money so that it may down with a heavy officialdom or, still problems are giving thoughtful A.A.s never topple the spiritual foundation upon worse, a downright professionalizationof more concern than this. Every one is which each A.A. life so completely A.A. though it must be said that these asking, “What shall be our attitude depends? That is our real problem today. doubts are not always unreasonable, we toward voluntary contributions, paid So let us look together at the nlain have already had enough experience to workers, professionalism, and outside phases of our financial situation, seeking relieve them in large part. donations?” to discover what is essential, what is In the first years of A.A. we had no non-essential, what is legitimate and Remedy Always at Hand money problems. We met in homes harmless, and what may be dangerous where our women folk made sandwiches or unnecessary. To begin with it seems most certain and coffee. Ifan individual A.A. wished to Suppose we begin with voluntary that we need never be overwhelmed by grub stake a fellow alcoholic, he did so. contributions. Each A.A. finds himself our clubs, local offices or by the General It was purely his own affair. We had no dropping money in “the hat” to pay the Headquarters at New York City. These group funds, hence no group money rent of a meeting place, a club, or the are places of service; they cannot really troubles. And it must be recorded that maintenance of his local or national control or govern A.A. If any of them many an oldtime A.A. wishes we could headquarters. Though not all of us were to become inefficient or overbearing now return to those early days of halcyon believe in clubs, and while a few A.A.s the remedy is single enough. The simplicity. Knowing that quarrels over see no necessity for any local or national average A.A. would stop his financial material things have crushed the spirit of offices, it can be said fairly that the vast support until conditions were changed. many a good undertaking it is often majority of us believe that these services As our A.A. membership does not thought that too much money may prove are basically necessary. Provided such depend on fees or dues we can always an evil for us too. facilities are efficiently handled, and their “take our special facilities or leave them funds properly accounted for, we are only alone.” These services must always For Essential Services too glad to pledge them our regular serve us well or go out of business. support, with the full understanding of Because no one is compelled to support It’s small use yearning for the course, that such contributions are in no them they can never dictate, nor can impossible. Money has entered our wise a condition of our A.A. membership. they stray from the main,body of A.A. picture and we are defintew committed These particular uses of our money are tradition for very long. to its sparing use. No one would now generally accepted and, with some In direct line with the principle of seriously think of abolishing our meeting qualifications, there is little worry of dire “taking our facilities or leaving them long range consequences. alone” there is an encouraging tendency

A” t to incorporate all such special functions place in a club it is customary to divide where each of us is a good will practit- ,-I separately if they involve any great the collections between the club and the ioner and missionary in his own right, amount of money, propeity or central committee for the area, heavily there is no need for anyone to be paid management. More and more, the A.A. favoring the club of course, because the for simple 12th Step work – a purely groups are realizingthat they are spiritual club is providing the meeting place. The spiritual undertaking. While I suppose entities, not business organizations. Of same arrangement may be entered into fear of any kind ought to be deplored, I course the small club rooms or meeting between the club and any particular must confess that I am rather glad that places often remain unincorporated group which wishes to use the club we exercise such great vigilance in this because their business aspect is only whether for meeting or entertainment. critical matter. nominal. But as large growth takes place Generally speaking, the Board of it is usually found wise to incorporate and Directors of a club looks after the A Guiding Principle so set the club apart from surrounding financial management and the social life groups. Supporl of the club then of the place. But strictly A.A. matters Yet there is a principle upon which I becomes an thdividualmatter rather than remain the function of the surrounding believe we can honestly solve our agroup matter. If, however, the club also groups themselves. This division of dilemma. It is this: A janitor can sweep provides ‘a central office secretary activity is by no means the rule the floor, a cook can boil the beef, a sewing the surrounding area it seems everywhere: It is offered as a suggestion steward can eject a troublesome drunk, only fair that group treasuries in that area only, much in keeping, however, with the a secretary can manage an office, an should shoulder this particular expense present trend. editor can get out a newspaper – all, I am because such a secretary serves all A large club or central office usually sure without professionalizing A.A. If we groups, even though the club itself may means one or more paid workers. What didn’t do these jobs ourselves we would not. Our evolution in large A.A. centers is about them – are they professionalizing have to hire non-alcoholics to do them beginning to indicate most clearly that A.A.? About this, there is a hot debate for us. We would riot ask any nonwhile it is a proper function of a cluster of every time a club or central committee alcoholic to do these things full time groups, or their Central Committee, to gets large enough to require paid help. without pay. So why should some of us, support a paid secretary for their area, it On this subject we have all done a pile of who are earning good livings ourselves in is not a Group or Central Committee fuzzy thinking. And I would be one of the the outside world, expect other A.A.s.to function to support clubs financially. Not first to plead guilty to that charge. be full time caretakers, cooks or all A.A.s care for clubs. Therefore club The reason for our fuzzy thinking is secretaries. Why should these A.A.s support has to come mainly from those the usual one – it is fear. To each one of work for nothing at jobs which the rest of individual A.A.s who need or like clubs. us, the ideal of A.A., however short we us could not or would not attempt Which, by the way, is the majority. But may be of it personally, is a thing of all ourselves? Or why, for that matter should the majority ought not to try to coerce the beauty and perfection. It is a Power they be any less well paid than for similar minority into supporting clubs they do not greater than ourselves which has lifted labor elsewhere? And what difference want or need. us out of the quicksand and set us safe should it make, if in the course of their on shore. The slightest thought of duties, they do some 12th Step work A Division of Activity marring our ideal, much less bartering it besides? Clearly the principle seems to for gold, is to most of us unthinkable. So be that we may pay well for special Of course clubs get a certain amount we are constantly on the alert against the services – but never for straight 12th Step of help from meetings held in them. rise, within A.A., of a paid class of work. Where central meetings for an area take practitioners or missionaries. In A.A.,

How then, could A.A. be doubt if many A.A.s ever go into the field professionalized? Quite simply I might, of alcohol therapy, none ought to feel for example, hire an office and hang on excluded, especially if they are trained the door a sign reading: “Bill W. – social workers, psychologists or Alcoholics Anonymous Therapist. psychiatrists. But they certainly ought Charges $10.00 per hour.” That would be never to use their A.A. connection a face to face treatment of alcoholism for publicly or in such a way as to make a fee. And I would surely be trading on people feel that A.A. has such a special the name of Alcoholics Anonymous, a class within its own ranks. That is where purely amateur organization, to enlarge we all must draw the line. my professional practice. That would be (To be continued) professionalizingA.A. and how! It would be quite legal, but hardly ethical.

We’re Not “Pros”

Now does this mean that we should criticize therapists as a class even A.A.s who might choose to go into that field? Not at all. The point is, that no one ought to advertise himself as an A.A. therapist. As we are strictly amateur there could be no such thing. That would be a distortion of the facts which none of us could afford to try. As the tennis player has to drop his amateur status when he turns professional so should A.A.s who become therapists cease publishing their A.A. connection. While I

June 1946

Trustee Vote Fixco Policy On Gifi Funds

Discussing this topic in last month’s (f) That we must, at all costs, avoid the our special knowledge of the alcohol Grapevine we made the following professionalization of A.A.; that simple problem? Are we to tell society, even observations: 12th Step work is never to be paid for; though we might make superior nurses, (a) That the use of money in A.A. is a that A.A.s going into alcohol therapy doctors, social workers or educators in should never trade on their A.A. the field of alcohol that we cannot matter of the gravest importance. Where connection; that there is not, and never undertake such missions for fear of its use ends and its misuse begins is the can be, any such thing as an “A.A. professionalizing A.A.? That would point we should vigilantly watch. therapist.” certainly be far fetched even ridiculous. Surely no A.A. should be barred from (b) That A.A. is already committed to a (g) That A.A. members may, however, be such employment because of his qualified use of money, because we employed by us as full time workers membership with us. He needs only to would not think of abolishing our offices, provided they have legitimateduties over avoid “A.A. therapy” and any action or meeting places and clubs simply for the sake of avoiding finances altogether.# and beyond normal 12th Step work. We word which might hurt A.A. as a whole. may, for example, surely engage Aside from this he ought to be just as (c) That our real problem today consists secretaries, stewards and cooks without employable as the non-alcoholic who in setting intelligent and traditional limits making them professional A.A.s. would otherwise get the job and perhaps upon our use of money, thus keeping its not do it half as well. In fact, I believe we disruptive tendency at the minimum. Continuing now the discussion of still have a few A.A. bartenders. Though professionalism: A.A.s frequently consult bartending, for obvious reasons is not a (d) That the voluntary contributions or local committees or The Alcoholic specially recommended occupation I pledges of A.A. members should be our Foundation saying they have been have never heard anyone cry out that principal, and eventually, our sole offered positions in related fields. these few members are professionalizing support; that this kind of self support Hospitals want A.A. nurses and doctors, A.A. on account of their very special would always prevent our clubs and clinics ask for A.A.s who are social knowledge of barrooms! offices from getting out of hand because workers, universities ask for A.A.s to their funds could readily be cut off work in the field of alcohol education on Years ago we used to think A.A. whenever they failed to serve us well. a non-controversial basis and industry should have its own hospitals, rest wants us to recommend A.A.s as homes and farms. Nowadays we are (e) That we have found it generally wise personnel officers. Can we, acting as equally convinced we should have to separately incorporate those special individuals, accept such offers? Most of nothing of the sort. Even our clubs, well facilities which require much money or us see no reason why we cannot. inside A.A., are somewhat set apart. And management; that an A.A. group is a in the judgment of practically all, places spiritual entity, not a business concern. It comes down to this. Have we A.A.s of hospitalization or rest should be well the right to deny society the benefit of outside A.A. – and medically supervised.

Hospitalization is most definitely the job Now what about donations or we do not. We are no longer poor. We of the doctor backed, of course, by payments to A.A. from outside sources? can, and we should, pay our own way. private or community aid. It is not a There was a time, some years ago, when Of course, it can hardly be counted function of A.A. in the sense of we desperately needed a little outside an exception to the principle of selfmanagement or ownership. Everywhere aid. This we received. And we shall support if a non-alcoholic friend comes to we cooperate with hospitals. Many afford never cease being grateful t.0 those a meeting and drops a dollar in the hat. us special privileges and working devoted friends whose contributions It is doubtful, too, if we should refuse the arrangements. Some consult us. Others made possible the Alcoholic Foundation, relative who sends in his $5 mite; a employ A.A. nurses or attendants. the book Alcoholics Anonymous and our token of appreciation for the recovery of Relationships such as these almost Central Office. Heaven has surely someone close. Perhaps we would be always work well. But none of these reserved a special place for everyone of ungracious to refuse his gift. institutions are known as “A.A. hospitals.” them. They met a great need, for in But it is not these small tokens of those days we A.A.s were very few and regard which concern us. It is the large We have also had some experience very insolvent! contributions, especially those that may with farms and drying out places which, But times have changed. Alcoholics carry future obligations, which should though outside A.A. and medically supervised, have nevertheless been Anonymous now has more than 24,000 give us pause. Then too, there is managedand financed by A.A. members. members whose combined earnings this evidence that wealthy people are setting Some of these operations have done year ought to be many millions. Hence a aside sums for A.A. in their wills under well, others very badly. And with one or very powerful feeling is spreading among the impression we could use a great deal two conspicuous exceptions, the worst us that A.A. ought to be self-supporting. of money if we had it. Shouldn’t we possible set-up has been that in which Since most members feel they owe their discourage them? and already there A.A. groups , with group money and very lives to the movement they think we have been a few alarming attempts at management, have gone into the “drying A.A.s ought to pay its very modest the public solicitation of money in the expenses. And isn’t it, they ask, high time name of Alcoholics Anonymous. Few out” business. Despite exceptions, these A.A.s will fail to imagine where such a that we commenced to revise the “A.A. hospitals” seem the least promising course could lead us. Every now and prevalent idea that an alcoholic is always of all. The group which takes one on a person who must be helped – usually then we are offered money from so usually finds that it has contracted an called “wet” or “dry” sources. Obviously with money. Let us A.A.s, they say, be unnecessary responsibility and a heart dangerous this. For we must stay out of givers. We are not helpless now. Neither breaking amount of dissension. Being a that ill starred controversy. Now and then are we penniless any more. Were it group project it cannot be “taken or left the parents of an alcoholic, out of sheer possible to publish tomorrow that every alone.” Either it has to be abandoned or gratitude, wish to donate heavily. Is this it remains a raw sore on the body politic. A.A. group had become fully selfsupporting, it is probable that nothing wise? Would it be good for the alcoholic These experiments have well himself? Perhaps a wealthy A.A. wishes demonstrated that the A.A. group will could create more good will for us than such a declaration. Let our generous to make a large gift. Would it be good for always have to be a spiritual entity, not a him, or for us, if he did so? Might we not business concern. Better do one thing public devote its funds to alcohol feel in his debt and might he not, supremely well than two things badly! research, hospitalization or education. especially if a newcomer, begin to think Those fields certainly need money. But he had bought a ticket to that happy

destination, sobriety? by several motion picture concerns about In no case have we ever been able the possibility of an A.A. film. Naturally to question the true generosity of these money has been discussed. But our givers. But is it wise to take their gifts? Trustees, very rightly I think, will take the Though there may be rare exceptions, I Position that A.A. has nothing to sell; that share the opinion of most older A.A.s We all wish to avoid even the suggestion that acceptance of large donations from of commerce, and that in any case A.A., any source is very questionable – almost nationally speaking, is now selfalways a hazardous policy. The supporting. struggling club may badly need a friendly TO my mind, this is a decision of gift or loan. Even so, it might be better in enormous importance to our future – a the long run to pay as we go. We must very long’ step in the right direction. never let any immediate advantage, When such an attitude about money however attractive, blind us to the becomes universal throughout A.A., we possibility that we may be creating a shall have finally steered clear of that disastrous precedent for the future. Strife golden, alluring, but ever treacherous over money and property has too often reef called Materialism. wrecked better people than us IN the years that lie just ahead temperamental alcoholics! Alcoholics Anonymous faces a supreme It is with the deepest gratitude and test – the great ordeal of its Own satisfaction that I can now tell you of a prosperity and success. I think it will recent resolution passed by our general prove the greatest trial of all. Can we but service committee, the Trustees of The weather that, the waves of time and Alcoholic Foundation, who are the circumstance may beat upon us in vain. custodians of our national A.A. funds. As Our destiny will be secure! a matter of policy, they have just gone on record that they will- decline all gifts carrying the slightest obligation, expressed or implied. And further, that the Alcoholic Foundation will accept no earnings which may be tendered from any commercialsource. As many readers know we have been approached of late

JULY 1946 GG . . .That Our . . . Blessings . . . Never Spoil Us7′ I n the Twelve Steps, A.A. olTers 1101 u tlwory, Each o f us alone, striving i n o u r small way, One clocsn’t l o n g scull t l ~ c12 S t e p w i t l ~ o a t not a bypotl~esis,not n pious hope, not-111ank r n n exert hut n srnnll inflnence. n u t a l l o f us reulizing the clemand f o r I ~ u m i l i t y . One doesn’t God-wistful o r w i s l ~ f u lthinking, but an his- together call exert IIK:n~i::l~ty i~rfluencc thut is long consider h e 12 Points withont seeing the torical record o f how more t l ~ u n25,000 ulco- A.A. My p r t is important, IUII i t p i u s its i ~ n – cnq)l~uticrestute&~t ~[,IIIIII ilcmn~~cl. holics achieved sobriety. Imrtance not through n w h t t h r n ~ ~ g h III~ nlew 011r lci~iIcrsltwl, 11111 ly riF1tt u f w ~ ~ i o r i l y , IIOI Set i l o w ~f r~o m that same l ~ i s t o r i c n lreconl are I l e r s l ~ iil n~ A.A., not tlrrovgh me l)ut t l ~ r o t ~ g myl ~ Iby election, not through ~I~III~II~III ~~erso~~ulil)’, the T~urlvcPoi111.c l o Assrrr~!Orrr Fu~rrrib, p o i ~ r l s , . cleuling w i t h us i a A.A. us g r o u p . 1 hey werc nclivc p n r t i c i p ~ ~ t i~ not h r o u g l r me INIL IIICw w k o f tlu! gro111); o I~ I~ h r o e g l r m y w i l l i ~ ~ g n e10 ~n the orutor’s gift, the v x c c ~ ~ t i w ‘ tsn l c ~ ~ t ; hy any o f these things. no, not

set o n paper by Bill, our fonncler, not as n s ~ d – make myself n pliant tool i n the I-l11nc1o f the Some Inell nluy (IpIwur to I w h e Icailers i n II den ins pi ratio^^ but only after l o n g and p a y e r – I l i g l ~ c rPower. group, hut your real A.A. leuclcr is the rnnn who fd I ~ I O I I ~ ~ I and i n renponse to an insistent untl I ~ u sr ~ c t ~ ~and v l ~ o l l yt u r ~ r c t lhis \\,ill e l lr ~ and Ibis persistent clemancl f r o m groups t l ~ r o ~ ~ g l lthe o~~t M o r e Thnn S o l w i c t y l i f e over to the cure o f Cod us he 1111~lers1a11i~s country. T h e second sentence snys: “A.A. must con- Ilim. They’ve L i v e d l ‘ r o g r u n l tinue to l i v e o r most o f us w i l l surcly c h . ” … 11 is f r o m tlrin n\un t l ~ u tthe fultering seek F o r eleven years now most of I j i l l ‘ s waking Y o u remember as well as I t11n1 l ~ u g r i t l c l e ~ ~ I d p , the t r o u l ~ l e t l neck co1111sc1, the I ~ ~ ~ r t l e ~ ~ c i have been devoted to A.A. l ‘ l ~ r o ~ ~ g l ~ III~I~I~II~~ exislence; those sluml~ling, cl~uotic, ui~nless suck the relief n r ~ t lthe relcusc o f the 5th Step. these years Ire uncl Dr. l3olb have lived A.A. clays; those I~nuntecl, I~orrendous,p l ~ a n t o n ~ – f i l l e d l l i s power lies i n the knowlctlge thut o f I ~ i m s c l f L i v c d A.A.-with a l l that the phrase in11)lies. nights; miserable and sick o f I)ocly, each lierve Ile l ~ u sno power; i n his I ~ e ~ n l ~ uwe l l l ~ a tu, N o t o n l y have Dill and Dr. 1\01) lived A.A. i n n ~ l r r o b b i n gagony; and worse, f u r worse the 11ikllcr Power II~S n e i g w t l to use I ~ i mus u IIUtlleir own lives and irl their own purlic1111lr tlesolating misery o f m i n d and o f heurt u11c1o f groups, b u t because h e y are our founclers, they soul. IUI IICISI toward u s u j ) e r n a t ~ ~ r u I end:. .. Yes, A.A. mnst continue to live o r most o f 11s O f s e c l ~s t r ~ f li s h e rcal A.A. l c a t l e r s l ~ i ~I t~ .is l ~ n v ebeen’ eoug111 ont earnest A.A.s Iron1 a l l rooted i n Cod’s will. I t knows, this A.A. Ieaderpnrts o f the country, I)otlr i n Iwrson and 1)y tnuil. w i l l surely die. A.A. mtlst continue to liuc, I I I ~ ship, t l ~ n tns God take$ care o f 11s as i n d i r i d – And, on occasion, they have joerneyed I ~ i t l ~ e r we m w t continue to live i n i t and w i t h it, o r 1101s-AII~ t11at is n ~ n ~ ~ i f iens tmore tl1a11 25,000 and yon, visiting groups thro11g11o11tthe IIIII~. most of 11s w i l l surcly die w l ~ i l cyct we live. liver–so clops IIc take cnrc of 113 ns (I group. So h e r e has come to h e m a stently Ilow o f “IIcnce,” this first p o i ~ tcontinues, “OII~ c o n C o d can not take care o f us as i ~ ~ d i v i c l y~i t~l la- l ~ reporle, triwnphant reports o f achievement f o r mon welfare conics first. I h t i n d i v i r l ~ ~ n l welfure 0111~ i n ~ ~ ~ l t n n c o takiup osl~ c a w or us ns n group. the Itlost part. 1 h t reporli, too, o f tlifierc~tccs, follows close ufterwartl.” The T h i r d I’oinl-“0ur 111c111bcrahip011gh1l o o f clillical~ies, o f setl)ucks. ‘I’l~rouglr t l ~ e n ~ 1111s You k ~ ~ o~ w t lI k ~ ~ o \ v111111uny lnull WIIO lives i ~ ~ c l u dacl l w l ~ vsuITcr a l c o l ~ o l i s n ~ .llcncc wc I ~ e e nclistilleil the group ex1)erience. the 12 Steps w i l l u c l ~ i c v c11nil ~ n u i n t n is ~o ~l h t y nlny r c f ~ ~ IaOICc who wish to rccover. . . .” So i t is that i n hese 12 Points o f C r o u l ~’l’ru- -und m ~ c l rmore. … This ia strong n~edicitie,m y fricncls, lhis Imi- (lition, tllcre nrc experience and I w ~ ~ t l e ~ ~ untl cc The Second Point-“For o u r C r o ~ ~p pu r l m e ~ ~ e so fs refrtaing no one. It’s n den~nntl,: c q f o r wisdom. … there is hut onc iltirnate u ~ r t h o r i t ~ – – u 1ovi11gc o i l charity i n the o l d and heaatiful aensc tliut Christ “l:uclt III~!III~IW d’ A.A. is 11111 11 XIIIIIII1111t.td’ us I l c muy express l l i ~ n s e l fi n our C r o ~ ~ p con- ~ ~ s cit-l -the love o f o u r fellow tnnn f o r t l ~ cl o r e 11 great wlwle,” snys t l ~ cfirst LCII~~IICB o f I’ni111 science.” o f Cod. One.

And still rurilwr it’s a d c ~ ~ ~ a n c tl~ut l we sl~ow our gratitude for the gift !~cstorvcd I I ~ ) O I I 11s- 1)sa tvilli~tgncasto d ~ u r ctlmt gift with otl~ersall othcrs who suller from alcol~olis~~~-all o ~ h e r sregardless of race or creed or color-all fish-these arc h e l~alln~arks of the i\.A. wllo is You can scc that these things irr cxcess indiothers-rich, personalde, c l ~ a r ~ ~ ~ ori no. g living the life o l the 12 Steps. . .. cate n doubt as to God’s providence. They ques- Point Five: “Each Alcol~olics Auot~yn~ous tion the soundness of the 24-hour program. Thcy Not Ours Uy Right ‘ Group ought to I)e a s p i r i t ~ ~ ne ld t y Ilnvi~~g In11 t give lip service only to that petition in the Lord’s , A.A. is tl gift, a frcc gilt frorn 011 Iligll. one p r i ~ l ~ a r y ~)urposc-tl~at of carrying its rim- Prayer–“Give 11s this day our daily bread.” ,There’s no q ~ ~ c s t i o n but what we carncd the sage to t l ~ calcol~olicwho still sdTers.” S o u can sce, too, tlmt these things in cxcess t t c d o l the gilt, earned it ill thc bitter tortr~rc I-icrc as ill I’oint One we secm to be r ~ ~ ~ ~ n i t l g interfere with the spiritual flow that charactcror-alcoholisnr, I ~ u tit is also true that 110 O I I C of contrary to the acccptcd t c a c l ~ i ~ ~ tlmtg conti~~uecl iacs A.A: They take the time and thought o l 11scarncd the right to 111egift. aobricty is the firq rind foremost ~)uri)osefor 11s A.A.s who woulcl bc bcttcr occupied-both for 011the contrary, some of as f o ~ ~ g l the~ tGivcr in As/\., the 1110stin~portant~ h i n gin1 our iivw. tl~cn~sclvcs a d tllc world at l a r g o i l l carrying and IIis refused the Givcr and Ilis gift until Uut the cotlflict is more npl)arcnt dlan real. lhc A.h. n~c,ssagcto othcr alcoholid nlcol~ol11acl heatcs Its to our k ~ ~ e cins onr o n r ~ The prie~ar]: purpose for t l ~ citrdivicktal is I’oinl Scvcn: “l’l~e A.A. ~ r o r t ~ ; s ~l~e~nsclvcs parjic~~lar gutter. T11et1, and only then, tlicl we co~~tit~ucd sol~ricty, ar~tl s i n ~ t ~ l ~ a ~ ~ c o andu s l ~ V I I ~ I I L to Itc f l ~ l l ~ s111)portcd by t l ~ c’;lolulllary nccept the gift. stcn~niit~g from tllat p r p o s c for us as individ- 11 is an Ah. lmracfox many ti~ncsstated tllat contributions of their own members. We think o d y by almring this gift, by a c c k i ~to~ ~ give it i d s , the primary purpose l o r the group is c i p e a d i ~ ~t lg~ cA.A. message to those who need it. that … any pul)lic solicitation of funds using the name of Alcol~olics Ano~~ytnous is hid11y lo oll~crn, cat1 wc rclait~ it lor our vcry or^. Ilnving acl~icvcdsobriety as individuals, are dn~~gcroun; that acccplnllcc o l largc gifts from a11t1 $o rclni~~ing it, scc it grow in itnpo~tU I I ~ we, Uuddlla-like, to spcrld the ycars in conternbcanly. I’hc rnorc o l it we give, tllc IIWC of it any so~lrccor of conlril)utions carrying any p l n t i o ~of ~ our r~avcls? Are we to cloistcr ourwc I1avc. oblignlio~~ wl~a~cvcr, is ust~ally r~nwise. Then, cielves in our newly found paradise hoping to loo, we vicw with n ~ u c l ~ conccrll those A.A. trens- A I I ~wc cull 1101, iu co~~scic~~cc., pick a ~ ~ c l live I ~ a p p i land ~ selfisl~l~ever alter? uries ~ v l ~ i c lo~~ ~ t i ~ t u c , beyond pruclcnt reserves, choose as lo rvhon~wc sl~allgivc it. God Ilns a You know a d I know that life isdt like tl~at, lo accrrn~nlalc funds for no stated A.A. perway’of nmking a pulrcr out of t l ~ c1 1 i ~ p r d 1 y cven lilc in A.A. You know and I know that .soul; a way, loo, of rewartling cvcr more ricl~l! t11c A.A. progranl is a living thing. Death post. …19

well in A.A., IIC wank WIICIIa I I I ~ I I~ C C O I I I C ~ 111cq ~ c ~ d t l ~ r soul. if~ comes wl~cngrowth ceases. That’s elementary. ‘Poi111 r o w : “\VitIt rcqwct to i1.q O W I I nflui~s. … As we as individuals cannot ren~ainstatic, lo be his orvn nlnn again. And part o l this being your own I I I ~ I I ,of recovering your iategrity, each A.A. Group nhodcl Ilc respo~~.sil)lc lo no so t l ~ cgroup. l’he group must grow in and 1 brlieve, is to carry your own hod. othcr aull~ority llmu its O\\II conscic~lcc. IJIII 111roagh us, and growing in a d tl~rougl~ us, it If all A.A. is justified ill 11aving any resent- ~ I I C I I its plans collcer~~ the welfare of ~ t c i ~ l ~ l o r – 11111stgrow in and througla othcrs. ,Wl~cnthose I I I ~ I I ~I, t11i11k it would be a rescntnlet~tagainst ing p r o u p also, thosc groltps o11g11tto I)c COII- two growths C C ~ C C , A.A. will cease. Iwinp: ~ h o u g l o~ tl as an objcct of charity, a seeker PIIIICII. A d no # I ~ I I ~ , ~cgionul C O I I I ~ I I ~ I ~ C01. C I’oiat Six: “l’roblems of money, property i~~tlivicl~~nl sl~or~ltlerer tuke all). uc1io11 tl~at lnny easily divert us frorn our R I I ~a t t t l ~ o r i t ~ after alms, a rclicf client or tlrc deserving poor. t11ig111preally nlTect A.A. as a wl~ole without primary spiritual nirn. .. .” T l ~ cfuel llmt lnukcs thc A.A. cngil~cgo is conferring with lhe Trustees of the /\lcol~olic Point Five asserts h a t an A.A. group ought sl)irit~~ul. Tlrc mornc~~t wc utltl otlrer ingrctliculs, For~~~clation. 0 1 1 sr~ch is.we.q o r ~ rCOIIIIIIOII wet- to be a spiritual entity. Point Six crnphasises we hegin to foul the spark p111gs. fnre is paran~ow~t.” tl~isviewl~oint.I l we regard A.A. as a spiritual

4′ ‘ Point Eiglrt: “A.A. exlterience has laugbt us c~nonytnily. \Vc 111ink A.A. oilgilt lo c~voiclscuthat: “~lcoholicsAnonyrnol~ssl~oi~lcl remain for- snlionul ntlvertising. Our public relations sl~o~rltl ever ~ro~r-j)rofessional. . . .” he guided I)y the princil~laof ottrnc~ionrall~er , You know ant1 I know tlle satisfaction \vc’vc I ~ pron~otio~r.’ h r e is never need lo praise I had ‘when some suspicious prospect inq~~irctl, oi~rselves. We lee! it 11etter to let our fricntls I

“Whnt’s.,tlre angle?” ant1 we were able to tell reco111111~lld 11s.” him that h r e isn’t any angle, there isn’t any Point Twelve: “Anel finully, we: of Alcol~olics ca~ch, h e r e isn’t any concealed bite-that wc Anony~noi~sI)clicvc tlmt the principle of were there to I ~ e l plrim for a darn selfish reason anonymity has nn in~mensespiritual significance. -111at wlrilc we were seeking to teach him, we It reminds us that we arc to place principles werc,oncc uguit~c o w i n c i ~ ~ g o~~rsclvcs-tl~c~tour before l)ersonnlitics; that wc ure actually to visit was ull par1 of orrr own recovery. ~ ~ r u ~ ai c c truly 11111nl1lcrnotlesty. This to ~ l l c A Way of Lifc ‘ cncl L ~ I ~ ourI great I ~ l e s s i ~ muy~~s never spoil 11s; The Lurclen of Point Nine is h a t a11 A.A. tl~utwe sl~allforever livc i l l t l l a ~ ~ k f u l contc~npln- ‘ gr0111) needs the least possible orgunization. I t tion of lIirn Who prcsiclcs over us all.” scts fortlr, too, 111e part pluyccl I j y t l ~ eAlcoholic Evcry now oncl agnin A.A. altructs o Inan w l ~ o For~rdotiorras to troditiou, fur~tlsu ~ dour I I ~ \ \ S is so l i r d by 111c1)cnuly of it, IIC wants lo hire paper, Thc A.A. Crnpevirrc. 11 I)IXSS II~IIMI, 111ilrt;l1~IO\VII10 111c COII~IIIOUSC

A.A., RS has I)een oflen said, is o way of lifc; s t p ~ r cc111tl to I ~ i ~ f ~ – p r t : s w r e11nd s ~ ~ n c l r y 1111 nlconot an orgnnizntion. I t is so good wheu i t is I~olicsto grt i l l on n good 111i1ig. sia~ple.’Cotl~ u v c11s froar I m t l i n g little I~aclgas \!re have seen tlrnt type of prom olio^^ operate. that woulcl make of us a IIOII-dri~~king uplift We lwve seen it fail. wl~olesolel ~ ~ s i t i e siss society with l ~ t ~ t t o nOsI I ~I d g e s , will1 con~niil- 11 r~iccI)~~siness, 1)111 it’s not for A.A. A.A. is u tees ant1 comn~itteesoncl cornmitlees, w i h tiilcs r111ict thing, n confitlentinl ~lling,n nlnn to mnll o l d clrnirs and a unifor~nctl rank. thing. It \voi~ItIl)c just S I I I ) ~ ~ tIcIoo~)crl~s 10 dry 111) nll h c alkics ill one l ~ c l l – r i r ~ ~l i~ne~ l l, – l ~ e ~ ~ ( l i ~ ~ g , 1:oint Ten: , “No A.A. Group o r mernl~er sl~oultlcvcr, in~srcclr(I tuciy rrs 10 in~plicci~c~ A.A., clo~tcl-lms~ing,gully-wnsl~ir~gcornpaign, 11111 I express any opinion on o ~ ~ l s i t l e controversiril is- s~rspect111al onr prescnl way of reaching an insues-partic~~lorly those of politics, alcollol rc- clivicluctl’s hear1 is the way God wnnts us to do it. form o r sectorinn religion. . . .” Now ns to the ernplrasis I~lacedon a ~ ~ o n ) ~ n ~ i l y . Let’s get hack to fu~dornentuls. Our prinlc Molly of 11swcrc wont to think of the i~~~onyrllity purpose a s incliviclunls is to achieve nncl main- of A.A. simply as a protec~ivenictislire, wit11 t l ~ e tain sol~riely. Our prime purpose as o group is atltlctl advantage, ~ ~ c r l ~ uofp s ,giving the lure of lo carry the A.A. lnessogc to tlrc ulcol~olicw l ~ o niyslery to our group. 11111 Ilill, with his tlcel~ is still sick. Certeinly Iwowling in t l ~ cmarket insigl~t, cnrly c n l ~ g h ~the spirituhl significn~icc place is oat of t i ~ n cwit11 the steps of 111c rccov- of anonyn~ity. cry 1wogra111. I l’oinl I < ~ ~ V C I I : “011r r c l c ~ ~ i w s \villa t l ~ c ! o111sit1c worltl s l ~ o d c lIIC clurructcrizctl I j y nioctcs~y nntl

July 1946

The Individual In Relation to A.A. as a Group

It may be that Alcoholics he says so.; that we can’t deny him his deference to your views, that Point does Anonymous is a new form of human membership; that we can’t demand from look just a little impractical to outsiders. society. him a cent; that we can’t force our beliefs After all, the whole world today is but the The first of our 12 Points of A.A. or practices upon him; that he may flout sad story of how most men have lost Tradition states “Each member of everything we stand for and still be a their conscience and so cannot find their Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part member. In fact, our Tradition carries the way. Now come you alcoholics (unstable of a great whole. A.A. must continue to principle of independence for the people, too, you’ll admit) and you blandly live or most of us will surely die. Hence individual to such an apparently fantastic tell us: 1. That A.A. is a beautiful our common welfare comes first. But length ,that, so long as there is the socialism – most democratic. 2. That A.A. individual welfare follows close slightest interest in sobriety, the most is also a dictatorship, its members aftetward.” This is a recognition, common unmoral, the most anti-social, the most subject to the benign rule of God. And in all forms of society, that the individual critical alcoholic may gather about him a finally, 3. That A.A. is so very must sometimes place the welfare of his few kindred spirits and announce to us individualistic that the organization fellows ahead of his own uncontrolled that a new Alcoholics Anonymous Group cannot discipline its own members for desires. Were the individual to yield has been formed. Anti-God, anti- misbehaviour or unbelief. nothing to the common welfare there medicine, anti-our Recovery Program, could be no society at all – only self-will even anti-each other – these rampant Crux of Our Creed run riot; anarchy in the worst sense of individuals are still an A.A. Group if they that word. think so! “So, continued our friends, “within Our non-alcoholic friends the society of Alcoholics Anonymous it Apparent Contradiction sometime exclaim, “Did we hear you say appears to us that you have. a that A.A. has a sound social structure? democracy, a dictatorship and an Yet Point Three in our A.A. You must be joking. To us, your Tradition anarchy, all functioning at once. So these Tradition looks like a wide-open invitation Number Three looks about as firmly sleep quietly in the same bed – these to anarchy. Seemingly, it contradicts grounded as the Tower of Babel. In your same concepts whose conflict is tearing Point One. It reads, “Our membership Point One you plainly say that group apart our world of today? Yet we know ought to include all who suffer welfare comes first. Then you evidently that A.A. works. So you people must alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none proceed, in Point Three, to tell every A.A. have somehow become reconciled to who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. that nobody can stop him if he thinks and these great forces. Tell us, if you can, membership ever depend on money or does exactly what he pleases! True what holds A.A. together? Why doesn’t confomi?y Any two or three alcoholics enough, your Second Point speaks A.A. tear apart, too? If each A.A. has gathered together for sobriety may call vaguely about an ultimate authoritu, ‘A personal liberty which can amount to themselves an A. A. Gmup. This clearly loving God as he may express himself in license, why doesn’t your A.A. society implies that an alcoholic is a member if our Group conscience.’ With all blow up? It ought to, yet it doesn’t.”

d – Our friends of the world outside, alcoholic on the list had been given a Anonymous. It all boiled down to a so puzzled over this paradox, ace apt to good exposure. Most of them had simple question of ‘do or die.’ I had to miss a most significant statement as they attended A.A. meetings for several conform to A.A. principles or else. No read our Point One. It is this: “A.A. must months. After slipping and sliding around more anarchy for me. So I’m back.” continue to live or most of us will surely they had all disappeared. Some said they This illustration shows why we of die.”. were not alcoholic. Others couldn’t stand A.A. must hang together “or else hang That stark assertion carries a for our belief in God. Many had separately.” We are players at a stem world of meaning for every member of developed intense resentments toward drama where death is the prompter to Alcoholics Anonymous. While it is their fellows. Anarchists at heart, they those who falter. Could anyone imagine perfectly true that no A.A. group can could not conform to our society. And a more powerful restraint upon us than possibly coerce an alcoholic to contribute because our society did not conform to this? money, to conform to the 12 Steps of our them, they quit. But only ternpotari/v. Yet the history of uncontrolled Recovery Program or to the 12 Points of Over the years, most of these so-called drinking shows that fear alone has A.A. Tradition, each A.A. member is, failures have returned, often becoming chastened but few alcoholics. Much more nevertheless, most powerfully compelled, magnificent members. We never ran after than fear is needed to bind us anarchists in the long run, to do these very things. them; they returned of their own accord. together. Several years ago, speaking at The truth is, that is the life of each A.A. Each time I spot one newly back, I ask Baltimore, I ran on at a great rate about member, there still lurks a tyrant. His him why he has rejoined our fold. the terrible sufferings we alcoholics had name is Alcohol. He is cunning, ruthless. Invariably his answer runs like this: endured. My talk must have had a strong And his weapons are misery, insanity “When I first contacted A.A. I learned flavor of self-pity and exhibitionism. I kept and death. No matter how long we may that alcoholism is a disease; an referring to our drinking experience as a be sober, he always stands at each obsession of the mind that compels us to great calamity, a terrible misfortune. After man’s elbow, ever watchful of an drink, and a sensitivity of the body that the meeting I was approached by a condemns us to go mad or die if we Catholic clergyman who genially opportunity to resume his destruction. keep on. I also learned that A.A. worked, remarked, “I heard you say you thought Like an agent of the Gestapo he ever at least for some alcoholics. But I then your drinking was a great misfortune. But threatens each A.A. citizen with torture or disliked A.A. methods, hated some of the it seems to me that in your case it was extinction. Unless, of course, the A.A. alcoholics I met there and I still toyed your great good fortune. Was not ‘this citizen is willing to live unselfishly, often placing the welfare of A.A. as a whole with the idea that I could do the job of terrible experience the very thing which ahead of his own personal plans and quitting all by myself. After several more humbled you so completely that you ambitions. Apparently no human being years of terrible drinking, which I found I were able to find God? Did not suffering can force alcoholics to live happily and was powerless to control, i gave up. I open your eyes and your heart. All the usefully together. But Mr. John returned to A.A. because it was the only opportunity you have today, all this Barleycorn can – and he often does! place left to go; I’d tried everything else. wonderful experience you call A.A., once Arrived at this point, I knew that I must had its beginnings in deep personal Rugged Souls Return act quickly; that I must adopt the 12 suffering. In your case that was actually Steps of the A.A. Recovery Program; that no misfortune. It was your great good A story will illustrate: Some time I must cease hating my fellow alcoholics; fortune. You A.A.s are a privileged , ago we made a long list of our seeming that I must now take my place among people.” failures in the first years of A.A.. Every them as a very small part of that great whole, the society of Alcoholics

*- even if they did insist on thinking me happiness through power and acclaim. Searchlng the Motives their teacher, Ishould actually feel myself Finally, some incident, perhaps a sharp p l That simple yet profound remark their pupil. I saw that I had been living reverse, opens our eyes still wider. Then, affected me deeply. It is a landmark in too much alone, too much aloof from my as we learn our new lesson and lea/& my life. It set me thinking as never before fellows, and too deaf to that Voice within. accept its teaching we enter a new level about my relationship to my fellow A.A.s Instead of coming to Baltimore as a of better feeling and doing. Life takes on It caused me to question my own single agent hearing the message of a finer meaning. We glimpse realities motives. “why had I come to Baltimore experience, I had come as a founder of new to us; we apprehend the kind of love anyway? Had I come only to enjoy the Alcoholics Anonymous. And, like a which assures us that it is more blessed applause and approval of my fellows? salesman at a convention, I had been to give than to receive. These are some Was I there as a teacher or a preacher? wearing my identification badge so that of the reasons why we think that Did I fancy myself a great moral all might well see it. How much better it Alcoholics Anonymous may be a new crusader?” On reflection, I shamefacedly would have been, had I felt gratitude form of society. admitted to myself that I had all these rather than self satisfaction – gratitude Each A.A., group is a safe haven. motives, that I had been taking a that I had once suffered the pains of But it is always circumscribed however, vicarious and rather self-centered alcoholism, gratitude that a miracle of by the tyrant Alcohol. Like the men on enjoyment out of my visit. But was that recovery had been worked upon me from Eddie Rickenbacker’s raft, we who live in all? Had I no better motive than my above, gratitude for the privilege of the haven of A.A. cling together with an natural craving for prestige and serving my fellow alcoholics and intensity of purpose which the outside applause? Had I come to Baltimore in gratitude for those fraternal ties which world seldom comprehends. The anarchy response to no better or deeper need bound me ever closer to them in a of the individual melts away. Self love than that? Then followed a flash of comradeship such as few societies of subsides and democracy becomes a realization. Underneath my shallow and men have ever known. Truly did the reality. We begin to know true freedom of childish vainglory I saw Someone much clergyman say, “Your misfortune has the spirit. The awareness grows that all greater than I at work! Someone who become your good fortune. You A.A.s is well; that each of us may implicitly sought to transform me; who would, if I are a privileged people.” trust in Him who is our loving Guide from permitted, sweep away my less worthy within – and from above. desires and replace them with truer Anarchy Melts aspirations. In these I might, were I humble enough, find peace. My experience at Baltinl~~f3 was At that moment I saw ever so not unique. Every A.A. has such spiritual clearly why I really should have come to landmarks in his life – moment$ ~f insight Baltimore. I should have journeyed there which draw him closer to his fellows and with the happy conviction that I needed to his Maker. The cycle is ever the same. the Baltimoreans even more than they First we turn to A.A. because we may die needed me; that I needed to share with if we don’t. Next, we depend upon its them both their burdens and their joys; fellowship and philosophy to stop our that I needed to feel at one with them, drinking. Then, for a time, we tend once merging myself into their society; that more to depend upon ourselves, seeking

JULY 1946

ANOTHER PLEA FOR ICEEPING OUR ANONYMITY Sllall we, l ~ e r h a p sforgetting our own similar Alcoliolics Anor~yrno~rsdid mean sonledling. nervoilsncss, say t h l their nltitude is wrong, ant1 T h t scenletl v i ~ u lto me at tllat moment. 1h11s risk driving them uway? Or shall we live ‘I’l~erc are sevcrul other reasons why I believe 111) lo our name and reassure them hy demon- we sho111tl guard our principle of nnony~ni~y, as slraling that we do really respect our anonymity? Bill soggestecl. nut certainly one good renson Anyone who wants to makc it known for some is consitlerotiori for the Ilew prospect, the poor good reuson tl~utIIC is n mcnilm of A.A. cer- ti~uitluucl shake)\ soul who is tukirlg that first taitlly has n right to (lo so, providing Ile is nervous, l~esilu~rl step-evc~r us you u~rllI tlitl. not exploiting it for some personnl renson. Ihtt 1.~1’s 1 1 h k of Iiitn. Int’s rcrllect 111e other 1 don’t believc nny one has the right to make fellow’s u~~ooymity.I.ctgs I)c irtlouyllltras. O r it known outsitle of A.A. that somebody else is g c ~lu~~ic.–l).Y., let’s I)c ho~lest ur~cl c l ~ u ~ ~our a member. hlnwlru~~trr~ One of the places where the secoriil word in our name is made to appear meaningless is nt t l ~ copen meetings at the Manhattan cluh housc. Tliesc meetings arc really open. Anyone can

I come Lo them At every meeting, among the u~~cliencc ~~nclo l)tcclly ~ are some pcople who urc there out of cu iosity. I don’t think anyone has t I ~ e right to g t 1111 on the 11Intform uric1 IISC names, incluclifig full and last names, of other A.A.s in his ok her sl)ecclr. I h t many do.

r” I 11ers011a y lave Ibcen i n lo11g enough to reach t l ~ c oint where I clon’t cure who knows 1 am an .A. In.fact, as with most of us eventuully, I nrn prooil to ‘ b e it known. But that certainly does not give me the right to he tossing somel)otly else’s name around from the speaker’s I ) l i ~ ~ f o r ronr a ~ i ~ w l ~ e t:lsc. rc \Vl~ctr 1 came into A.A. I was mndc to feel sure by the l~riderstaritling A.A.s who took me under h e i r wing that my entry would not become p ~ h l i cproperly, that they would respect my wislles to remain anonymol~s-that the name

August 1946

Who /s A Member of A/coho/ics Anonymous? By Bill

The first edition of the book thrown out because they slipped too conditions our conservative program- Alcoholis Anonymous makes this brief much, because their morals were too abiding members get scared. These statement about membership: “The only bad, because they had mental as well as appalling conditions must be controlled, requirement for membership is an honest alcoholic difficulties. Or, believe it or not, they think. Else A.A. will surely go to rack desire to stop drinking. We are not allied because they did not come from the so- and ruin. They view with alarm for the with any particular faith, sect or called better classes of society. We good of the Movement! denomination nor do we oppose anyone. oldsters could have ben excluded for our At this point the group enters the We simply wish to be helpful to those failure to read the book Alcoho/ics rule and regulation phase. Charters, bywho are afflicted.” This expressed our Anonymous or the refusal of our sponsor laws and membership rules are excitedly feelings as of 1939, the year our book to vouch for us as a candidate. And so passed and authority is granted was published. on ad infinitum. The way our “worthy” committees to filter out undesirables and Since that day all kinds of alcoholics have sometime tried to judge discipline the evil doers. Then the Group experiments with membership have been the “less worthy” is, as we look back on Elders, now clothed with authority, tried. The number of membership rules it is rather comical. Imagine, if you can, commence to get busy. Recalcitrants are which have been made (and mostly one alcoholic judging another! cast into the outer darkness, respectable broken!) are legion. Two or three years At one time or another most A.A. busybodies throw stones at the sinners. ago the Central Office asked the groups Groups go on rule-making benders. As for the so-called sinners, they either to list their membership rules and send Naturally enough, too, as a Group insist on staying around, or else they them in. After they arrived we set them commences to grow rapidly it is form a new Group of their own. Or all down. They took a great many sheets confrontedwith many alarming problems. maybe they join a more congenial and of paper. A little reflection upon these Panhandlers begin to pan-handle. I l s s intolerant crowd in their many rules brought us to an astonishing Members get drunk and sometimes get neighborhood. The Elders soon discover conclusion. If all of these edicts had been others drunk with them. Those with that the rules and regulations aren’t’ in force everywhere at once it would mental difficulties throw depressions or working very well. Most attempts at have been practically impossible for any break out into paranoid denunciations of enforcement generate such waves of alcoholic to have ever joined Alcoholics fellow members. Gossip, gossip, and dissension and intolerance in the Group Anonymous. About nine-tenths of our righteously denounce the local Wolves that this condition is presently recognized oldest and best members could never and Red Riding Hoods. Newcomers to be worse for the Group life than the have got by! arguo that they aren’t alcoholics at all, vary worst that the worst ever did. but keep coming around anyway. After a time fear and intolerance Who’s Have Lasted? “Slipees” trade on the fair name of A.A., subside. The Group survives unscathed. in order to get themselves jobs. Others Everybody has learned a great deal. So In some cases we would have refuse to accept all the 12 Steps of the it is, that few of us are any longer afraid been too discouraged by the demands Recovery Program. Some go still further, of what any newcomer can do to our made upon us. Most of the early saying that the “God business” is bunk A.A. reputation or effectiveness. Those members of A.A. would have been and quite unnecessary. Under these who slip, those who pan-handle, those

who scandalize, those with mental twists, other complications or not. Our A.A. door those who rebel at the program, those stands wide open, and if he passes who ‘trade on the A.A. reputation – all through it and commences to do anything such persons seldom harm an A.A. at all about his problem, he is considered Group for long. Some of these have a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He become our most respected and best signs nothing, agrees to nothing, loved. Some have remained to try our promises nothing. We demand nothing. patience, sober nevertheless. Others He joins us on his own say so. have drifted away. We have begun to Nowadays, in most Groups, he doesn’t regard these ones not as menaces, but even have to admit he is an alcoholic. He rather as teachers. They oblige us to can join A.A. on the mere suspicion that cultivate patience, tolerance and humility. he may be one, that he may already We finally see that they are only people show the fatal symptoms of our malady. sicker than the rest of us, that we who Of course this is not the universal condemn them are the Pharisees whose state of affairs throughout A.A. false righteousness does our Group the Membership rules still exist. If a member deeper spiritual damage. persists in coming to meetings drunk he may be led outside; we may ask Ours Not to Judge someone to take him away. But in most Groups he can come back next day, if Every older A.A. remembers when sober. Though he may be thrown out of he remembers the names of persons he a club, nobody thinks of throwing him out once condemned; people he confidently of A.A. He is a member as long as he predicted would never sober up; persons says he is. While this broad concept of he was sure ought to be thrown out of A.A. membership is not yet unanimous, A.A. for the good of the movement. Now it does represent the main current of A.A. that some of these very persons have thought today. We do not wish to deny been sober for years, and may be anyone his chance to recover from numbered among his best friends, the alcoholism. We wish to be just as oldtimer thinks to himself “What if inclusive as we can, never exclusive. everybody had judged these people as I Perhaps this trend signifies once did? What if A.A. had slammed its something much deeper than a mere door in their faces? Where would they be change of attitude on the question of now?” membership. Perhaps it means that we That is why we all judge the are losing all fear of those violent newcomers less and less. If alcohol is emotional storms which sometimes cross an uncontrolled problem to him and he our alcoholic world; perhaps it bespeaks wishes to do something about it, that is our confidence that every storm will be enough for us. We care not whether his followed by a calm; a calm which is more case is severe or light, whether his understanding, more compassionate, morals are good or bad, whether he has more tolerant than any we even knew before.

Wc’rc Not Origi~inl OCTOBER 1946

One danger which I think we all ueed to be renlincletl of frequently is that of smugness, and I cletcct signs of it all too often in the attitude Lct’s Not Ovcrsell of rpite n few meml~ersregarding the possibility Frona Ilrdiuricrpolis that anyone cvcr got sol~ernlly other way than The way some A.A. mcnllxrs go about the t11rn11gI1A.A. l~i~sinessof recruiting prospects, they come Since I have heen guilty of the same kind ~brctty close to so111r0ing l ika colnlination re- of narrow conceit, I drink I may cnll it lo tho former-eva~~gclists. – In their tlcfense, one slroulcl attention of others. say that it is only thcir g e n t enth~tsiasm for The fact is, of course, that some people have 111c wontlcrf111 tl~ingthey have discovered that attained sobriety througli a great vilriCty 01 leads tl~ctnto excesses in t r y i ~ ~tog spread A.A. other ways. I have known several I ~ c a drillk- ~ ~ 13~1,1)ecause of the damage this kind of be- crs who have just stol)p~tl. It nligl~tI)c t I ~ B ~ l C ~ I havior can cnilsc to A.A. as a whole nnd to the h a t they could~r’t lrnve l)ecr~ulcollolics IJecullsc very indivitluals I)eine “recruited” I think we no one who is really nn ulcol~oliccall just SIOJI. sl~oultl he reminded every now and tl~en that Maybe so, yet tl~csepeople I k~~ow-illrue, to IJB A.A. is not something you sell. It’s not a patent exact-had a11 of the synllllon~sof alcul~olis~n. medicine or n new kind of insurance or nnytlring Other people have quit tlrinkiug i l ~ r o u g l ~ tlrc else that calls for salesmanship. A.A. is a way i ~ ~ f l ~ t e nofc etheir cl~urchcs,some wit11 illc uitl of of life wl~ichone must first of all want l~imself psychintrists and still O L ~ S as t l ~ e rcsl~lt of bcfore Ire 110sany chance of getting it. You can’t great shocks. scll it to him; he has to earn it. Yo11 can’t For me, A.A. was the only way. I Iratl trictl . 1vr~11)i t 1111 in a I)ackoge and l~nndit to him. , I lmt isn’t 111eway you get A.A. everything else. My gratefulness to A.A. is lasting. Yet, I I I O ~I will always Ile able to W h ‘ s worst of all is thnt usiinlly the pros- practice h e tolerance illat A.A. prcscril~cs,SLIT. pect runs the other way, so one^ o r later, when f i c i w ~ l yto admit h a t o l h r 1 h i 1 1I~I ~I ~ I~I C~I ~I I ~ worked on by the sales~nantype.–Bill T. other people. I 11ol)e I will uevcr tlisl,arugc j~sychiatry or religion or s o r n e t l ~ ielse ~~~ siml,ly because one of these t h i n g I~cl~)c(I rile. It seems to me h a t if anyone really lives t l ~ c A.A. p l ~ i l o s o p lIrc ~ ~will always I)e gliltl w1le11 solne drunk solxrs up even if it docs not I ~ u p pen to Le throitgh A.A. I f e d fortunnte tl~at A.A. was my method for the reason t l ~ i ~ t A.A. has so much more to oflcr t11il11 just q t ~ i t t i ~ ~ g the drink. In A.A. that’s only the I)cginnitrg, not tllc end.-1.1’. 13.

OCTOBER 1946

TRUSTEES ISSUE STATEMENT ON FUND RAISING At a special meeting on September 10, 1946, tlie trustees of The Alcolwlic Foundation, tlirougl~their I’olicy Comlnittee, issued the following statement as a press release and a l)ulletin to all A.A. m e n ~ l ~ e r s : 11 It has come lo our u l t e ~ ~ t i oh~ait several local and ~lationalorganizatior~sarc solicitirig cor~tril)utions of 111o11cy from the p111)lic upl)cals and letters C I ~ I tl~rougli p e r s o ~ ~ a l which the puLlic may infer sponsorslrip by Alcol~olics Anonyn~or~s. “Ie view of this fuct, we fcel tliat a restater~~cnt of our policy i l l regc~rilto such 111i1tters is necessary at this time. “No i~~tlivicl~ral or spccial group of i d i vitluuls l ~ n sIwcll or will he uuthorizcd to solicit f u ~ i d sunder h e sponsorsllip or with the sanction of tllc Cel~eral I lcatlq~~artcrs of Alcoliolics Anonymous o r Tlre Alcol~olicF o w clation. 11 In view of h i s policy, Alcoholics Anonymous not only fuils to enclorsc the resent solicitations of f1111dsh t looks with disfavor on the ur~arttliorized use of its name in any fu~~tl rnising uctivity. “A1.COIIOI.ICS ANONYMOUS IJY: ‘I’l~e’I’r~~slcesof l’lw Alcol~olicI ; ‘ o ~ ~ ~ i t l n t i o ~ ~ . “I?ill and Dr. 1101) llave asked us to urge secretaries of all gronl)s to n ~ i ~ k c certuit~ that each nien~beris fonliliar with h e t r a d i t i u ~u~~ i dpolicy of Alcol~olicsA n o ~ l y ~ n o ins ~ s expressed in die lr~rslccs’ statement. P(ecrw retrd il lo your group (11 ~ I I Co r lilore o/ ils I I I C P ~ ~ I I ~ S post ; i t OII the I ) r ~ l l c t i ~ Imartl ~ if pructical.” —

40

NOVEMBER 1946

About Youth Group

From 1’ltilndelpAirc A group of A.A.s has Ixen formed ut I’l~ilutlell~l~ia for men and women, 35 years of nge nntl uritler. This groul) was formed in Jnnw nry, 194.6, with just six mcnihcrs, only three of wl~oniIiatl I)CCII d r y 1111: four ~ n o n ~ h s rcquiretl for votiiig nien~l)ersl~il).This ~ncnil)crsl~il~ 11a.i s i w c I x c r ~exl)o~~tlctl to .~l)outl~irly,11ci1rlyIii11I’ or wlrorn liavc I)CCII dry over four ~nontlip. We were 1111t1crtllc irnl)rcssion wliei~ we I)c- ~ U I II I I ~ S group 111111 wc wcre ~ r u i l l ) l ~ z c irlsl the ficlcl, l)ut rel)orls from some of our visiting A.A.s I)uvc iidicutctl ~ l ~ nit t lius I)ecti tried Id’orc, u l l l ~ o ~ t gwl i~~ hvcry little s~icccss. \ve nrc 11ot sccki~~g 1)io11ccrt:rctlit i n writing h i s lct~cr,IHII ra~hcr,constr~~ctivc criticism. \Ve hope to hear from olher groups l l ~ r o ~ ~ g l ~ theo ~ r t country, giving 11s the 1)enclit of your experience w i ~ hyoung pcol~le and with such orgnnizntions as ours if ~ h c yI~avcI ) c c ~uttcrnplccl. We wcre slow ill p t t i n g sturlecl will1 our gro111)and we ore still proceeding with c a u t i o ~ ~ since i t is opparent thut our nhi/ities lie morc in the reul~iiof prevention than in cure. Mast young people have not h e n hurt I)ntlly e n o ~ g h or often e n o ~ ~ g l i so, tlleY think, to feel that they urc it1 oily i~eetl of whnt we in A.A. hnve to olicr. 11 is fcurctl t l ~ i r t for this rcilsoil wc will experience more t l ~ a n11 normal numlxr of relnj)ses, and tlint our progress will of necessity I)c slow. Ilowever, many of olir Inter meinl)ers huvc u d ~ n i t t c ~ l tI~ut I~ucl it not I)cen for this yo11ng group tllcy wo~ililnot have stuck lo A.A. So, we are doing some good. Let’s I ~ e n rfrom o t l ~ e ~ ‘groups. We w o ~ ~ l d ike your suggestions, ntlvicc, criticism and opinions on wlmt we are trying to do.–B.n.hlc. s

January 1947

Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government? By Bill

The answer to this question is personal authority over anyone else. that can compel an A.A. group to do almost surely “no.” That is the clear Through no sterling virtue, our aversion anything. Some A.A. groups, for version of our experience. to obedience does pretty well guarantee example, elect their leaders. But even To begin with, each A.A. has been us freedom from personal domination of with such a mandate each leader soon an individual who, because of his any kind. discovers that while he can always guide by example or persuasion he can never alcoholism, could seldom govern himself. Nor could any other human being govern Follow Program by Choice boss, else at election time he may find the alcoholic’s obsession to drink, his himself passed by. drive to have things his own way. Time Still, it is a fact that most of us do out of mind, families, friends, employers, follow, in our personal lives, the “12 doctors, clergymen, and judges have Suggested Steps to Recovery.” But we tried their hand at disciplining alcoholics. do this from choice. We prefer recovery No Place for Dictators! Almost without exception the failure to to death. Then, little by little, we perceive accomplish anything by coercion has that the spiritual basis of life is the best. The majority of A.A. groups do not been complete. Yet we alcoholics can be We conform because we want to. even choose leaders. They prefer led, we can be inspired, coming into A.A. Likewise, most A.A. groups rotating committees to handle their we can, aqd we gladly do, yield to the become willing to follow the “Twelve affairs. These committees are invariably will of God. Hence it is not strange that Points of Tradition to Assure Our Future.” regarded as servants – they have only the only real authority to be found in A.A. The groups are willing to avoid the authorization to serve, never to is that of Spiritual Principle. It is never controversy over outside issues such as command. Each committee carries out personal authority. politics, reform or religion; they stick to what it believes to be the wishes of its Our unreasonable individualism their single purpose of helping alcoholics group. That is all. Though A.A. (egocentricity if you like) was, of course, to recover; they increasingly rely on self committees used to try to discipline the main reason we all failed in life and support rather than outside charity. More wayward members, though they have betook ourselves to alcohol. When we and more do they insist on modesty and sometime composed minute rules and couldn’t coerce others into conformity anonymity in their public relations. The regulations and now and then have set with our own plans and desires, we A.A. groups follow these other traditional themselves up as judges of other drank. When others tried to coerce us, principles for the very same reason that people’s personal morals, I know of no we also drank. Though now sober, we the individual A.A. follows the “12 Steps case where any of these seemingly still have a strong hangover of these to Recovery.” Groups see they would worthy strivings had any lasting effect early traits which caused us to resist disintegrate if they didn’t and they soon except, perhaps the election of a brand authority. Therein probably hangs a clue discover that adherence to our tradition new committee! to our lack of personal government in and experience is the foundation for a Surely I can make these A.A.: no fees, no dues, no rules and happier and more effective group life. assertions with the greatest of regulations, no demand that alcoholics Nowhere in A.A. is there to be confidence. For in my own turn I, too, conform to A.A. principles, no one set in seen any constituted human authority have tried a hand at governing A.A. Each time I have strenuously tried it I have

f.;

. been shouted down; so loudly, in-fact, their days of playing “Pharisee” are now authority to govern Alcoholics that on several occasions it looked as over. So those little maxims, “Easy does Anonymous. though I was due for swift and certain it” – “Live and let live” have come to be That Such centers of service, excommunication! deeply meaningful and significant to them international, national, metropolitan area Sitting at a desk in our Central and to me. In such fashion each of us or local, will be sufficient for the future, I Office I often watch the incoming floods learns that, in A,A., one can be a servant can have no doubt. So long as we avoid of personal, group and intergroup only. any menacing accumulation of wealth or problems as, they flow in. The tide has Here at the Central Office we have the growth of personal government at been rising so fast of late that each long known that we can merely supply these centers, we cannot go astray. morning’s mail brings us an avalanche certain indispensable services. We can While wealth and authority lie at the invariably containing at least one very supply information and literature; we can foundation of many a noble institution, critical problem from some place or other usually tell how the majority of A.A.’s feel we of A.A. now apprehend, and in the world. The A.A. Central Office has about our current problems; we can thoroughly well, that these things are not become a hot spot; so hot; indeed, that assist new groups to start, giving advice for us. Have we not found that one man’s a “crisis” a day is getting to be routine. if asked; we can look after the overall meat is often another man’s poison? Once upon a time my temptation A.A. public relations, we can sometimes Shall we not do well, if instead, we was to take a strong position on every mediate difficulties. Similarly, the editors can cling in some part to the brotherly one of these problems, to exert every bit of our monthly journal, The A.A. ideals of the early Franciscans? Let all of of pressure and authority that I could Grapevine, believe themselves simply a us A.A.s, whether we be trustees, mirror of current A.A. life and thought. bring to bear, to write hot letters telling editors, secretaries, janitors or cooks – or Serving purely as such, they cannot rule erring groups or individuals where to just members – ever recall the head in. At such moments, I used to be or propagandize. So, also, the Trustees unimportance of wealth and authority as convinced that A.A. needed a strong of the Alcoholic Foundation (our A.A. compared with the vast import of our personal government – someone, for general service committee) know brotherhood, love and service. example, like myself! themselves to be simple custodians, After struggling a few years to run custodians who guarantee the the A.A. movement I had to give it up – it effectiveness of the A.A. Central Office simply didn’t work. Heavy handed and The A.A. Grapeheand who are the assertion of my personal authority always repository of our general funds and created confusion and resistance. If I traditions – caretakers only. took sides in a controversy, I was joyfully quoted by some, while others murmured, Service Center Only “And just who does this dictator think he is?” If I sharply criticized, I usually got It is most clearly apparent that, double criticism on the return bounce. even here at the very center of A.A., Personal power always failed. I can see there can only exist a center of service my older A.A. friends smiling. They are . custodians, editors, secretaries and the recalling those times when they too, felt like – each, to be sure, with a special vital function, but none of them with any I a mighty call to “save the A.A. movement” from something or other. But

MARCH 1947

011 the Subject o f Drugs, by One Who ‘Iltrok LO rI’l~elii

Let’s Fnce the Prol~lcn~ Itegortllees of 111e merit of a single code of The ~ o t o l1)rcokclorvn of folse pride is a dras- mare tlegraclation o t t o r ~ ~ eloc ~l h i r I I W I ~ I Ihnvconchct, two codes of conduct still prevoil in ~ i cprocwlu~c. ‘I’l~c vcry ~)resenccof tta won1c11 ing drunk to cxccss. l l ~ ecn~otionol,if not 111c intellect~~nl,rnokc-up nlcol~olicsin A.A. n~cnnsthat at some time we It must be inq)rcs.qed on the olcol~olic~ h o to of the world ot Iorgc. The t l r ~ ~ n k e a woniau is hovc I ~ c dlo lc:~go 111c lost vestige of tl~utfolsc takc ony form of serlotion is t l y n n ~ ~ ~ ifor tc I h . morc clcspisecl oncl for lcas tolcrntcd IIIUII the prick. or her. In my o p i n i o ~ ~ the olcol~olicis t l ~ cpodr1111kc11 IIIOII.

I)cc.cit, rcscntlnc~~l, intolcroncc O I ~ fnlsc pride The pcoce, joy, self-reslwct and the respect of I ~ c rfamily ond conitnucrity are large rewords . tential setlutive or drug oclclict. , 1 IICSC tricky little pills IIIZIL ltri11~ IIIOIIICII~~II~ arc p r c v o l c ~ ~int h e overage wontun nlcol~olic. ,. l h c tvomnn olcol~olic110s for years or niontl~s, SIIC finds t11rougI1 A.A.’s way of life and amply surccusc are vnlt~cc l ~ a ~ ~ g c r a\Vc . strivc f o ~u new sct of valucs w11c11 wc dry up, 11sing I I W rcqmy lwr Tor oll 111e initial cloul)t, [cur ond as lhe case lnoy bc, tried to hide I ~ c rollliction ro~~sciencc us n yurtls~ick.’l’lwr~ it s ~ m d sto 1c.u. from fo~nily,f riends, grocers, butclwrs, lountlry- trepidation. I would like to discuss a problem pertinent son tl~atwe IIIIISI I)(! in f ~ l l(:o111ro1or o t ~ rCIIWI- IIICII,rrpoirnien, and the host of pcoplc with lies if we wont to Itrogrcss. Wc nrc only i l l c o ~ n . to 1)oth the man and wonlon alcoholic-seclowl~oni hcr pursuit of doily nlloirs tl~rowsl ~ c r plcte control WIICII we orc using o t ~ rI ) r u i ~ ~ins lives ond norcotics. inlo contact. I)eception has been R ncces.4ty! full conscio~tsnc:ss. ‘I’l~c sctli~~ivc III:IS uport 111c l)ccep~ionhas Lecomc o major hobi t l There- I wo~~ltl venture to say one-third of t l ~ ememlrers of the group have hod some experience h o i n in t l ~ csnnic ~ l ~ c o r c ~ i c IoI l~,I I I O I I ~ I Imarc fore, i t is exlrcmcly clillicult to meet this group subtle, way thut olcol~olcloca. oncl sucltlenly realize tlmt complete honesty wit11 I~nrl)ituroteso r norcotics. This subject sccn~st a h o for the new man-and some not We ore nworc of the j)crsonolity cl~nngelhot ~nconsvcry existence-complete honesty meon- took plocc oltcr taking n few tlrinks-wc know ing 111c oltility to I J ~enlirely honest with one’s so new-who feels thot to admit attraction to our r c s o l u ~ i o ~ ~ wcnt s out the wintlow and our sclf os well os one’s fellow man. It is diIlicult- scclntivcs s l ~ o ~ dbe d either forgotten o r ignored. scnsc of vulucs wos no l o ~ ~ g ch rc sctn~c. SO it h t it is o requisite in h i s way of life. I think the mon or woman with any acquointis with t l ~ csedotivc and t~arcotict~scr. I)rugs once with I I I ~host of sedatives o r norcotics- Ilcscnln~ct~t ond intoleruncc ore also major cl~onget l ~ cwhole tl~ougl~t process o l on i d nctnl~r~tol,~ocliurn-o~nytol, aeconol, pl~cno-borl~icl~oroctcristics to be eliminated, but in my viduul. For cvcry ulcol~olic IIIC scclutivc o r tnl, coclcine, m o r p l h c , pontopotr and Innny opinion the cli~ninotionof tl~csetraits is o slow nnrcolic is d u n g c r o q Imt to IIIC rtlcol~olicwlm otl~crs-sl~orrld hy all means bo perfectly frank nncl cons~ontprocess. The eight-ycor ossociotc, al)out nsing or l~ovingused them. There is no 110s ot ony time used cilher lo any exlcnt, it is os well os the two- non nth ossociole, is conslanlly l o n l u n i o ~ r ~to~ lsuicide for h i n ~or 11cr lo rcsort striving to overcome old or new rescntn~cnls to scdotion. and to m o i n t o i ~ ~ on ottitut~e ontl ~woclice of I’eoplc hove soid to rnc, .”My doctor prcloleraticc. acribcd this sedative for rny nerves, ~ l ~ c r c f o ritc nlust I)c 011 right for n ~ cto tokc it.” My onswer

~ ~lh(: ~ h r o i :o~f ~ m r c o l i c l o scc 11 f ~ : l l o c v – l ~ c : i till o r scc1111ivc nKolly 111c i ~ ~ c x ~ ~ c r i cn~l c~ocl ~cot lli c ~ot~ltl IMW IO I~t:rsot~nlk ~ ~ o c v l c t l pt 😮 d r a w on ant1 l l ~ c r e f o r chick 1116very q u a l i t y l h a t lh r h g l l t l t l i l : ~ l l ( ! ~ l ~ ~ – – ~ – l l l ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ l \ l ,l ~ ~ i ~ ~ & .

Wo a l l f~:cl I I I f~c l l o w s l ~ i p tllat conics from IIIIIIIIII~~ ~ ~ ~ t l c r so~f a ~ ~ d i ~ g problem, IIIII~II~~ and s1w:ih: i l l ~ ~ ( : s os r t:~~~t:rgtw:y. K t * t q ~i n III~III~ I 111ink ~ l m tC~III~I I)ontl worlld LC l a c k i n g IIC- IIIUL the: rlc.cqr;igc: cloc.~or l t r ~ sIIIWI ;it wits’ otcJ twccn t l ~ ep r i l l l n r y nlcoltolic ancl l i t c p r i r ~ ~ n r y f o r y ( x r s 11wli11~ wi111i ~ l c o l ~ o l i sUIIII ~ i~s ~IISII~II~ (1r11gw l ~ l i c ~ . o n l y l o o K l m l III 11vi1r fro111 UII A.A. IVIIII 11114 1 d o n o t f o r orlc III~IIICII~ I ~ c l i c v cthnt Alcos e l f – k t t o w l ~ v l p ::ii111 i ~ i f o r ~ i t i t ~ 10i e ~ ~ i11111nrt. ~ 11olir.s AIIVI~~IIIO~IS p r i i ~ c i p l e scall o n l y IIC tttil- I f 1 SOIIIIII ( l i c ~ i ~ ~ o v i1i ~ l , II~IVC 11o1 ICUI! Id ixctl 1 1 c~~ l c ~ o l ~ o l i c s1 . c n ~ u r o tt l ~ i ~01~ k any pcr- SOH ill n t ~ ys i ~ t ~ n l~ ~IIIIIII oi o ~ ~ ~ C12 Slc11s wortld 1101 h r i l l g gI'(‘i11 1:0lllfOl.1 111111 i l ~ ~ ~ ~ i i l f i1 ~1 l0 l ~. cvcr, 1 h l i c v c 11111t l o IIC 111os1 cflcclivc t l ~ c r e IISL I j c s i ~ n i l a rc x l ~ c r i e ~ l c c s slmrctl similar recoveries o r n r r c s l r t ~ c : ~ ~l los scrvc as cxur~ly)lca. I f n t any time Ican s l ~ a r c111y e x l ~ e r i c ~ ~ c c will1 a n ~ i yoilc or yo11 w11o 11na liacl h i 8 11rol1lc111perw t ~ n l l ~o ,r i s s p t ~ s o r i t ~ g sorltcnrtc ~ v i ~al iscdarivc or n u r c o ~ i c p r o l ) l c n ~ ,’my l i t n c i s yours.hfnry 111.

l ‘ c o l ~ l r 11.k \rl~c.~l~c A.A. r is 1l1c answer for I IIIII~II. I,o f course, atn 1101 q ~ ~ n l i h c c lol a t v w c r Il1i11 ~II~SI~IIII, IIIII~i n IY opi11i011, A.Ad i s 1101 h t : specific f o r 11 p r i m a r y t l r ~ ~ g acltlict, l h is, 1 h IlIitll o r IVO~I~III wi111 110 history 01 a l c o l ~ o l i s ~ I~ I~ .m c m y opinio11 011 h i s j)rc111ise6 Wc, as o l ~ : o l ~ o l i c s ,hnvc t l ~ ccomnion bond o f pnl1cr11 c x l ~ c : r i c ~ ~ c cp ,l l c r t ~I ) c l ~ a v i o rant1 pat/’ t c r u Iccovrry o r u r r t : s l ~ ~ ~ c :o~u~ t ;he olhcr 11nnch i f IIICulc:ol~c~lic: will1 11o (IIII~ h i s l o r y wcrc c a l l e l1

MARCH 1947

llir~l~i~ nntl~ gg r o w i ~ ~pg i n s l ~ n v eI ~ r o l ~ n l r l y I”or 111c first five t n o ~ ~ l hosf t l ~ ol i f e o f h i s r o w i t ~ g ” IIIIPII~Y 11) SOIIW 1111 1111. Wt: IIIIV(: 11nd tlcver hecn more acute n d evitlent i n any A.A. ~ncctings wcrc I ~ c l c l ill n g r w p ~wit:c~wcckl~ mcml)ers work on o h : r ~ ~ ~ c n d ~ orc r s III.OS~I(:~IS

gro1111ill the c o ~ l n l r yt l ~ n ntl~oseexl~criencctlI l y c:onfc*ro~lcc room grnciortsly tlonotccl by tlw III~ ~~iglrt for w l ~ i r h IIII~ IVI!~V IIII~ IIIII~ the I ‘ r ~ s c o t t(;roll11 whicll wns stortccl l i t t l e more ~ n n ~ ~ a g c m co fn tn V e t e r a ~ ~ s Aclministrntion 110s- IIIII r ~ r ~ i t r d d rvi111 IIIC g~n1i1II& d IIIIISUtltvy pili11. 1 h r i 1 1 ~no st o f l h i s titnc Inort! or I ~ C s o l l g l l ~l o III!~~, Ill11 IIII~~ \vc!rt! 11111 l!r1~*Il rr\vllrll~d IIIL’IIII)~:~~cotno fro111 the I ~ o s l ~ i t a lc, i t l ~ e r put i c n ~ s or c~nplopccs, t l ~ a n f r o m the l o r w of I’rcscolt two tniles distnnt. F o r o1)vious rcnsons i t wns clccmecl rleccssnry l o cl~n~rgt:111c ~ n e e t i n gplocc to tllc torrw and f o r some weeks p s t now ~ncetingsl ~ n v cI)ccn l ~ e l t l i n tllc snniple room o f n locnl Ilotel. l’l~is move l ~ n sso f a r just n h u t wiped out our VA nwm- I~crsl~i~~ I~ecnrlse , o f personnl and other rcnsolls, 1111t 111c: Inovc: is s t i l l I~clicvcclwisc nncl unc that to w i l l Ilrorrc morc I ~ c ~ l c t i c i innl the l o n g ~IIII nwst ~ w o p l c . \Ve lmvc l ~ n dtile problems o f pcrsonnlities, who III~II l ~ n v ecleclarecl that h e y were out as ns c e r ~ n i notllers rcmainccl. We Ilnvc: l ~ o c l IIIII~ IIIC~ w o l ~ l c no~f stllosc who c l i m l d abonrcl ~ l l c I ~ n ~ ~ t l w n gfoo rn IIICo h v i o ~ ~psl ~ r p o s co f ” l ~ o r –

MARCH 1947 Is It Rcally Anonymous? Wants Anonymity Protected From Winter llaven,Fla. From Jersey City,N.J. A very interesting story appeared in a local The eneloseti cippagiron tne Jersey Jour. paper reccently, outlining a talk given to one mul,reporting a talk given by an A.A. who money than I had hadl since I was 13 ycars old, ofour men’s clubs by a member of the Tampa dropped his anonymity publicly and allowed his whiclh would havc given me an cxccllent cxcuse A.A.Croup.We have a friend whom we feel name to be published) caused quite a bit of to resumc drinking.I have always thought that is just about ripe, and while I have not been coinnent around these parts.Is he a fanatic or the devil had his crack al me then. Thank God, personally associated with the movement, I have is he running for dog catcher?We’re all proud I had llis hclp when I asked for it,and now heard enough good things about it to recormmend to be members of A.A.but honestly hope there have at long last, aftcr over five years, with it highly.to hitn. The biggest bridge he has to will not he a flood of these people to drown the patien,persevering eflor, locatcd my positin cross is that alnission of being an alcoholic,as effectiveness of A.A.—B.B. in the lusiness world again.What Iam getting I imagine it is for most people in his position. at is that thc devil not only works with us per. The man may have a lot of false pride,but who sonally,but works to destroy our groups,and ainong us lasn’t to soine degree and in soine Agrees Politics Are Dangerous whcn tiat lappens we must rencw our eforts respects? Naturally,that came to the fore when he read the article which Ihad just skimmed, From Detroit,Mich. loswing hcavily lothe spiritualside of the for it named two menbers of the Tampa Group, Just readt Bill’s artirele in thc January A.A. program. Graperinc under the caption,”Win A. A. Ever We must always remcmber that the saints of thereby giving him a fine argument against my IHavc a ‘ersonal Government?” Belicve me,that God were morc scvcrely tempted than others exhortations that A.A.was all the name implied. is one of lhe fincst and most timely mcssnges during thcir lives,sowhy should we cxpect,afer Is this a new policy? If so, as an outsider, I that we A. A.s couldl get at this time. our drinking and lcing alcoholics,beconing. feel that it will sct a good many people back Our expcriencc herc and elsewherc has taught sane,soher and truly happy thru A.A.,tofnd u long strelch. From all I’ve ever heard or read, us what you so conciscly point out lo us in this a royal road to success in it? Wc arc always that has been one of your strongest selling article. going lo have our trialsnnd troublcs and tough points,and it’s leen one of the refreshingly dif. llere’s another thought along the samc lincs. tasks to mcel, but with A.A., wc have so much crent tlhings alout your movement. In small When we were drinking heavily we were in the morc with which to mcct thcm. It has given us towns anonymity is a hard thing to maintain, hands,in my opinion, of John Barleycorn and courage to overcome ohstaclcs rather thanletting but the public print tears away any semblance the devil. When we went into A.A., with God’s the ohstacles ovcrcomc us-L.L. of it, and scares people who are still trying toput up any front for the sakeof their families help,we went dry,but the devil is not going to and jols. Mayle this isn’ a moot question,but give us up so casily. ln my own casc, for insecing the names linked to A.A. surprised me. slancc, during my frst year in A. A., I had less –J.K.

March 1947

Dangers In Linking A.A. to Other Projects

By Bill

must preserve our isolation at any cost; But the average A.A. is not so worried Our A.A. experience has been that we must keep absolutely to about these phenomena as he used to raising the following set of important, but ourselves if we would avoid like perils. be. He knows that out of the heat and as yet unresolved questions. First, should Then we have the A.A.s who smoke there will soon come light. A.A. as a whole enter the outside fields would have us “do everything” for the Presently there will issue an enlightened of hospitalization, research and non- total alcoholic problem – anytime, policy, palatable to everyone. Tested by controversial alcohol education? Second, anyplace and any way! In his time, that policy, if sound, will become is an A.A. member, acting strictly as an enthusiasm, he not only thinks his A.A. Tradition. individual, justified in bringing his spe,cial beloved A.A. a “cure-all” for drunks, but Sometimes I’ve feared that A.A. experience and knowledge into such he also thinks we have the answer for would never bring forth a workable enterprise? And thirdly, if an A.A. everything and everybody touching policy. Nor was my fear abated as my member does take up these phases of alcohol. He strongly feels that A.A. ought own views swung, with complete the total alcohol problem, under what to place its name and financial credit inconsistency from one extreme to the conditions should he work? squarely behind any first rate research, other. But I should have had more faith. With respect to these questions, hospital or educational project. Seeing We are commencing to have enough of almost any opinion can be heard among that A.A. now makes the headlines, he the strong light of experience to see our groups. Generally speaking, there argues that we should freely loan out our more surely; to be able to say with more are three schools of thought, the “do huge good will. Says he, :Why shouldn’t certainty what we can, and what we everything” school; the “do something” we A.A.s stand right up in public and be cannot do, about causes such as school; and, the “do nothing” school. counted? Millions could be raised easily education, research and the like. We have A.A.s so fearful we may for good works in alcohol.” The judgment For example, we can say quite become entangled, or somehow of this enthusiast is sometimes emphatically that neither A.A. as a whole exploited, that they would keep us a beclouded by the fact he wants to make nor any A.A. Group ought to enter any strictly closed corporation. They would a career. But with most who enthuse so other activity than straight A.A. As exert the strongest possible pressure to carelessly, I’m sure it’s more often a case groups, we cannot endorse, finance or prevent all A.A.s, whether as individuals of sheer exuberance plus, in many form an alliance with any other cause, or groups, from doing anything at all instances, a deep sense of social however good; we cannot link the A.A. about the total alcohol problem, except, responsibility. name to other enterprises in the alcohol of course, their straight A.A. work. hey field to the extent that the public gets the see the spectre of the Washingtonian Policy Now Clear impression we have abandoned our sole movement among alcoholics of a aim. We must discourage our members hundred years ago which fell into disunity So we have with us the and our friends in these fields from partly because its members publicly.took enthusiasts and the ultra-cautious; the stressing the A.A. name in their publicity up cudgels for abolition, prohibition – and “do everything” and the “do Nothings.” or appeals for funds. To act otherwise what not. These A.A.s believe that we

i, -* will certainly imperil our unity, and to general public they will not describe publicity and many members. On the maintain our unity is surely our greatest themselves as A.A.s; that they will refrain educational side the public was made obligation – to our brother alcoholics and from emphasizing their A.A. status in conscious as never before that the public at large. Experience, we think, appeals for money or publicity. alcoholism is a sickness and that has already made these principles self- These simple principles of something could be done about it. So far, evident. conduct, ifconscientiously applied, could very good. Though we now come to more soon dispel all fears, reasonable and But of late, some confusion has debatable ground, we must earnestly ask unreasonable, which many A.A.s now arisen. Because of the large amount of ourselves whether any of us, as entertain. On such a basis, A.A. as a publicity linking the A.A. name and that individuals, ought to carry our special whole could remain uncommitted yet of the educational project, the public experience into other phases of the friendly to any non-controversial cause tends to think A.A. as a whole has gone alcohol problem. Do we not owe this seeking to write a brighter page in the much to society, and can it be done dark annals of alcoholism. in for alcohol education. And when the without involving A.A. as a whole? A concluding word. Several years A.A. name became associated in the To my mind the “do nothing” ago, I believed that we might, in a limited public mind with a fund raiding campaign, policy has become unthinkable, partly and cautious way, lend our name to there was still more confusion. Some because I’m sure that our members can selected outside ventures. One of these givers were under the impression they work in other non-controversial alcohol was a very promising educational project. were contributing to A.A., only to be told activities without jeopardizing A.A. if they I was asked by the faculty members of by friends that A.A. did not solicit money. observe a few simple precautions, and Yale University sponsoring the National Hence a long-term liability of dropping partly because I have developed a seep Committee for Education on Alcoholism anonymity is beginning to offset its shortconviction that to do less would be to whether they might hire an A.A. And term advantages. As experience makes -deprive the whole society of the could that A.A., for this special purpose, this more clear, not only to me, but to my immensely valuable contributions we break anonymity? My answer was that of friends of the university and of the could almost certainly make. Though we course an A.A. could be engaged; that educational committee, they agree are A.A.s, and A.A. must come first, we such an engagement could not, by any perfectly and are now endeavouring to are also citizens of the world. Besides, imagination, be a professionalization of correct the situation. we are, like our good friends the A.A. as the work to be done would be in Naturally, the most earnestly, I physicians, honorbound to share all we another field entirely; that if an A.A. could hope that none of those involved or the know with all men. make a better educator, then why not? work of the committee will suffer to any Though there has never been much degree from our mistake. Such, after all, We’re A.A.s First question that this was sound enough is the purpose of trial and error by which policy, the same could not be said for my we all learn and grow. Therefore it seems to me that reply on the matter of dropping Briefly summarizing, I’m rather some of us must heed the call from other anonymity, to which, in this instance, I sure our policy with respect to “outside” fields. And those who do need only gave approval. projects will turn out to be this: A.A. does remember first and last they are A.A.s; That of course has since proved not sponsor projects in other fields. But, that in their new activities they are mistaken. A good friend of mine took this if these projects are constructive and individuals only. This means that they will particular post and then dropped non-controversial in character, A.A. respect the principle of anonymity in the anonymity. The first effect was good. It members are free to engage in them press; that if they do appear before the brought A.A. a considerable amount of without criticism if they act as individuals only, and are careful of the A.A. name. Perhaps that’s it. Shall we try it?

April 1947

Clubs In A.A. – Are They With Us fo Stay?

The club idea has become part of clubs degenerating into mere hangouts, When A.A. was very young we A.A. life. Scores of these hospitable even “joints;” they stress the bickerings met in homes. People came miles, not havens can report years of useful that do arise over questions of money, only for the A.A. meeting itself, but to sit service; new ones are being started management, and personal authority; hours afterward at coffee, cake, and monthly. Were a vote taken tomorrow on they are afraid of “incidents” that might eager intimate talk. Alcoholics and their the desirability of clubs a sizeable give us unfavorable publicity. In short, families had been lonely too long. majority of A.A.s would record a they “view with alarm.” Thumbs down on Then homes became too small. resounding “yes.” There would be clubs, they say. We couldn’t bear to break up into many thousands who would testify that they little meetings, so we looked for a larger might have had a harder time staying Need for Clubs Established place. We lodged first in the work shop sober in their first months of A.A. without of a tailoring establishment, then in a clubs and that, in any case, they would Toward a middle ground, for rented room in Steinway Hall. This kept always wish the easy contacts and warm several years now, we have been feeling us together during the meeting hour. friendships which clubs afford. our way. Despite alarms it is quite settled Afterward we held forth at a cafeteria, but Being the majority view, we might that A.A.s who need and want clubs something was missing. It was the home suppose that a blanket endorsement for ought to have them. So the real concern atmosphere; a restaurant didn’t have clubs; we might think we couldn’t get is not whether we shall have them. So enough of it. Let’s have a club, someone along without them. We might conceive the real concern is not whether we shall said. So we had a club. We took over an . them as a central A.A. institution – a sort have clubs. It is how we shall enhance interesting place, the former Artists and of “13th Stepu of our Recovery Program them as assets, how we may diminish Illustrators Club on West 24th Street. without which the other 12 Steps wouldn’t their known liabilities; how we shall be What excitement! A couple of our older work. At times club enthusiasts will act sure, in the long future, that their members signed the lease. We painted as though they really believed we could liabilities so not exceed their assets. and scrubbed. We had a home. handle our alcohol problems by club life Of our four largest A.A. centers, Wonderful memories of days and nights alone. They are apt to depend upon two are club-minded and two are not. I at that first club will always linger. clubs rather than upon the A.A. Program. happen to live in one which is. The very But, it must be admitted, not all But we have A.A.s, rather a strong first A.A. club of all was started in New those memories are ecstatic. Growth minority, too, who want no part of clubs. York. Though our experience here may brought headaches; growing pains, we Not only, they assert, does the social life not have been the best, it is the one I call them now. How serious they seemed of a club often divert the attentions of . know. So, by way of portraying the then! “Dictators” ran amuck; drunks fell members from the program, they claim principles and problems we need to on the floor or disturbed the meetings, that clubs are an actual drag on A.A. discuss, I shall use it, as an average “steering committees” tried to nominate progress. They point to the danger of illustration of club evolution, rather than their friends to succeed them and found as a model set-up. to their dismay that even sober drunks 50

couldn’t be “steered.” Sometimes we For example, the early Manhattan Club they at least might want to pay the could scarcely get up the rent; cBrd A.A. Club had members from every salary of its secretary. She was really players were impervious to any section of the metropolitan area, doing an “area” job. Surely this was a suggestion that they talk to new people; including New Jersey. After a while reasonable request. But it never got lady secretaries got in each others’ hair. dozens of groups sprang up in our anywhere. They just couldn’t mentally A corporation was formed to take over suburban districts. They got themselves separate the “area security” from the the clubroom lease so we then had more convenient meeting places. Our Manhattan Club. So, for a long time, our “officials.” Should these “directors” run Jersey friends secured a club of their area needs, our common A.A. problem, the club or would it be the A.A. rotating own. So these outlying groups, originally and our club management were tied into committee? spawned from the Manhattan Clubhouse, a trying financial and psychological snarl. Such were our problems. We began to acquire hundreds of members found that the use of money, the need who were not tied to Manhattan either by Clubs Separate Business for a certain amount of club organization convenience, inclination or oldtime and the crowded intimacy of the place sentiment. They had their own local A.A. This tangle slowly commenced to created situations we hadn’t anticipated friends, their own convenient gathering unravel, as we began to get the idea that . Club life still had great joys. But it had places. They weren’t interested in clubs ought to be strictly the business of liabilities too, that was for sure. Was it Manhattan. those individuals who specially want worth all the risk and trouble? The This irked us New Yorkers not a clubs, and who are willing to pay for answer was “Yes” for the 24th Street little. Since we had nurtured them, why them. We began to see that club Club kept right on going, and is today shouldn’t they be interested? We were management is a pure business occupied by the A.A. seamen. We have, puzzled why they refused to consider the proposition which ought to be separately besides, three more clubs in this area, a Manhattan Club the A.A. Center for the incorporated under another name such, fourth is contemplated. metropolitan area. Wasn’t the club for example, as “Alanon;” that the running a central meeting with speakers “directors” of a club corporation ought to Start As Central Function from other groups? Didn’t we maintain a look after club business only; that an paid secretary who sat in the New York A.A. group, as such, should never get Our first club was known, of Clubhouse taking telephone calls for into active management of a business course, as an “A.A. Clubhouse.” The assistance and making hospital project. Hectic experience has since corporation holding its lease was titled arrangements for all groups in the area? taught us that if an A.A. rotating “Alcoholics Anonymous of New York, Of course, we thought, our outlying committee tries to boss the club Inc.” Only later did we realize we had groups ought financially to support the corporation or if the corporation tries to incorporated the whole of New York Manhattan Club; dutiful children should run the A.A. affairs of those groups who State, a mistake recently rectified. Of look after their “parents.” But our parental may meet at the club there is difficulty at course our incorporation should have pleas were no use. Though many once. he only way we have found to cure covered “24th Street” only. Throughout outlying A.A. members personally this is to separate the material from the the country most clubs have started like contributed to the 24th Street Club, nary spin’tual. If an A.A. group wishes to use ours did. At first we regarded them as a cent did their respective groups ever a given club let them pay rent or split the central A.A. institutions. But later send in. meeting take with the club management. experience invariably brings a shift in Then we took another tack. If the To a small group opening its first their status, a shift much to be desired, outlying groups would not support the clubroom this procedure may seem silly we now think.

because, for the moment, the. group as the main center of a city many a club groups of an area will usually support members will also be club members. moves to larger and larger quarters, with group funds these truly central Nevertheless separation by early thinking to retain the central meeting for activities. Even though the club is still incorporationis recommendedbecause it its area within its own walls. Finally, large enough for intergroup meetings and will save much confusion later on as however, circumstances defeat this these meetings are still held, the center other groups start forming in the area. purpose. of gravity for the area will continue to Questions are often asked: “Who shift to the intergroup committee and its elects the business directors of a club?” Valuable Social Aids central activities. The club is left definitely And “Does club membership differ from outside; where, in the opinion of many, it A.A. membership?” As practices vary we Circumstance number one is that should be. Actively supported and don’t quite know the answers yet. The the growing A.A. will burst the walls of managed by those who want clubs, they most reasonable suggestions seem any clubhouse. Sooner or later the can be “taken or left alone.” these: Any A.A. member ought to feel principal or central meeting has to be Should these principles be fully free to enjoy the ordinary privileges of moved into a large auditorium. The club applied to our clubs, we shall have any A.A. club whether he makes a can’t hold it. This is a fact which ought to placed ourselves in a position to enjoy regular voluntary contribution or not. If he be soberly contemplated whenever we their warmth yet drop any that get too contributes regularly he should, in think or buying or building large hot. We shall then realize that a club is addition, be entitled to vote in the clubhouses. A second circumstance but a valuable social aid. And, more business meetings which elect the seems sure to leave most clubs in an “off important still, we shall always preserve business directors of his club corporation. center” position, especially in large cities. the simple A.A. group as that primary This would open all clubs to all A.A.s. That is our strong tendency toward spiritual entity whence issues our But it would limit their business conduct central or intergroup committee greatest strength. to those interested enough to contribute management of the common A.A. regularly. In this connection we might problems of metropolitan areas. Every remind ourselves that in A.A. we have no area, sooner or later, realizes that such fees or compulsory dues. But it ought to concerns as intergroup meetings, be added, of course, that since clubs are hospital arrangements, local public becoming separate and private ventures relations, a central office for interviews they can be run on other lines if their and information, are things in which members insist. every A.A. is interested, whether he has Club evolution is also telling us any use for clubs or not. These being this: In none but small communities are strictly A.A. matters, a central or clubs likely to remain the principal intergroup committee has to be elected centers of A.A. activity. Originally starting and financed to look after them. The

May 1947

Adequate Hospita/katiotioOne Great Need

Despite the general effectiveness extremely conducive to a good first recovered on the spot or later came back of the A.A. program we often need the presentation of A.A. The vary fact that he and found their sobriety. help of friendly agencies outside A.A. has now landed in a hospital impresses This careful and considerate Nowhere is this more strikingly the new man with the seriousness of his attention can nowhere be better given true than in the field of hospitalization. situation. If he has gone there voluntarily than in the confines of a hospital. More Most of us feel that ready access to (which should be the case if at all and more, A.A. groups are adopting the hospitals and other places of rest and , possible) he usually regards idea of “sponsorship.” Each newcomer is recuperation borders on the absolute hospitalization as the actual beginning of assigned a reasonably stable A.A. necessity. While many an alcoholic has his sobriety. It puts, as it were, a “period member whose ward he becomes during somehow got over his bender without to his drinking. It is an admission that he his brief period of introduction to our way medical aid, and while a few of us hold needs help; that his drinking is out of of life. The “sponsor” helps make hospital the view that the hard “cold turkey” control; that he cannot do the job alone. arrangements, takes his man there, visits method is the best, the vast majority of Often enough, hospitalizationis the event him frequently and sees that he is visited A.A.s believe the newcomer whose case that beautifully clears his path to by other A.A.s whose experience might is at all serious has a much better acceptance of that all important 1st Step: be specially helpful. Hence a prospect so chance of making the grade if well handled has received a powerful shot of hospitalized at the outset. Indeed we see We admifled we wen? pwedess over A.A. and a good preview of what our many cases where recoveries without a/cohd that our /jves had bncomc society is like before he ever goes to a medical help would seem virtually unma~eable.” meeting. At the hospital he has time to impossible, mentally so beclouded have soberly think through his situation, read With each passing year we they become, even when temporary our literature and exchange impressions increasingly realize the immense sober. with other alcoholics who are going importance of adequately presenting the program to every new prospect who is in through the same process. Contrast this . Aids Receptivity with the frequent situation in which, for the least inclined to listen. Many of us feel this to be our greatest obligation to lack of hospitalization, the sponsor has to The primary purpose of try to “taper off” his prospect at home or him and our failure to do so our greatest hospitalizationis not to save our prospect drag him, half dazed, to an A.A. meeting dereliction. The difference between a the pain of getting sober; its real purpose where the new man proceeds to get a lot good approach and a bad one can mean is to place him in the state of greatest of confused impressions or unfounded life or death to those who seek our help. possible receptivity to our A.A. program. principles. While many of us have made We have seen excellent prospects who Medical treatment clears his brain, takes our first contact with A.A. under these receive nothing but our brief and casual away his jitters, and if done at a hospital unfavourable circumstances, and have notice continue their stumbling journey to he is kept there under control so that stuck nevertheless, there are probably the undertaker, while seemingly everybody knows just where and when many who do not stick on such a poor impossible cases who had received he can be visited. Moreover, the contact; people who might have careful and considerate attention atmosphere of most hospitals is, remained with us had they been properly

hospitalized and sponsored. So, out of what is now. a huge Though the trend is now in the Visiting A.A.s are admitted and meetings experience, our conclusions are these: right direction it has not yet producedany are held within the walls. While no That hospitalization is imperative in many large scale result. Except the fortunate asylum can, of course, be used as a cases and because the hospital provides few, most A.A. groups are up against it. simple sobering-up place only, it is true such a firm basis for good sponsorship is Reasonably ‘ priced or free hospital that asylum doctors are now often willing desirable even in the serious situation if accommodations for alcoholics is still to take cases on less evidence of the prospects are drinking or “foggy” woefully scarce. Each group has to do psychosis than formerly, provided they when contacted. They definitely have a the best it can. and the nearby A.A. group feel that a ‘ Let’s take stock, therefore, of what permanent recovery is possible. The better chance if hospitalized. is generally available today and what doctors are also more willing to commit Until recently few hospitals have wanted us alcoholics. We almost never kind of relations we can best cultivate promising patients for much briefer got really well; we had to manage and with existing agencies. Let us also periods and liberate earlier those who disturbed other patients; we were consider what part we ought to play in seem to be making good A.A. progress. regarded as sinners more than as sick securing improved hospitalization. So any A.A. group near an asylum which people and, as a class, we were Many A.A.s have been state contains alcoholics capable of recovery asylum inmates. While our treatment at can usually form these desirable financially irresponsible. The average these institutions has been far better than relationships with the authorities but they hospital management has always said, many suppose, it is a fact that the should nevertry to tell the doctors how to and with good reason, “why bother with average asylum superintendent still run the place! drunks? We can scarcely handle the prefers to handle insane persons. The We must never blame any doctor people who are ‘legitimately’ sick, people average mental case stays put for a who has not yet seen A.A. at work for his we can really do something for. Sobering while. Then too, for mental cases an skepticism. Let us remember he probably up drunks is a sheer waste of time and asylum could feel it was really doing has good reasons to be that way! money.” ‘ something either by way of custody or cure. But the average alcoholic, unless Cooperation Growing Attitude Changing permanently insane, was a headache. Brought in temporarily balmy he would Our experience with public Happily this attitude is changing promptly recover his sanity, at least hospitals in large cities has been varied. because it is now becoming clear to legally speaking, and would clamour to Here we usually find much reluctance to physicians and public alike that a true get out only to return in days or weeks. keep our good prospects even a few alcoholic is really sick, however lacking in No wonder the average institution days, unless, of couke, they happen to character he may be. Hope has now disliked alcoholics. be delirious, psychotic, or physically taken the place of centuries of despair Now that so many of us are injured. These hospitals feel they have that anything much could be done for coming out of asylums to stay, the no right to use precious beds to sober up problem drinkers. A.A. and other authorities are everywhere becoming run-of-themill drunks. But as public agencies are now proving that recovery more cooperative. In many institutions hospitals become aware that we are is possible to hundreds of thousands and the alcoholics able and willing to recover bringing recovery to a substantial number that adequate hospital care can and must are placed in a ward of their own. They of their regular habitues they become play a vital part in this process. are no longer mingled with the insane. more hopeful and cooperative. Visiting

privileges are extended to us and realized, even by those who might be personalities, too many cooks spoiling promising cases are kept several days. tempted to take liberties with us, that the broth, usually bring about the The development of these relations takes cooperation with A.A. is more profitable abandonment of such attempts. We have place slowly. The hospital has to be in the long run than non-cooperation. But reluctantly been obliged to see that an thoroughly convinced that we are it must always be remembered that on A.A. group is primarily a spiritual entity; bringing recovery to enough patients to the whole our treatment at these places that as a group the less business it has justify any special consideration. is good – some of them are staffed by the to transact, the better. While on this Because public hospitals are mostly free warmest friends we have. I cannot forget theme it ought to be noted that practically or very moderate in their charges, we too that the first physician ever to take a all group schemes to finance or often abuse our privileges. We are serious and helpful interest in us is still a guarantee hospital bills for fellow tempted to ask special treatment for staff member of a private hospital for members have failed also. Not only do “slipees” who have no present idea of alcoholics; that the first psychiatrist to many such loans go unpaid, there is stopping drinking; we often insist on see the possibilities of A.A., and one who always the controversial question in the visiting at all hours and in any numbers; had the courage to go to bat for us group as to which prospects deserve we are likely to brag about A.A. as the before his profession, is the staff member them in the first place. only remedy for alcoholism and thus of a sanitarium. When such excellent In still other instancesA.A. groups, incur the displeasure of hard working places offer us friendly cooperation we driven by their acute need for medical nurses and doctors who might otherwise surely ought to return it in kind. aid, have started public money raising be glad to help us. But these natural Many sanitariums and private campaigns to set up “A.A. hospitals” in mistakes are usually corrected and we hospitals are necessarily too high priced their communities. These efforts almost finally come up with a friendly, clear-cut for the average alcoholic. Public hospitals invariably come to naught. Not only do relationship which is often handled in being too few, asylums and religious these groups intend to go into the large A.A. centers through our Intergroup institutions too seldom available, the hospital business, they intend to finance Central Offices or hospital committees. average group has been hard put to find their ventures by soliciting the public in spots where prospective members can the name of Alcoholics Anonymous. Private Doctors Helpful be hospitalized a few days at modest Instantly all sorts of doubts are expense. generated; the projects bog .down. We enjoy fine privileges with many This urgency has tempted A.A. Conservative A.A.s realize that business private sanitariums and “drying out” groups to set up drying out places of ventures or solicitations carrying the A.A. places. Occasionally the reverse has their own, hiring A.A. managers, nurses, endorsement are truly dangerous to us been true. Here and there we have found and securing the services of a visiting all. Were this practice to become general some tendency to exploit alcoholics – too physician. Where this has been done the lid would be off. Promoters, A.A. and much sedative, too many “tapering off” under the direct auspices of an A.A. otherwise, would have a field day. drinks, too long and too expensive stays, group it has always backfired. It has put an inclination to misuse the A.A. name the group into business, a kind of Rest Farms One Solution for business purposes, etc. But the business about which few A.A.s know tendencies are disappearing. It is anything at all. Too many clashing This search for reasonably priced and understanding medical treatment has

brought into being still another class of The question often arises about which we are extremely grateful. Quite facilities. These are rest farms,. and what to do with a severe case when no recently, other private and semi-private ‘drying out” places operated by individual hospital is available. First of all, we general hospitals have begun to show A.A.s under suitable medical supervision. ought, if possible, to call a doctor. We great interest. Sometimes they go so far These set-ups have proved far more should ascertain for the doctor’s benefit as setting apart wards for A.A. use, satisfactory than group directed projects. how long our man has been drinking and admitting alcoholics on our As might be expected their success is in particularly whether he has been taking recommendation only, giving us exact proportion to the managerial ability much sedatives. We must leave this generous visiting privileges and very and good faith of the A.A. in charge. If he strictly to the doctor. reasonable rates. Arrangements of this is able and conscientious, a very good sort already functioning have been so result is possible; if neither, the place Treatment Up to Physician satisfactory to both hospitals and A.A. folds up. Not being a group project and that many such set-ups should soon be not bearing the A.A. name, these In some places A.A.s take turns active. In these situations we do not ventures can be taken or left alone. The sitting the clock around tapering off a participate in hospital management. We operation of such establishments is man with a bad hangover. Though this are afforded special privileges in always beset with peculiar difficulties. It can sometimes be done, the patient will exchange for our cooperation. is difficult for the A.A. manager to charge usually insist on tapering himself “up” high enough rates to make the venture instead of “off.” Now and then we have Much Aid From Outside include a fair living for himself. If he to adopt the desperate expedient of does, people are apt to say he is putting a man in jail, especially if violent. It surly may be that the future professionalizing, or “making money out But when absolutely necessary, patience, looks bright. Much more hospitalization, of A.A..’ Nonsense though this may often persuasion, and a doctor’s help will based on the certainty that we are a sick be, it is severe handicap nevertheless. generally do the trick – if the patient will people and that plenty can be done Yet, in spite of the headaches really try. If he won’t, there is little to do about it, is now on the way. We ought encountered, a good number of these but let him drink on until he has had gratefully to acknowledge the work of f a n s and sobering-up spots are in active enough. those agencies outside A.A. who are operation and can seemingly continue Among A.A.s one hears much strenuously helping this life-redeeming just as long as they are tactfully discussion about the merit of the several trend along State, county and municipal managed, do not carry the A.A. name, treatments. Actually, our only concern governments, large universities are and do not publicly solicit funds as A.A. about physical treatment is that of being agitating our cause. They are being ably enterprises. When a place has an A.A. in satisfied that the physician in charge seconded by various hospital and other charge we sometimes so take understands alcoholics. associations. While traditionally A.A. thoughtless advantage of the fact. We Two other promising prospects for does not ever exact any political or dump alcoholics into it just to get them good and reasonable priced promotional pressure, we can, as off our hands; we promise to pay bills hospitalizationare in view. These are the individuals, make our great need for and do not. Any A.A. who can various general hospitals which continue sufficient hospitalization known to all who successfully manage one of these “drunk to open their doors to us. Vary early in might be interested; emphasizing, of emporiumsn ought to be congratulated. A.A. history Catholic hospitals in a few course, that though we believe It is a hard and often thankless job midwestern cities saw our need and took hospitalization to be primarily a medical though it may bring him deep spiritual us in, regardless of denomination. Their problem for communities and physicians satisfaction. Perhaps this is the reason example has led other religiously to answer, we A.A.s would like to so many A.A.s wish to try it! oriented institutions to do likewise, for cooperate with them in every possible 56 way.

June 1947

LACK OFMONEY PROVED A.A. BOON

Thousands of newer A.A.s inquire, “Just what is The Alcoholic Foundation, “Missionaries?” what is its place in A.A., who set it up, why do we send it funds?” Much discussion in a little meeting these very dreams. Providentially, neither Most members, because their called by Dr. Bob and me at Akron in the the A.A. hospital nor our wholesale fall of 1937 developed a plan. This plan missionary dreams came rue. Had these groups are in frequent contact with our Headquarters in New York, understand later proved to be approximately one- then materialized, A.A. would surely have third right and about two-thirds wrong – been ruined. We would have gone that place to be a sort of a general familiar process of trial and error. professional on the spot. service to all A.A. Reading The A.A. Then there was still a third dream. Grapevine each month, they know The Because the development of the first groups had been such a slow, hard That was to prepare a Book of Grapevine to be our principal monthly process we then supposed that none but Experience – the one we know today as journal. But he history of The Alcoholic Foundation and its relation to those vital seasoned pioneers could start new ones. Alcoholics Anonymous. We were sure functions, and to A.A. as a whole, they Though we had misgivings, it seemed that unless our recovery experiences scarcely understand at all. inevitable that about 20 of our solid were put on paper, our principles and Now for a bit of history. During its members would have to lay aside their practices would soon be distorted. We first years, Alcoholics Anonymous didn’t personal affairs and go to other cities to might be ridiculed in the press. Besides, even have that name. Anonymous, create new centers. Much as we disliked did we not owe at least a book to those nameless indeed, we consisted by late the idea, it appeared as if we must take alcoholics who couldn’t get to our 1937 of but three small clusters of on, temporarily at least, a squad of A.A. hospitals, or who, perchance, weren’t alcoholics – Akron, Ohio, he first group; missionaries. Plainly, too, these reached right away by our advancing ‘

New York City, the second, and a few missionaries and their families would missionaries! As everybody knows, he members at Cleveland, our third group to have to eat. That would take money – A.A. book dream did come true – the be. There were, I should guess, about 50 quite a lot of it, we thought. other dreams didn’t. members in all three cities. The very But that was not all. It was felt we But it surely looked, in 1937, as early pioneering period had passed, Dr. needed A.A. hospitals at Akron and New though we must have considerable Bob and I having first met at Akron in the York, these places being regarded as our money. Perhaps it was because I lived at spring of 1935. We were becoming sure twin “Meccas.” There excellent medical New York, where there is supposed to be we had something for those other care and high power spirituality could, we lots of it, that I was designated to set thousands of alcoholics who didn’t yet were sure, be sprayed on drunks who about raiding funds so our nameless know any answer. How were we to let would flock from all corners of the nation movement might have its “field workers,” them know; just how could the news be – once the magic word “cure” got around. hospitals and books. How simple it spread? That was the burning question. Even as many newer A.A.s still have appeared. Did we not already have (in such fancies, we oldtimers did dream prideful imagination) the beginning of one

of the greatest social, medical, and call up and find out.” On what little thought, were over. If money was the spiritual developments of – all time? events our destinies sometimes turn! answer, we had surely come to the right Weren’t we drunks all salesmen? Hadn’t How could either of us know that a place! I been a Wall Street man? How easy to simple phone message was to open a Following introductions, each raise money for such a cause as ours! new era in A.A.! That it was to alcoholic told his own personal story, The awakening from that money inaugurate The Alcoholic Foundation, the these accounts being enthusiastically dream was rude. It soon appeared that book Alcoho/~csAnonymousand our A.A. confirmed by our ardent friend, Dr. people with money had little interest in Central Office. Silkworth. After which (with becoming drunks. As for our grandiose scheme of reluctance!) we brought up the subject of banding alcoholics together in squads, Encouragement money. As our hearers had seemed platoons and regiments – well, that was much impressed by our recovery stories, plainly fantastic, wasn’t it? Drunks, Two days after my brother-in-law’s we made bold to expand on the urgent people said, were difficult enough, one at call, we sat in the Rockefeller offices need for hospitals, “field workers” and a a time. Why present each American talking to Dick R. The most lovable of book. We also made it clear that this community with an organized regiment of men, Dick was the first of that early would take money quite a lot. them? Hadn’t the donors better put their series of non-alcoholic laymen who saw money into something constructive – like us through when the going was very Turn in Destiny tuberculosis or cancer?Or, why shouldn’t hard; and without whose wisdom and they invest in the prevention of devotion the Alcoholics Anonymous Then came one more tum in A.A. alcoholism? One more attempt to movement might never have been. When destiny. The chairman of the meeting, salvage hopeless drunks couldn’t he had heard the story, our new friend Albert Scott (now deceased), a man of possibly succeed. Such were the showed instant understanding. He large affairs, and profoundly spiritual in answers to our plea for money. immediately translated understanding into his nature, said in substance, “I am Then, one day, in the midst of action. He suggested that some of our deeply moved by what I have heard. I discouragement, something momentous alcoholic brotherhood meet with several can see that your work, thus far, has happened. It was another of those critical of his own friends and himself. been one of great good will .-. one turning points in A.A. of which we have Shortly afterward, on a winter’s alcoholic personally helping another for seen so many that no man can call them evening in 1937, this meeting took place the love of the thing. That is First coincidence. At the office of my physician at Rockefeller Center. Present were Dick Century Christianity in a beautiful form. brother-in-law, I was bemoaning, in R., A. Leroy C., since known as “Chip,” But aren’t you afraid that the introduction typical alcoholic fashion, how little we Albert S., Frank A., and my brother-in- of hospitals and paid field workers might poor drunks were appreciated, especially law, Leonard S. Dr. Bob and Paul S. change all that? Shouldn’t we be careful by men of means. I was telling my came down from Akron. The New York not to doanything which might lead to a relative for the tenth time how we had to ex-topers numbered half a dozen and professions/ or propedied class within have money soon – or else. Listening were accompanied by Dr. William D. your ranks?” patiently, he suddenly said, “I’ve got an Silkworth, who, as the first physician ever These were great words for idea. I used to know a man by the name to champion our cause, had already Alcoholics Anonymous. We alcoholics of Dick R. He was somehow connected given us measureless help and admitted their weight. Disappointed that with the Rockefellers. But that was years encouragement. Of course, we alcoholics our hope of substantial money help ago. I wonder if he is still there. “let me were delighted. Our money troubles, we seemed to be fading, we confessed,

f*

nevertheless, that we had often had such gave us a sum which turned out to be, misgivings. But, we persisted, what are Foundation should, we insisted, have two however, about one-sixth of the amount we going to do? It has taken us three Frank had suggested. His gift came in he classes of trustees alcoholics and nonyears to form three groups. We know we alcoholics. But, legally speaking, what spring of 1938 and its result was to help have a new life for those who die or go was an alcoholic anyhow, he queried, Dr. Bob and me through that very trying and if an alcoholic had stopped drinking, mad by thousands each year. Must our year. We could not have actively was he an alcoholic any more? Then, story wait while it is passed around by continued without i. Yet, money wise, our why two classes of Trustees? That, said word of mouth only, becoming hopelessly budding movement of alcoholics was still our attorney, was unheard of. We garbled meanwhile? Finally our friends agreed that something needed to be left very much on its own just where it explained that we wanted our friends with should have been left, too, however us. And besides, we urged, suppose all done. But they did continue to insist our difficult that seemed at the time. We still of us alcoholics should get drunk at movement ought never be had no “field staff,” no hospital and no once, who then would hang on to the professionalised. This struck the keynote book. money! Surmounting many such of our relation to these men of good will These were the events that led to obstacles, The Alcoholic Foundation was for all the years since. Rightly enough the formation of The Alcoholic finally inaugurated. It had four nonthey have never secured us large sums Foundation. The need for a volume alcoholics and three alcoholic Trustees. of money. But each has given of himself describing our recovery experiences They could appoint their own successors. to our cause, generously and loomed larger than ever. Were such a It was chartered to do everything under continuously; how much, few A.A.s can book to appear a great flow of inquiries the sun. So it had everything – except ever know. from alcoholics and their families might money! Seeing clearly that we must now start. Thousands, maybe. These appeals spread the recovery message faster, they would certainly have to be cleared then suggested we might carefully through some sort of Central Office. That experiment with a small rest home at was most evident. Akron. This could be presided over by Dr, Bob who was, after all, a physician. Everything but Money Where upon early in 1938, Frank A., on his own time and with expenses paid by his associates, went to Akron to For these saner purposes, our friends suggested the formation of a investigate. He returned most Foundation to which givers might make enthusiastic. He was inclined to the tax free contributions. We alcoholics opinion that $30,000 ought to be invested in a center for alcoholics. Our friend, Dick endlessly discussed this new project with R., showed Frank’s report to Mr. John D. them, consuming hours of their business Rockefeller, Jr., who at once manifested time. Frank A. and a friendly attorney, a warm interest. But Mr, Rockefeller also Jeff W., put much effort on the original expressed anxiety about Foundation Trust agreement. The lawyer professionalising us. Nevertheless, he, had never seen anything like it. The new

July 1947

c.nio(utne to Stand Alone 1 he two most widely discussed cies – don’t ever let anyone else beand most welcome articles that side yourselves furnish you money or have appeared in past issues of the ‘advice.’ As soon as you’ do, you lose AA Grapevine were Dr. Silkworth’s your ‘certain something’ peculiar to article on the so-called alcoholic your fine mission – I have seen many “mind” – and Bill’s recent long fine purposes dissipated through the needed declaration on the dangers of good intentions of outsiders.” becoming allied with various outside Thus from a very wise man, not activities. associated with AA, but with great Good. And so, from an outsider experience with other Christian acwho most evidently has a keen insight tivities – and entirely in sympathy into AA activities and purposes, I with AA – comes seasoned confirwould like to quote. mation of what Bill points out to all Because of various circumstances it AAs, the danger of ever becoming becomes necessary for the group of allied in any way with any other welwhich I am a member to find new fare movements. quarters (after seven years in our pres- No manager of a balrteam that was ent meeting rooms). So, we visited the constantly winning would think of pastor of one of the large churches; breaking up the team for experiment. and after being cordially invited to If they went into a long losing streak make use of their facilities, we ex- – then he might experiment. Hence, pressed our sincere thanks but weren’t in the name of Heaven above, why too sure that it might not entail more should AA even for a momept ever expense than we cared to assume. gibe thought to breaking up a The assurance that it would cost us winner? nothing at all – while gratifying – There have been hundreds, perwas not to our liking either. We said, haps thousands of books written on AA prefers to pay its way in all of our alcoholism – yet only one was ever functions. This brought the following written by drunks, for drunks. very significant reply: “Yes, I know Alcoholics Anonymous has proved to you do, and therein rests one of your be the only book ever written for lay greatest strengths; as long as you re- drunks – and that is all we ever were. main wholly self-sufficient you will be Let’s, above all, keep our amateur effective. Don’t ever let yourselves be- standing. come involved with any outside agen- Dick T . Cleveland, Ohio

JULY 1947

Notwitl~stu~~tli~ Ilill’s ~ ; : i ~ r t i c l c011 n t ~ o ~ ~ y ~ ~ l i t y , certainly coutrary to the spirit o f A.A. E’or whic11 SWIIII:~ 11) IIC to stule tile voice o f experianyonc to w l ~ o r npul)licity i s c o ~ ~ t ~ ~ ~ c r vc ianl l~l y ~elwe p r c t ~ ywell a11 this c r ~ l c i a ls ~ h j e c t , there uhlo to usc A.A. to gel s11c11p l ) l i c : i t y is sc:rrrwly still see111 to he n 111ll11Lero f A.A.s who dort’t i n k e q h ~ gwith 111c A.A. c o 1 1 ~ 1 ) t of g i v i ~ ~11)g u~~tlersta~l thet l reosws for anoaya~ity. otl~ers. ‘l’liis is p l a i ~ i , u ~ ~ v a r ~ r i s ls~cectkl i l ~ g111r My work c r ~ l l s for me l o reat1 newspapers personal guiu. fro1111111 over the colmlry, u l ~ c lr ~ ~ t i r i y ~llagazi~ies. Finally, whal I ~ n p p e ~ ~ whens olle of tlrese s p o ~ . A t first I wns u s t o ~ ~ i s l ~wc ldl c ~I wo~llclcolne 0 1 1 rill u r ~ i c l ercvectli~~g the iclentity of soiue A.A., l i g h t seekers fulls I l a ~on his o r her fnce ill Ill11

wit11 his o r her o l ~ v i o l l sassistal~ce. I no longer 1)ul)lic view-what is the el’fect OI A.A. tllen? IIIII i ~ s l o l ~ i s hh~ lr ; e IIIIVC heell too numy cases, N o t good, certuir~ly. l w t I c a ~ l ‘ t I ~ c l l )w o r r y i ~ ~n lg) o ~ i tit. N o onc has uuy nutliority to set hitnsclf o r ,. 1111: for ~IIIJ!IYIII~I~ see111 pIoi11 to me. herself u p i n p11l)lic us I ~ e i n grepresc~~tutive of , . ~(!IISOIIS

Ihe ~ m m t i s eo f nr~onyrttity is certairtly renssur- A.A. i n any respect. Idon’t warlt to be r e p – I I I I I V r o : t Many wot~lcl not scntetl by hese p t l ) l i c i t y seckcrs, uritl ~ ~ e i t l l c r tl11

c o l ~ l c11) I\./\. i f they l h o ~ ~ g ihtt was going to u l o t of other A.A.Y. I)e rl~uclep t l l ~ l i c . W l i c ~ ithey see’the names o f nut, most i ~ n p o r t a o ~f~ t all, the anor~yluitypart t4.A.s splashetl n l l aror111t1they anturally doubt o f A.A. is liuked closely w i t h the spiritual ele- III~IIwc rc111Iy IIICUII we lire ~IIOIIYIIIOIIS, or t h t rlie~ltso f the progrunt-he I t l ~ ~ n i l i t y~, l ~ giviug e t h y cap IICUIIOII~IIIOIIS i f 111c~wish. witllo~~l tho11g111of r e t u r ~ ~ the , u~~selfisl~ 11rolhcr- AII~II~III~I~~ ~ r c v c r ~ t s – o irt w o t ~ l t lpreve~~t– ltoocl, the trort-co~~l~~~ercialisit~ n11c1 ~ ~ o r ~ – l ~ r o f c s – I)t-r~o~~ul p111)licit~exploits, those cases w l ~ e r e sio~~alisrtt-or i n short, a l l o n y l ~ ~ i tis y j)r01t:ctio11 ~ Ii I ~ ~ t l i v i t l uIi ~I l~ ~ I I I cnslles ~ I i~ p e r s o ~ t a l lb~y l k~ l o r tlte nlost i m l ) o r t u ~ ~t tl ~ i n ~ st,l ~ e priceless p ~ l ) l i ~ : i x iI~IC ~~gfit(!t I I l i ~ tIICo r she i s a nie1111)er. , have ill A.A. ~ h i ~ l g swe Let’s sot let publicity III lily o p i l ~ i o ~ l , this is pretty clrcup s t u l l antl seekers destroy tl~c~n.–I1.H.

July 1947

1,el’s Stny A l i o l r y ~ r t o ~ ~ s Fr or,; Clir~lorr,Oklu. We enjoy l’lw A.A. Cral)evirie a11c1t l h k it is tloing 11 grcut w o ~ kill llclpir~galcol~olics. We woultl likc to we IIIWC urticlcs 011 the i~nportancc of u ~ w u y ~ ~ ~ asi t y lrc 1111s111llorizcc1 cxpoui~~gof. mlncs IIUS cn11scc1several ‘slips’ in our groups. I (lo not Iwlicve that Iwlcling o p w lncetings where groups o f t~ot~-alcol~olics are allowed to attend is good for A.A., cqwcially in small cities. Aftt:r d l , the I ~ I – i ~ l c o l ~ o l i c considers sobriety as ~ ~ ~ c r c~l~yo r ~ uand n l co~lsiclcrs the alcolrolic as .’a s11owi11~ dl” wltt!~~ IIC (the 11011) is ir~vitcclto i ~ t t c ~ t~lc~l cgrotq) ~ ~ ~ e c t i ~ ~ rlhisters wlio . Tllcg s . have s h o w ~nn ~ interest in and synqri~thy with the A.IZ: work may I)c iwitcd to make ~ I Ioc:t.usior~nlappcurallcc us g~~(:st spcilkcrs. S o w tloc:tors, too, who arc intcrestcd in the weifurc n ~ d tret~tmeatof nlcol~olicsmuy I)c invitctl to givc: talks or attend as g~~csts. Some locul olliciuls may be invited in ortlcr to Ijetter accl~tclil~l I ~ I ~ I I I wit11 Iiow it actually wol ks. Ilowever, care sl~o~llcl he taken that all visitors fully 1111clerstu1111 th 1 the nanics of all ~ n e ~ ~ ~ l ) e r sI)c kcpt ~ I I ~ I I ~ : ntiist rno~~s. i

This is just lny ol~servotionof the w~lr A.A. is doing after I I I ~first sol~eryeur ill 2.5. -1. It.

JULY 1947

LEST WE TRAVEL PATH WASHINGTONIANS Frortr Ou~ruood,Kerrtucky As a mernber of A.A. for two years I have We do not wish to travel the sntne road as the enjoyed and received n ~ u c hhelp from The A.J. \Vnshingtonians. Crapevirrc. Bill’s nrticles nre always tops. It is gratifying to see how A.A. has grown. I I would like to add my hunil~leopinion to h i n k ~ l i i sis due to its sincerity, the non-profit cerlain ql~estions which are discussed in our nlotive, and the fact that most A.A.s are trying publication. to live the 12 Steps. There is a heap of brother- 1. We must keep our anonymity as for as hood in this organization which could be dep)ssil)le if we expect to be cll’cctive. stroyed by c o ~ ~ i u i e r c i n l i z a t i o in~ ~the very 2. Stay clcnr of those who wish to popu- n~inu~cst Term.-E.K.D. larize A.A. in such a way that eventunlly m l y lend to its beconling n rocket. We do not need to appeal to the public in any way for funds. To con~n~ercialize A.A. is to destroy it. 3. Avoid ns n~ucllas possible holding ~ncct- . ings in churches or any religious houses. , I h e nverage nlcoholic cannot be won through nny creed or sect. I l e is skepticnl of religion. 4. We are not out to dry up the world. As nlcolrolics we are sick people.. The vast ~unjority of people cnn still take h e i r liquor o r leave it. l’llosc people d o not r~eedA.A. nnd may never need it. Let’s 11e tolernnt with the non-alcoholic. As long ns we “stick to our knitting,” live by our 12 Sleps, nntl ofler our help only to those who nre powerless over nlcol~olarid whose lives Irnve beconle unmnnngeable nnd who are willing to go to any extreme to oblnin sohricty, just so long will A.A. 11celTectivc.

Book Publication Proved Discouraging Venture By Bill

$300. Almost everybody paid on monthly (Second in a sen& of a ~ c l e srecording the histov Publishers Without a Book 0fA.A.) instalments, being too broke to do During the summer of 1938 we otherwise; save, of course, our good These reflections led us straight friends at Rockefeller Center. solicited the well-to-do for contributions to into a typical alcoholic fantasy! Why not fill that brand new receptacle, our Our agreement with the Works publish the book ourselves? Though told Publishing subscribers was that out of Alcoholic Foundation. Again we by almost everybody who knew anything . the first book income they were to get encountered a strange indifference’ to of publishing that amateurs seldom their money back; also that The Alcoholic drunks. Nobody was interested. We didn’t produced anything but flops, we were not Foundationwas to receive the 10 percent get a cent that I can remember. We were dismayed. This time, we said, it would be royalty I might have had from the pretty discouraged; apparently different. We had discovered that the publisher. As for the shares of Works providence had deserted us. With the bare printing cost of a book is but a Publishing, the 49 cash subscribers were modest fund from Mr. Rockefeller running fraction of its retail price and a national to have one third, my friend Hank one out, it looked like a lean winter ahead. I magazine of huge circulation had offered third, and I one third. We also obtained a There could be no book, no office. What to print an article about us when our loan of $2,500 from Charles B.T., good, we complained, was an Alcoholic book was furnished. This was a clincher. proprietor of a nationally known hospital Foundation without money! How could we miss? We could see for alcoholics. A friend indeed, he was to By this time there had been books selling by hundreds of thousands – wait years to get his money back. roughed out what are now the first two money rolling in! But, as anyone could then see, chapters of the book now known as Alcoholics Anonymous. Our friend Frank What a promotion it was! An A.A. everything was all set – everything, of friend and I hastily organized the Works course, but writing and selling the book! referred us to a well known publisher Publishing Co. My friend Hank P., then Hope ran high. Out of the new financing who suggested the possibility of advancing royalties to me so the book bought a pad of stock certificates at a we could keep a small office going at could be finished. That made us feel fine stationary store. He and I started selling Newark, New Jersey. There I began to them to brother alcoholics and any who dictate the text of Alcoholis Anonymous until it was realized that if I ate up a lot of would buy at the bargain price of $25 a to Ruth H . (our first national secretary). royalties while doing the book, there share. Our confidence must have been Rosily we saw scads of money coming could be no more payments for a long boundless. Not only were we selling in, once the book was off the press. Still time afterward. We saw, too, that my 10 common stock on a book to cure drunks ,ore, we expected the new book would per cent royalty would never carry the office expense of answering the pleas for – the book itself hadn’t yet been written. turn right about and help finance our help that would surely follow publication. Amazingly enough, we did sell that stock, poverty stricken Foundation – which, Nor might a commercial publisher, $4,500 worth, to alcoholics in New York, strangely enough, it really did years later. anxious for sales, advertise it as ,we New Jersey, and to their friends. No one would like it. of the original 49 subscribers put up over

Finally came 1939. The book was and his family, My friend Hank fared no done. Tales of recovery for its story Things Weren’t Rosy at All better. Things certainly looked bleak. Still section had been supplied by Dr. Bob only three active A.A. groups, we had and his Akron brethren. Others were What a debacle! At the office of the great monthly periodical we were acquired besides a bankrupt A.A. book, supplied by New Yorkers, New one unpaid but loyal secretary, a tiny Jerseyites. One came in from Cleveland gently told they had entirely forgotten to and another from Maryland. Chapters let us know, nine months before, that Central Office that might have to close had ..been read and discussed at they had decided to print nothing about any day and an Alcoholic Foundation meetings. I had though myself the author us. The editors had concluded that with no money in it. That was the score of the text until I discovered I was just drunks were too controversial a subject! after four years of Alcoholics the umpire of the differences of opinion. This stunning announcement left us in a Anonymous. After endless voting on a title for the new daze. The whole Alcoholics Anonymous work we had decided to call it The Way movement could buy less than a hundred Out But inquiry by Fritz M., our Maryland books, as it had only one hundred alcoholic, at The Library of Congress members. Besides, we had given away disclosed the fact that 12 books already 79 free ones! What were we to do with bore that title. Surely we couldn’t make those other thousands of books? What our book the 13th. So we named it could we say to the printer, whose bill A/coholics Anonymous instead! Though wasn’t half paid? What about that little we didn’t know it, our movement then got loan of $2,500 and those 49 subscribers its name – a name which because of the who had invested $4,500 in Works implication of humility and modesty has Publishing stock? How could we break given us our treasured spiritual principle the awful news to them? How could we of anonymity. tell them that since we had no publicity we could sell no books? Yes, that A.A. Five thousand copies of A/coho/ics book venture was, I fear, very alcoholic. Anonymous lay in the printer’s Thus was the good book warehouse, except the few we joyously A/coho/ics Anonymous born into passed around. Each stockholder and bankruptcy. Some of the creditors got each story writer got one free. The New restive; the sheriff actually appeared at Yok fimes did a good review. We our Newark office. The promoters were hastened to the national magazine to tell very low – financially and otherwise. The them we were ready for their promised house in which my wife and I had lived at article. We could see A.A. books going Brooklyn was taken over by the bank. out in carload lots! We took up residence in a summer camp loaned us by an A.A. friend, Horace C.

August 1947

Last Seven Years Have Made A.A. Se/f-Suppotting

(Third and concluding article in a series On receipt of Mr. Rockefeller’s letter, recording the early history of A.A. In later issues, ‘Launched’ at Dinner many of his guests responded with the series will be resumed with articles recording recent A.A. development and growth.) donations to the Alcoholic Foundation. In March, 1940, the dinner came This so-called “Rockefeller dinner How we ever got the book and our off. Mr. R’s friends turned out in force. An list” has since been almost the only office through that summer of 1939 1 A.A. member was placed at each guest source of “outside” money gifts to The shall never quite know. Had it not been table. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, who Alcoholic Foundation. These donations for a truly sacrificial act on the part of had superbly reviewed our book, spoke averaged around $3,000 annually and Bert T., an early N.Y. A.A., I’m sure we of A.A. from the spiritual viewpoint. Dr. they were continued for about five years couldn’t have survived. Bert loaned the Foster Kennedy, noted neurologist, gave – 1940 to 1945. This income The defunct Works Publishing Co. $1,000, his hearers the medical outlook. We Foundation divided between Dr. Bob and obtained by signing a note secured by alcoholics were asked to talk also. At the me to enable us to give A.A. a good part his own business. This act of faith was conclusion of the evening Mr. Nelson of our time during that critical period. Not followed by two more pieces of good Rockefeller, explaining that his father had long since, The Foundation Trustees fortune which barely got us through the not been able to come because of were able to write the original dinner year. In the fall of 1939 Liberlyrnagazine illness, went on to say that few things contributors, with great thanks, that their published a piece about us. This more deeply affecting or promising than help would no longer be needed; that produced a flood of inquiries and some Alcoholics Anonymous had ever touched The Alcoholic Foundation had become orders for the A.A. book. Those few book his father’s life; that he wished his friends adequately supported by the A.A. Groups receipts kept our little Central Office to share this experience with him. and by income from the book Alcoholics going. Then came a burst of articles in Though great wealth was present Anonymous; that the personal needs of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. This started at the dinner meeting that night, little was Dr. Bob and myself were being met out a prodigious growth of A.A. out there and said about money. Hope was expressed of the book royalties. created a little more demand for the A.A. that A.A. might soon become self- The significant thing about Mr. book. ‘ supporting. But the suggestion was made Rockefeller’s dinner, of course, was not Nor were our friends at that until A.A. became self-supporting a only he money it raised. What we did Rockefeller Center idle. One day in little financial help might be needed. need then, even as much, was favorable February, 1940, “Dick” R. reported that Following the dinner meeting Mr. public recognition; we needed someone Mr. John Rockefeller Jr. had been Rockefeller wrote a personal letter to who would sand up and say what he following our progress with intense each guest, expressing his feeling about thought and felt about Alcoholics interest; that he would like, for the A.A., and concluding with the observation Anonymous. Considering the fact that we inspiration of his guests and for the that he was making us a modest gift. were then few in number; that we were benefit of Alcoholics Anonymous, to give Accompanying each letter was a reprint none too sure of ourselves; that not long a dinner. We regarded this as a ten of the talks given at the dinner and a since society had known us as common strike. copy of he book Alcoholics Anonymous. drunkards, I think Mr. Rockefeller’s

wisdom and courage was great indeed. the so-called “mail order” groups now office expenses ourselves and rely no The effect of that dinner-meeting commonplace all over the world. Even further upon outside charity or insufficient was instantaneous; the news press wires then, we had started correspondence book sales. The two Trustees also all carried the story. Hundreds of with many isolated alcoholics who were suggested that The Alcoholic Foundation alcoholics and their families rushed to to form groups later on. be made a regular depository for group buy the book. Our little Central Office Despite this progress, the funds; that the Foundation would was flooded with pleas for help. It soon approaching Saturday Evening Post earmark all group monies for Central had to be moved from Jersey to Vesey piece worried us. While our Cleveland Office expenses only; that each month Street, New York. Ruth H. got her back experience had given assurances that the Central Office would bill the pay and forthwith became our first our few established groups would survive Foundation for the straight A.A. expenses National Secretary. Enough books were the impact of heavy publicity, what could of the place; that all group contributions, sold to keep the office going. So passed we possibly do with the thousands of ought to be entirely voluntary; that every 1940. Alcoholics Anonymous had made burning appeals that would now swamp A.A. group would receive equal service its national debut. our little New York office then staffed by from the New York office, whether it Ruth H., a typist and myself? How could contributed or not. It was estimated that Rapid Growth Underway three people handle the thousands of if each group sent The Foundationa sum frantic inquiries we expected? We equal to $1 per member per year, this JuSt a year later, the Saturday needed more office help – and quickly – might eventually carry our office, without Evening PostassignedJack Alexander to or prepare to throw heartbreaking other assistance. Under this arrangement do a story about us. ~ n d e r ‘ t h eimpetus appeals into the waste basket. the office would ask the groups twice of Mr. Rockefellets dinner and Cleveland We realized we must, for the first yearly for funds and render, at the same Plain Dealerpieces, our membership had time, ask the A.A. groups for assistance. time, a statement of its expenses for the shot up to about 2,000. Our Clevelanders The Alcoholic Foundation still had no previous period. had just proved that even a small group money save the $3,000 a year “dinner Our two trustees, Horace C. and could, if it must, successfully absorb fund” which was helping to keep Dr. Bob Bert T., did not come back empty great numbers of newcomers in a hurry. handed. Now clearly understanding the and me afloat. Besides, some of the They had exploded the myth that A.A. situation, most groups began contributing creditors and cash subscribers of Works must always grow slowly. From the to The Alcoholic Foundation for Central Publishing (the A.A. book company) were Akron – Cleveland area we had begun to Office expenses, and have continued to getting anxious again. spread into other places – Chicago and do so ever since. In this practice the A.A. Detroit in the mid-west. In the east, $1 Per Member from Groups tradition of self-support had a firm Philadelphia had taken fire. Washington beginning. Thus we handled the and Baltimore were smouldering. Further wo of the alcoholic members of Saturday Evening Post article for which west, Houston, Los Angeles and San our Foundation travelled out among the thousands of A.A.s are today so grateful. Francisco were taking spark. Growth A.A. groups to explain the need. They The enormous inpouring of fresh continued at Akron and New York. We members quickly laid the foundation for presentedtheir listeners with these ideas: took special pride in Little Rock, hundreds of new A.A. groups and they That support of our Central Office was a Arkansas, which had sprung up with no definite responsibility of the A.A. groups; soon began to consult the Central Office personal contact with A.A., having caught that answering written inquiries was a about their growing pains, thus on through books and letters from the necessary assistance to our “12th Step confronting our Service Headquarters Central Office. Little Rock was the first of work;” that we A.A.s ought to pay these with group problems as well as personal

inquiries. The office then began to has a staff of twelve. Because of our Publishing from their very beginnings. A prodigious growth and the continuous publish a list of all A.A. groups and it good book-keeping system was installed furnished travelling A.A.s with lists of entry of A.A. into more foreign countries, and regular audits became an prospects in cities which had none. Out- the headquarters will presently need established custom. twenty. Popularly known to thousands as of-towners we had never seen before About 1942 it became evident that “Bobbie,” our A.A. General Secretary began to visit us, so starting what is the Foundation ought to complete its now serves world A.A. On the Board of today the huge network of personal ownership of Works Publishing by calling The Alcoholic Foundation three of the contact between our General Off ice staff in the stock of the outstanding cash early trustees, whose contribution to A.A. at New York and A.A. groups through-out subscribers of Works. Several thousand is incalculable, remain. New faces are he world. dollars were required to do this and, of seen at the quarterly meetings, each as The year 1941 was a great one for course, group funds could not be used anxious to serve as the original group. the growing A.A. It was the beginning of for this purpose. The A.A. Grapevine,our national monthly a huge development to follow; our So the trustees, spearheaded this periodical which made its appearance Central Office got solid group backing; time by our old friend “Chip,” turned three years ago, is now taking its place we began to abandon the idea of outside again to Mr. Rockefeller and his “dinner among our General Headquarters’ charitable help in favor of self-support. list.” These original donors most gladly Services and is almost paying its own Last, but not least, our Alcoholic made the Foundation the necessary loan way already. Out of its Works Publishing Foundation really commenced to which enabled the Foundation to acquire income, the Foundation has accumulated function. By this time linked to the A.A. full ownership of our A.A. book (Works a prudent financial reserve for the future. Central Office because of its Publishing Inc.). Meanwhile, Works That reserve now stands at more than a responsibility for the group funds being Publishing, being now partly relieved of spent there, and to Works Publishing(the full year’s Headquarters expense, which supporting the Central Office, had been still remains not much above he very low book Alcoholics Anonymous) by partial able to pay its own creditors in full. Later ownership, the trustees of our Alcoholic figure of $1 per A.A. per year. Two years on, when out of A.A. book income the ago the trustees set aside, out of A.A. Foundation had already become, though trustees offered to pay off the Foundation they did not realize it, the custodians for book funds, a sum which enabled my debt, several of the lenders would take wife and me to pay off the mortgage .on – Alcoholics Anonymous both of money only a part payment some none at all. our home and make some needed and tradition. Alcoholics Anonymous had At least we were in the clear. This event become a national institution. improvements. The Foundation also marked the end of our financial troubles. granted Dr. Bob and me each a royalty Quietly, but effectively, the evolution of our Foundation has since of 10% on the book Alcoholics Now Worldwide in Scope Anonymous, our only income from A.A. continued. Several years ago the trustees had a certified audit made of sources. We are both comfortable and The last few years of A.A. have deeply grateful. The Alcoholic Foundation and Works been phenomenal. Nearly everybody in This account of the stewardship of America knows about A.A. Seemingly, Alcoholics Anonymous during its infancy the rest of the globe will soon learn as brings us to the present – the year 1947 A.A. travellers go abroad and our with continued A.A. growth and A.A. literature is translated into other tongues. service the future’s promise. Today our General Service Headquarters

1’11hlicity Seekers

Ikgarcling J.l{.’s “1×1 Stay AII~II~IIIOIIS,” from No~witl~s~u~~cling llill’s article on m o ~ ~ y n ~ i t y , No one has ally a ~ ~ t h o r itot ~sel hirnself or Cli~~tot~ Okla., , I would like to say that I have d ~ i c hY ~ ( : I I I ( : I ~ 11) rne lo state the voice of experi- herself 111) in 1)d)lic as being rel)rcse~~tutive of never I I C ~ I I nl~lc to u ~ ~ t h r s t n ~the ~ t lcustomary elice pretty well on h i s crucial subject, there A.A. in any respect. I don’t want to be repre- ~wacliceat I\./\. r~wcti~~gs, especially ope11 ones, still seem to he a I I I I I I I ~of~ ~A.A.s who don’t sented by tlwse pul)licity seekers, un~l11eit11er(lo of the use of f ~ ~I IlJ Il I I I ~ S11y the lentlers urd speuk- u~~tlerstu~~tl the reasons for anonyn~ity. n lot of otlrer A.A.8. ~ r s . I t does 11ot see111to make SCIIS~.–K.II. My work cl~lls for me to read newspapers h t , most intporta111of all, the auony~nitypart fro~null over h e cowtry, untl IIIUIIY 111agazines. of A.A. is linked closely with the spi;itnal ele- A t firht I rvns us1o11isl1c4when 1 wo~rlclcome ~neutsof the progrun~-the h~~rnilily, the giviug O I I n u ur~iclerevealing the identity of some A.A., without tl~ougl~t of returr~,the unselfish I)rotl~crw i t h his or I~eroljvious assistance. I no longer I~oocl, the no~r-co~n~nercialism and t~on-l)rofcs- IIIII USI~III~SIII:II; here IIUW Iwen too many cases, sionalis~~~–or’ in sl~ort,anonyn~ityis protection l ~ u tI CLIII’L I~elpworrying about it. for the nwst i~nportant things, the priceless I I I C rcawlls for a r w ~ y ~ ~ 8 . seem~ i tplait^ ~ to me. ,. I he prolnisc of u ~ ~ o n y n is~ i t ~ certainly reassurtl~i~~g wes ,have ill A.A. Lei’s not let publicity seekers destroy t11em.-I1.H. I : I I I : r o c t Many would not c w w to I\.A. i f they t l ~ o ~ ~ igt l ~ was t goill6 to Anotlier Nmric Ije 1110clepublic. When they see the names of Frorrr Newark, N. J. A.A.s splasl~cclall around they naturally doubt t h n t wc: redly lueull we ure auollyntolls, or t h t Well, I see by the July 10, 19-47, issue of the they cu!~Iw U I I ~ I I ~ I I I ~if L I ~ they wish. Newark Star-Ledger that another ~nen~ber of AII~II~III~I~ ~jreve~~ts-orit wo~~lcl prevent- A.A. seenis to have dropped his a~~onyn~ity and Ijerso~~al p~ljlicity exploits, those cases where “rt~shed inlo print” to tell about some fine jail . an ir~cliviclr~ul 111er111)ercashes in personally by prisoner rel~uljilitatio~~.1,111 for hclpit~g juil ~nhlic:ixin&the: fuct ‘ t h Ilc or she is a ~nember. prisoners nll we can, Ijut 1’111w t for (Irol)ping III nly olhion, this is pretty -..-clrqup stuff and our anony~nity or for any inclividt~al n ~ c r ~ ~ .b e r giving out staten~entson belralf of A.A. Call? certaidy contrary’ to the spirit of A.A. For anyone to whom pul)Iicity is corn~nerciall~ vatu- we really help nlore anonymously?-A.N. uljlc to use A.A. lo gel s~lclrp ~ h l i c is~ ~ scurcc4y in kc(-piug r v i h IIIC A.A. co~~c:c:ptof givi11g l o others. This is pluin, unvnr~~isl~etl seckiug lor personal gain. Finally, what I~appenswhen one of these spotlight seekers falls flat or1 his or her face in 11111 public view-what is the effect on A.A. tl~eu? Not good, certainly.

October 1947

Traditions Stressed by 5i//in Memphis Ta/k

Urging all members of Alcoholics them to see that A.A. had nothing to do We would not be human if these Anonymous to strive for humility before with geography; that it would work for illnesses didn’t sometimes attack us. success and for unity before fame, Bill them under any conditions whatever. We “therefore, many of us think today W., speaking before the third annual wished to foster a sound growth and the the main problem of Alcoholics Southeastern Regional Convention in spirit of unity. So a few of us travelled Anonymous is this: How, as a movement, Memphis, Tenn., on September 19, much. shall we maintain our humility and so reviewed the 12 suggested traditions for “Times have changed. As our unity in the face of what the world the organization. everyone knows, A.A. has since calls a great triumph? Perhaps we need Pointing out that the success of exceeded our wildest expectations. not look far afield for an answer. We A.A. could be “heady wine and a serious Speaking for Dr. Bob and myself, we feel need only adapt and apply to our group problem,” Bill reminded members that as that we oldsters need not take the life those principles upon which each of alcoholics “we are a people who could prominent roles we once did. A.A. us has founded his own recovery. If not exist at all except for the grace of leadership is becoming, happily and humility can expel the obsession to drink God.” healthily, a rotating matter. And besides, alcohol, then surely humility can be our Here are the highlights of the talk our literature, a generous press, and antidote for that subtle wine called as given to the A.A. Grapevine in thousands of new travellers are carrying success.” advance of the Memphis meeting: A.A. to every corner of he world. Bill then went on to explain in “Some years ago, Dr. Bob and I, “Yet there does remain a problem detail the 12 Points of Tradition, first among others, did a lot of travelling and – a serious problem, in whose solution printed in an article in the April, 1946, speaking at A.A. Groups the length and A.A.s will expect us oldsters to issue of The A.A. Grapevhe: breadth of the country. Alcoholics occasionally take a hand. That is the “Two years ago my old friends Anonymous was just starting its problem of success itself. Always a urged that I try to sum up our experience astonishing growth. There was concern heady wine, success may sometimes of living and working together; that I.try. whether we could successfully expand so cause us to forget that each of us lives to state those definite principles of group fast. Widely separated clusters of A.A.s on borrowed time; we may forget that we conduct which had then quite clearly were making their uncertain start, often are a people who cannot exist at all, but emerged from a decade of strenuous trial too far from the original few groups to get for the Grace of God. The wine of and error. In the spirit of our original 12 much direct help. Many had to rely forgetfulness might make us dream that Steps, and strictly within the ample wholly on literature and letters. Alcoholics Anonymous was our success proofs of our experience, I made the “To meet this seeming emergency, rather than God’s will. The very following tentative attempt: 12 Points to the few of us who could do so got out malignancy which once tore us apart Assure Our Future, An Alcoholics among the new groups. We wanted to personally, could again commence to Anonymous Tradition of Relations. bring our experience and encouragement rend us as groups. False pride might (Recently revised in the light of later directly to the incoming thousands who lead us to controversy, to claims of experience): were still unsure; we wanted them to feel power and prestige, to bickering over a part of the growing whole; we wanted property, money, and personal authority.

“Our experience has taught us that: “6. – Problems of money, property which continue, beyond prudent “1. – Each member of AlcohCrlics and authority may easily divert us from reserves, to accumulate funds for no Anonymous is but a small part of a great our primary spiritual aim. We think, stated A.A. purpose. Experience has whole. A.A. must continue to live or most therefore, that any considerable property often warned us that nothing can so of us will surely die. Hence our common of genuine use to A.A. should be surely destroy our spiritual heritage as welfare comes first. But individual welfare separately incorporated and managed, futile disputes over property, money, and follows closely afterward. thus dividing the material from the authority. – “2. For our group purpose there spiritual. An A.A. group, as such, should “8.-Alcoholics Anonymous should is but one ultimate authority – a loving never go into business. Secondary aids remain forever non-professional. We God as He may express Himself in our to A.A., such as clubs or hospitals which define professionalism as the occupation group conscience. require much property or administration of counseling alcoholics for fees or hire. – “3. Our membership ought to ought to be incorporated and so set apart But we may employ alcoholics where include all who suffer alcoholism. Hence that, if necessary, they can be freely they are going to perform hose services we may refuse none who wish to discarded by the groups. Hence, such for which we might otherwise have to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership facilities ought not to use the A.A. name. engage non-alcoholics. Such special ever depend upon money or conformity. Their management should be the sole services may be well recompensed. But Any two or three alcoholics gathered responsibility of those people who our usual A.A. 12th Step work is never to together for sobriety may call themselves financially support them. For clubs, A.A. be paid for. an A.A. group, provided, of course, that, managers are usually preferred. But “9. – Each A.A. group needs the as a group, they have no other affiliation. hospitals ought to be well outside A.A. – least possible organization. Rotating “4. – With respect to its own and medically supervised. While an A.A. leadership is the best. The small group affairs, each A.A. group should be group may cooperate with anyone, such may elect its secretary, the large group responsible to no other authority than its cooperation ought never go so far as its rotating committee, and the groups of own conscience. But when is plans affiliation or endorsement, actual or a large metropolitan area their concern the welfare of neighbouring implied. An A.A. group can bind itself to Committee or Intergroup Committee, groups also, those groups ought to be no one. which often employs a full-time secretary. consulted. And no group, regional “7. – The A.A. groups themselves The Trustees of The Alcoholic committee or individual, should ever take ought to be fully supported by the Foundation are, in effect, our ~ e n e r a l any action that might greatly affect A.A. voluntary contributions of their own Service Committee. They are the as a whole without conferring with the members. We think that each group custodians of our A.A. tradition and the Trustees of The Alcoholic Foundation. should soon achieve this idea; that any receivers of voluntary A.A. contributions On such issues our common welfare is public solicitation of funds using the by which we maintain the A.A. General paramount. name of Alcoholics Anonymous is highly Service Office at New York. They are – “5. Each Alcoholics Anonymous dangerous, whether by groups, clubs, authorized by the groups to handle our group ought to be a spiritual entity having hospitals, or other outside agencies; that over-all public relations and they but one pninary putpose – that of acceptance of large gifts from any source guarantee the integrity of our spiritual carrying its message to the alcoholic who or of contributions carrying any obligation newspaper, TheA. A. Grapevine.All such still suffers. whatever, is unwise. Then, too, we view representatives are to be guided in the with much concern those A.A. treasuries spirit of service, for true leaders in A.A.

are but trusted and experienced servants “1 hope the day will soon arrive of he whole. They derive no real when each A.A. is just as conscious of – authority from their titles; they do not the A.A. Traditions as he now is of the govern. Universal respect is the key to Recovery Program. their usefulness. “To sum up: for thousands of “10. – No A.A. group or member alcoholics yet to come, A.A. does have should ever, in such a way as to an answer. But there is one condition. implicate A.A., express any opinion on We must. at all costs, preserve our outside controversial issues – particularly essential unity; it must be made those of politics, alcohol reform, or unbreakably secure. Without permanent sectarian religion. The Alcoholics unity there can be little lasing recovery Anonymous groups oppose no one. for anyone. Hence our future absolutely Concerning such matters they can depends upon the creation and express no views whatever. observance of a sound group tradition. “11. – Our relations with the First things will always need to be first; general public should be characterized hurnifitybefore success, and unitybefore by personal anonymity. We think A.A. fame.” ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our names and pictures as A.A. members ought not be broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Our public relations should be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There is never need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our friends recommend us. “12. – And finally, we of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance. It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities; that we are actually to practice a genuine humility. This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us; that we shall forecer live in thankful contemplation of Him Who presides over us all.

October 1947

WHY CAN’T WE JOIN ADAD,TOO?

Dear A.A.s: active leadership ought to be transitory Even though now recovered, we are Dr Bob and I have a problem. and rotating; that each A.A. group with never too far removed from the possibility We’d like to share it frankly with you. respect to its own affairs needs be of fresh personal disaster. Each knows In actuality, A.A. has a score of accountable to its own conscience; that he must observe a high degree of “founders,” men and women without our committees and boards are really honesty, humility, and tolerance, or else whose special contributions A.A. might servants, not officials; that we, as a drink again. For us of A.A. to drink is to never have been. But somehow the title, movement, ought to remain poor, so die; to love God and fellow man is to live. “founder,” seems to have attached itself avoiding the risks of disrupting wealth; Under such potent conditions the almost solely to Dr. Bob and me – a that as individual members of A.A. we impossible has become possible. When phenomenon due perhaps to the general should remain anonymous before the each A.A.s life literally depends upon his lack of information about our early days. general public – these are the signs and unselfish service to others, when false This sentiment, though it prompts A.A.s portents of a unique future. Such pride, self-pity, or unhealthy self-seeking to set us somewhat apart from the whole, concepts certainly leave little room for a is almost certain to be unmercifully it is deeply touching to us both. We prestige-clothed leadership. chastised by John Barleycorn, he needs surely have more reasons for gratitude “But,” some will say, “how shall we but a minimum of man-made rules or than anyone in the world. But we are make such a vision actually work when inspired leaders to hold him on the right now beginning to ask ourselves if this most societies have to rely so greatly on course. Nor for long is he apt to continue over-emphasis will be good for A.A. in management, money, and heavilyanything harmful to A.A. unity. He knows the long run. Is so much sentiment for publicized leadership exercising powerful so well that we A.A.s shall have to hang personal suasion?” Yet incredibly, we are the “founders” entirely wise? together – or else hang separately! At Perhaps we A.A.s can become a beginning to see our vision come alive. first living the spiritual life because he new kind of human society. To a degree Even though we persist in looking with must, he presently lives it because he’ hitherto unknown, A.A. may be able to misgiving on any large accumulation of wants to. Such is the truly providential function upon the power of its own money or personal prestige in the name circumstance in which we all find fundamental principles rather than upon of Alcoholics Anonymous, we do ourselves; that is why we are beginning the prestige or inspiration of a highly continue to grow despite the absence of to see new values in A.A. We perceive in personalized leadership. Thus the whole those sometimes unstable factors upon our midst a spiritual realm which can be can become of transcending importance which other human endeavors must so little disturbed by the distractions of over any part; continued unity and often depend. wealth or self-serving egocentricity. success can then mostly depend upon Why is this possible? Is it because Against this background let’s have God as we understand him working we are a superior people? Well, hardly! another look at Dr. Bob and me. vitally in thousands of hearts rather than Far from being better than average, we Seemingly, the larger A.A. grows, the a few. are surely much more fallible. Strangely more our particular part in its creation Deep down, I think we A.A.s have enough, our group strength seems to and continuance tends to be begun to sense this magnificent stem from our individual and ever emphasized. Our status remains possibility. The widening conviction that potential weakness. We are alcoholics. exceptional. Nearly all other early A.A.s

have long since slipped over to the While it’s a wonderful feeling to be trustees of The Alcoholic Foundation, the “sidelines” where, they have retained the so much wanted, these bids do leave me A.A. General Office staff, and The A.A. confidence of all, they are frequently in the middle of an acute dilemma – a Grapeuhe editors, this to be called The consulted. By common consent they real heart-breaker. How, in fairness, can General Service Conference of have become unofficial coaches, I speak at ten anniversary dinners and Alcoholics Anonymous. To help construct reservoirs of longer experience, to be refuse 90; how can I make special such a conference will be a real task sought out in the pinches. Their Alma recordings or telephone talks for all these which may eventually require us to visit a Matter is now served by new teams. occasions? Or, again, how can 1 respond number of our large A.A. centers the These too will have their day on the field, to all he mail I receive; how can I advise country over. then finally retire. This is, we think, as it hundreds of individuals and groups about For the good of A.A. as a whole ought to be. their special problems? It is a physical these seem the things most needful to be Dr. Bob and I feel this sound impossibility. Even though I could done. If these projects are ever to be doctrine should apply to us as well. somehow accomplish all these things finished, I’m sure we can do little else. To There seems no good reason to make an and remain in the center of A.A. affairs succeed we shall need real freedom of exception of “the founders.” The more we indefinitely, would that be the best for decision and few diversions. Hence, we early members continuously occupy the A.A. in the long run? Surely you will beg your whole-hearted cooperation. center of the A.A. stage the more we agree it would not. Though these assignments are still shall set risky precedents for a highly So the problem of Dr. Bob and me before us, Dr. Bob and I are going to personalized and permanent leadership. comes down to this: We shall somehow confess a deep yearning. As private To insure well A.A.’s future, is this not have to decide just what few things we citizens of A.A., we shall often wish to the very thing we should carefully avoid? are still specially fitted to do for A.A. and, come and go among you like other Of course, Dr. Bob and I do not want to within the limits of our health, set about people, without any special attention. ignore any special responsibility them. And while we would like always to keep remaining still upon us. Quite the For my part,-t feet I ought to do the wonderful satisfaction of having been contrary; our principal mission today is much more writing: more A.A. Grapevine among the originators, we hope you will probably that of helping A.A. form a pieces, more pamphlets and possibly a begin to think of us as early A.A.s only, sound tradition. But how, for example, new book dealing with the vital matter of not as “founders.” can we advocate the traditional principle A.A. unity. This material ought to be So can’t we join A.A., too? of rotating leadership if we allow the widely informative of our developing As Ever, belief to grow that we ought to be tradition and of the little understood A.A. Bill permanent exceptions ourself? Of General Service Center. Occasionally I course, we cannot. would like to appear at the larger Take, for instance, my own regional gatherings for the purpose of situation. It is known that my health is discussing these matters with as many recently improved; that I’m going to a A.A.s as possible. large regional conference. Instantly come Over the next two or three years it warm but most urgent invitations to will be desirable to broaden the base of speak at gatherings all over North our General Service Center here at New America. Most A.A.s being good York so that it can include a yearly salesmen, the pressure on me is truly meeting of out-of-town A.A.s with the enormous.

NOVEMBER 1947

Group Meetings Grow, and So Do Expenses solicited or accepted; Illat our expenses are Then there is that group of people who arc (Are the expenses u l lrtrge drortp areeri~rgsIecor~rirtgI, I r r d o ~ ? CUILthey be rli~~i6rtretl s t u r r eqrtittrbly? 01. sn1uI1 and a l e taken cate of I)y v o l ~ ~ n t a r y con- alwuys the last to leave the meeting; who ure con they be reclrrce~l? llere is rvhtrr o s r A..4, rlti~tlis l~Ult/l/l~//L—/cf/.) . tril~u~ions , of ~ n e n h e r s ut euch meeting . . *. deriving so I I I I I ~ ~ Igood so r~ruchI I ~ I ~ ) ~ I ~ I I ~ S S 1 h leutlcr niuy also say, “Visitors please do from A.A. thot they prefer A.A. nieetIngs to atby tint contril~~rtc,” o r d so (lie visitors clepart later other way of sl)endirig un evenir~g. ‘I1lley rnuke ‘ hlOItl< AND hlOl{I<, oilr ~ ~ i w t i ~i ~~rgcIsN I – it1 co~iiplctei g ~ ~ o r a ~ of~ cthe e fact that the local it a point to meet and talk with the rlcwconrers growiug the s ~ n a l lI I ~ I I I Cg u ~ l ~ c r i ~ l g wllc:rc: s III~VA- secretary hus I ~ n s t i lc~a h t l a rpiet ~neetingof a at each meeting, take the aclclress or phone I I I I I ~ I few of the stendfirst rndinbers to inform them hers of rlewconiers and call the111 or visit t l ~ e t l ~ t h t the e v e n i ~ ~ g collccti~nwus far short of the cluriug the week. ‘fiey quietly drop a tlollur UIII~IIII~ neetld to nieet h e cost of the ~ileeting. bill in the tint at every nleeting, nearly alwuys lo p y rent. a . l llese few steu~lfast ~nerhl)ers,who huve earlier ,, remembering how niucli chcaper that is tlia~ia lire very grow~liof A.A. ulrtl tllc sin: ol 1111: p11t their tloller I i l l in the collection, calmly uveruge pXJllp is the p r i r l ~ u r~~W I I I ~ l~(41i1d I I I ~ S 111111 q~tivtly r1111ke111) the &licit: t l ~ u n k f ~ ~ tl~at l filth o r a pint. They eeek out h e leutlcr or conc:ct!ssity. Ily tlw SUIIIC token, expcllscs I I I ~ I ~ I I I . tliey h e w r ~ r j o ~ e d anotller evening of sobriety, leader after llie nieetiug, tlruiik tlwn a ~ i dtell lltv~tU I I ~light itre i l l SIIIIW. ~ I I S I I I I I ~ SII(I&II ~ x – wliicll, even c o ~ ~ n t i n g tl~eni what a good ~iieeti~tg it was. F r r q ~ ~ e ~ ~ t l y , ,. p:t~se. I 11c i~~crciisit~g ~~:III~III the extra clor~ution is far forI ~ /\.A. Iitcru- less costly tlmi an evening of drinking. UI\- they quieily approacl~t l ~ eloco1 treasurer and ask Illre l~c~;olll~!s UII (!xpell5(! fll~~ltlr. ‘I’11e p.Illlp sllurt! co~lsciouslythey have adcletl to their i~isi~rerice if the collectior~was nclequute und ofler lo Irelp of area ( h t r a l (:o~n~nittws 111111 1 1 1 ~A.A. I’4 0 ~ ~thut ~ ~ anotllrr – evening. of drinking is extremely if it was not. These are the backl~o~ie of the dution I I I I I S ~ l ~ ec u s n l e j in the overull grollp ~~dikely. A.A. ~ n o v e r n e ~ ~ tIlappy? ! Yo11 het tliey are e x p n s e I)~~tlgct. An irlcr@sing nunrl~erof groups At~otl~er gr0111)who ~ l n p p i ~ ytleprled as soon Iiappy! ‘I’l~ey will tell you 111ut tl~cy ncvcr Itcr ulso give A.A. year pind to rne1111)erswho have us they I w l their coflec, were tlrose niernhera fore have enjoyed h e Iruppiness that is h e irs attninccl a year of sol)rieiy. In the larger groups, who never visit any other ~ r i e e t i ~ ~ g but, relig- since finding A.A. Serenity? Yes, they have h i s b t w m e s quite an expense item. Many iously, once each week, set aside an evening to at last I O I I I Ia~ serenity they (lid t ~ o t dream g r o u p ulso I)II~CIIIISC u Ifuritecl ~~urtiher of copies atteiicl their own group ~ i ~ e e t i ~and ~ g , 11uvi11g would ever again I,e possiljle for tl~eri. of l’lte Crcq~cwke, Eye Ol,erto or other locul done so, close the book for a ~ ~ o t h e r week. ‘l’l~ey This is not an attenipt to scold. Neither is it urea paper, . . to I)e given to newcorrrers. Even re- l ~ a v cdone their duty. ‘I’lrey have atteaclecl a 1111 uttc~rlptto take the other fellow’s i~~verrtory. fresl~~~icn utlel t s to h e cxlfmse. ~aeetingand when the Itat was passed they care- Itatl~er, it is intericlecl us a helldul suggc:stion thut Actuully, tllis niecting cost may now average fully put in the usual 25c. For the bulance of we in A.A. receive rnore lerielits from our pi”more I ~ I ISO c w ~ t spet person, per ~r~eeting; the week drey will rrot be clisturlled; 110 12th ticipntion i l l (111 A.A. activities as we give more cud, wlier~ wc renren~bdr thut newcottiers arid Step work, for they huve carefully refrailled of our tisie and of ourselves to the I)rograal, IIOII-alcolwlicsc l r ~ not cr(r~tril~~~lc, tl~utmeans at from divulging their telel~hone11111nl)ers. A.A. niorally, spirit~~nlly, pliysicnlly, as well as IIIU- Iaust one dollar per alcoholic rneni1)er per week. is a greet tlri~ig! They are sober! IIai)l)y? terinlly. A corrslr~~clivesuggestio~~lhot the I I I h e fucc of his growing cxlwnse, our No, they can’t clairu nruch I~uppiness,IJUI, they group is only as s~~ccessful as the Im’rticipa~lts g r w p leuclers I~ruvelywid prouclly stulrd I~cfore are sober! allow it to he; and a reniindcr thot we in A.A. the gn1111)sU I I ~~)rocluimto the world t h , “\We strive for the greatest good for the greatest are self s ~ ~ p ~ ) o r t i n g ?No” outside financial aid is rii~~nber.

These are controversial issues, you sny ? ‘ A lit1 yoit further re~ninclme that we (lo not ir~clulge in controversies. Can we not look at these tliings as the less pleasant’ details of our diiily l i v i ~ ~ g ?T h i ~ ~ g s wl~ichwe all l ~ a t eto Ijring up. yet, of wliich we are always consciolrs? Isn’t it lor better to discuss them openly here where all lnny purticipnte, ~ h n n to have t11et11 arise in whispers in corners nfier h e meetings? Sl~ouldn’t we, as normal people now, sqenroly face the s~iiallcomlnon issues which so closely touch o w daily lives? Doesn’t “our path” pnrlially c o ~ ~ s i soft s l ~ n r i n ~ eqctully the cost of holcling meetings for our inir~ualbenelit? Let us fairly adniit that the group expenses ilre 111c rcsl)o~~sil)ility of every alcoliolic in tile grollp nnd each of 11s should I t o ~ ~ c s t tryl ~to 1141 our shore. Let 11s go beyond the expenses a d each I~enrour share of tlie little tasks of operation. Where necessary, help plncc the cl~nirs nnd tables, help clea~i111) after meetings, ofler our services on the various comniittees a])pointed to n t t e ~ dto the mec~~anics of aieelings. Let a s be h i k l a l tlwt we I w r ! t l ~ ec c m l ) u ~ i i o ~ ~ ship and fellowsliip of these meetings. Thank- 1111that we I~ave:111el~lessingsof solwiety. Illinr- Idy grateful for the I ~ a p p i ~ ~ eand s s serenity 111at is oflered to every person who will accept n ~ i d ~wncticethe pri~icipleuof the program. 64 Rarely linvu wc iiier~a persoti fail w110 llns tl~orou~ld~ followed our Itntli!’ We can bc self ~ul)~~orti~ig.-If.I.IY.

f\rovenll)tv 194/

Incorporations: Their Uses and Misuses

Many an A.A. Group ruefully supervised…An A.A. Group may limit of its scope, who should be. its writes the New York Central Office cooperate with anyone, but such members (or stockholders), and how asking how to unscramble endless cooperation ought never go so far as should it be financed? Many A.A.s write difficulties which have arisen over the affiliation or endorsement, express or us asking for samples of model charters. implied.” As precise Group purposes, local incorporation and financing of clubs, drying-out places, educational projects, “Tradition 7” states, after declaring conditions, and state laws may vary and the like. Most sincerely, these for full financial self-support as soon as much, it would probably be unwise for groups wish that they had never gone possible, “that any public solicitation of A.A. Headquarters to try to meet these ihto business. funds using the name, ‘Alcoholics requests. Any good attorney, once he is Once off to an awkward start, Anonymous,’ is highly dangerous, sure just what is needed and just what these difficulties are sometimes hard to whether by Groups, clubs, hospitals, or should be avoided, will do far better than cure. Still, if we intelligently use the other outside agencies – that acceptance we. experience we’ve already had, our newer of large gifts from any source, or of In response to the many Group Groups ought easily avoid these growing contributions carrying any obligations inquiries, we wish, however, to be as pains. The purpose of this piece is to whatever, is unwise…that we view with definite as possible. So here follows a assemble and focus our experience on concern those A.A. treasuries which set of typical questions such as Groups these particular problems. continue, beyond prudent reserves, to ask. To them we append definite First, let’s review those parts of accumulate funds for no stated answers. Of course, these answers aren’t the “12 Points of A.A. Tradition” which purpose…that nothing can so surely to be construed as final or perfect. Nor bear directly on the status of destroy our spiritual heritage as futile are they to be thought of as rules, incorp6rations and their financing: disputes over property, money, and regulations, or “musts.” But they may “Tradition 6” states: “We think, personal authority.” help in perplexing situations. therefore, that any considerable property Being clear on these basic 1. Q. Should an A.A. Group, as such, of genuine use to A.A. should be principles, it is next suggested that four ever incorporate? separaee/y hcorgorated and managed, of the articles in this booklet be carefully A. No. Some have, but usually wish thus dividing the material from the read – the ones on money, clubs, they hadn’t. spiritual…An A.A. Group, as such, should hospitals, and outside enterprises, which never go into business….Clubs, hospitals, show our past experiences in these 2. Q. Should an A.A. Group as such go etc., ought to be incorporated…so set fields. They clearly reveal the into the business of running a Club, a apart that they can be freely discarded fundamentals of our “money- hospital, a research, educational, or by the Groups…hence they ought not use management” Tradition. And, in a “rehabilitation” venture? the A.A. name…their management should general way, they quite clearly indicate A. We think definitely not. Experience be the sole responsibility of those who what the corporate status of any useful has been telling us to avoid this. The financially support them. ..Hospitals or or related enterprise ought to be. A.A. Group ought to remain a spiritual places of recuperation ought to be well Next, then, just what special type entity. outside A.A. a n d m e d i c a l l y of incorporation is best, how should it be corporately named, what should be the

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3 . Q. But how about Clubs? Being so of providing a suitable Club only – a pure vote at business meetings. While straight close to A.A., shouldn’t they bear the business operation. They merely hold or A.A. is free as air and most Clubs are A.A. name and be managed by the rent property, keep the place policedand wide open to all, there seems no good Group itself? swept out. They raise money from reason why a persistent non-contributor A. We used to think they should. individual monthly pledges; they also should claim any right to vote at a club’s When a Group is small and merely hires receive rentals from the treasuries of business meeting. If he wants to help a room, it is quite natural to call the place such A.A. Groups as may hold meetings manage the Club’s money, he ought to an “A.A. Clubroom.” Conversationally, in the Club. This is usually a generous contribute a little himself. So, when we most clubs are still called “A.A. Clubs.” proportion of those funds which result come to distinguishclearly between Club But when an area contains many A.A.s, from “passing the hat.” Each A.A. Group privileges, Club voting membership, and and perhaps several Groups, not all the ought to have its own small treasury. Out A.A. membership itself, we shall have A.A. members will care for Clubs. Hence of these funds the Group pays for surmounted many current troubles. the business management of the club (or whatever use it may make of the local clubs) in the area must become the Club. This avoids confusion as between 5. Q. Our Group is small. Every local function of those who individually Group monies and Club Corporation A.A. member is a Club enthusiast. Do contribute to their support and the funds. Under these conditions the Club you think we should incorporate just corporate title should omit “A.A.” The has no special hold on the Group or vice the same, even though A.A. contributors ought to elect the business versa. Pure A.A. matters are handled by membership and Club membership is management. The other A.A.s can take the Group committee. But jurisdiction identical, and in our town everybody the club or leave it alone.” Club over social activities in a Club will vary; contributes to the Club? Corporations often adopt a related title, sometimes the Club directors handle A. If your Club has to sign a lease, such as “Alano” or “Alkanon.” But more them, sometimes the Group committee, buy property, or have a sizable bank remote ventures, such as farms or sometimes a special committee. account, by all means incorporate. drying-out places operated by individuals There is often confusion between Establish this way of doing and thinking A.A.s, ought not use these “related” the Club membership and A.A. and you will avoid later complications. titles. membership. In a limited sense, they are We suggest you be careful about mixing one and the same thing, as practically all A.A. affairs with your business meetings- 4. Q. Our Group did form a separate Clubs open their doors to every business only there! Corporation for our Club. We made reasonably well-behaved A.A. who A Clubroom may, of course, be so every one of our Group members a wishes to frequent them. small and inexpensive, or its future so voting member of that Corporation. But when Club management is uncertain, that it would be premature to Now the directors of the Club incorporate. That’s a matter for sound . involved, we are beginning to believe a Corporation are at odds with our distinction should be made between Club judgment. Group rotating committee. The Club privileges, Club voting membership, and directors try to run both the Club and A.A. membership. Any A.A. interested in 6. Q. Should a Club Corporation the Group. The Group committee also a Club ought to be willing to contribute charter include other activities such tries to run the Club. What do we do regularly to its support. Though he may as rehabilitation, hospitalizations, about that? not be able to contribute much, it will be education, research, etc.? A. This is a natural difficulty. It can be something. Obviously, as a monthly A. We think definitely no. We suggest corrected by a realization on the part of contributor, he should be eligible to serve you limit Corporation charters to one the Club directors that theirs is the duty as a Club officer or director and should activity and one location only. To

conform to the A.A. Tradition? incorporate the whole world of alcohol It’s always better for members to A. That’s entirely up to you. The raise the money among themselves if material in this booklet is suggestive and mix that up with A.A. almost they must build, supplemented if only. If your present set-up works very invariably leads to confusion. A simple, sharply limited objective is best. Mixtures absolutely necessary by a friendly well, it may not be worth the trouble to outside loan calling for easy but definite change now. But if there is much serious of several functions we have sometimes repayment. Our reputation for complete ‘objection locally, it may be well to try tried, but usually with poor results. self-support is a valuable asset. Beware those principles best proved by our large of loans or contributions, with implied general experience. 7. Q. May individual A.A.s organize Foundations and raise money for obligations, political entanglements, or controversial issues attached. And, 12. Q. Just what form of corporation research, education, rehabilitation, obviously, public solicitation using the structure i s usually best? etc.? A.A. name is dangerous. A. Most states and countries have A. There can be no objection if they special corporate forms variously called act as individua/s only and do not use the A.A. name in any way. But 9. Q. What about drying-out places – membership, charitable, eleemosynary, how ought they be handled? etc. Trust your lawyer to select the best. experience shows that there is always a A. We feel that A.A. Groups shouldn’t You might emphasize to him these strong temptation to use the A.A. name. go into these ventures. But individual points: If humanly possible, eliminate the If that is done, the project will ultimately A.A.s sometimes handle these situations name, “Alcoholics Anonymous” from the suffer because the surrounding A.A. very well ifthey avoid public solicitations Groups will protest strongly – and rightly Corporate title. (The name ought to be so, we think. The Alcoholic Foundation and advertisements using the A.A. name. the sole property of A.A. as a whole.) itself, though it unofficially represents Places of recuperation ought to be Limit the “purpose clause” to one simple private undertakings purely – and objective only. Limit the activities of the A.A. as our General Service Board, has privately financed. Corporation to one locality or address solicited no outside funds in recent years and it will soon abandon the title, only. Don’t try to incorporate a whole 10. Q. What should be the attitude of state or country; otherwise A.A.s in “Foundation.” an A.A. Group toward “outside” nearby places may object. 8. Q. We want to build a Clubhouse. ventures like education, research and This article has been written to Should we do so? And how shall we the like? help alleviate the many complications finance it? A. No attitude at all. Participation in that have arisen through-out A.A. ‘

A. Chances are that any Club built them is an individual matter. But touching Clubs, hospitals, and “outside will prove too small. Better lease it if you individuals should not be discouraged ventures.” There is nothing infallible can. A thickly populated A.A. area will from participation if they are careful of about the principles set forth above. But eventually do better with several small the A.A. name. Please reread the article they are, nevertheless, the distillation of leased Clubs than a single costly one. If in this booklet on outside ventures. much actual experience. It’s very greatly hoped that they will prove of special a Club is big, expensive, and owned 11. Q. We realize that our present Club assistance to our hundreds of new outright, it can later prove very difficult to (or hospital) set-up is contrary, in Groups. They may be able to avoid many “take or leave alone.” some ways, to the general experience. of the natural but painful mistakes we But it hasn’t yet given us much A.A. oldsters have so often made. trouble. Shall we now change it to Bill

NOVEMBER 1947

On the Value of Tradition Mutual experience is the commo~,ground on wl~ichA.A.s meet i~~dividually and up011 wllid~A.A, has been built collectively. As written in the pamphlet, “Alcoholics Anonymous Tradition; Twelve l’oiilts to Assure Our Future,” A.A. was not invented by anyone-it grew. “Trial and error l ~ n sproduced a rich experience. Little by little we have been adopting the lcssons of that experience first as policy and then as tradition. That process still goes on n d we hope it never stops. Should we ever harden too much, the letter niigl~tcrush the spirit. We could victimize oul.selves by petty rules and prohibitions; we could inlagine that we had said the l a d word. We might even be asking alcoholics to accept our rigid ideas or stay away. .. .” But, as the pan~phletsays further, “the lessons of our experience c o u ~ ~for t a great deal-a very great deal. .. .” What each of us has experienced individually counts for a great deal in I~elping to allow another how to gain sobriety in A.A., and in developing evelr I~eyu~id the level of sol~rietyinto a new and fuller way of life. Likewise, the e&xience of each group may be invaluable to other groups, new I I I ~old.

Sl~nringexperience for mutual good is an A.A. principle nnd practice. The “Twelve Points of Tradition” cover all of the most vital experie~iccsellcowtercd in A.A. For instance, why is anonymity so important; what are its spiritunl values? Why should A.A. as a whole, and each group individually, have l ~ u tone primary purpose? , What has been learned through actual experience about the prol)lcnls of money, property and autl~ority?What does experience say on d\e question ol professionalisn~? These are some of the topics incorporated in the Twelve Poiuk. l1lky are i ~ ~ d c e d vital to A.A. now and to the future of A.A. For this reason, the Grapevine editorials, beginning with the next issue, will take 111) cr~c:l~onq o f h e “Twclvc Poinh of Tradition” in succcasiu~~ in h a samc Itlattucr h t “‘J’l~e 12 Steps” have h e n covered successively in the past. And, as was done with the Steps, diilerent writers will give their views on and interpretations of the Points of Traditio~~, so as to gain a cross-section treatment. Again h i s will be a sharing of experience-the practice and the principle by which A.A. grows, and A.A.8 grow. . 80

II Nczo A.A. Dookbt

y o l ~ rsc:c:rc:la ry for (1 copy. ,, 1 lrc j)arrrlhlc:l, ;I M – p g t : I)ooklct, con- ~ n i ~ nr sforcwortl 1,y I j i l l ; IIIC 12 I’t)i~~ts of Trutlitiorr to nxwrc A.A.’s f11t111.c;(I~SCIISsiolls on n ~ l o r ~ y ~ r i i l y , ~noncy, I~ospitalizo- 1io11, (*III~)S, i t ~ c ~ o ~ . ~ ) o r a ~ A.A. tlrci c > ~ i, C w cral Scrvicc: h ~ t c rnlid o l h r r c p r i ~ i ~ q from ‘ I ‘ l ~ cA.A. Crnpwii~c!. Altl~oughtlwrc is no clrargc for tlic first 1 s i 1 1 i of I h k l t ~ r , ntltli~ionnl copics may 11c ol)lniri~vllor 1 0 C(:II~S each 1jy ~ g ,P.0. IIIC., writing \Vorks l ‘ ~ ~ l ~ l i s l i i ~ Jlox 4.59, (;~.iiti(lC c n ~ r a lA IIIICX, Ncw York 17, N. Y.

te DECEMBER 1947 –

I 1

011 ‘ ihe 1.s. t Tradilion , LC By Bill .. 4

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“Eaclr atortrbor of Alcolrolics Arrorlynrorts is but a snrall part of a g r a d rultolo. A.A. nrctst corrlirrrru t o live o r nrost of 11s tuill surely die. llcrrce orcr conrston tucljurc costos first. &it iruliviclrral tuuljare jallotus clorc! njlcrtmrd.” – – – Our wl~oleA.A. program is secwely Iounded 011 t l ~ eprir~cipleof I~~tn~ility-that So it is we learn that in matters deeply affecting h e group ns a whole, “our conlis In RIIY, pcrspcctive. \Vl~icl~inrplies, a ~ n o ~o h~ egr tl~ittgs, tlmt wc rclnlc o~~rsclvcs nion wellare comes lirst.” lbbellion ceases and cooperation Legins. !mxuse it mas!; rigldy to God and to our fellows; that we each see oursclves as ,we, really are-“a we have disciplined ourselves. , > + ..<,. . ?. , sn~allpart of a great wlrole.” Seeing our fellows tl~us,we sl~nllenjoy group I~nrmony. Eve~~tnnlly, of course, we cooperate because we really wish to; we see that without That is why A.A. Tmdition can cot~fidentlystute, “Our conlmon welfare cotnes first.” sul,stnntinl unity- h e r e can be no A.A.. and that without A.A. there ‘can be little lnstiwz s ” “Does this mean,” sorne will ask, “dmt in A.A. dre individual doesn’t c o u ~ ~ too t recovery for anyone. We gladly set aside personal ambitions, wl~eneverthese might t a c d ~ ? Is Iw to be swallowd up, domiuatcd by the group?” l~nrniA.A. We I~umblyconfess that we are but “a, small part of a great w11ole.”- , No, it doesn’t seen1 to work out that way. Perhaps here is no society on en1111 (All o/ the editorials 6 y Bill covering &ha12 Poinu o/ Tradaion u p b a r in the ncro 48-p&e Illore solicitous of personal welfare, more careful to grant h e individual h e greutesl Trnclitinn ~matplrlef,nbng ruitlr the 12 Points ~lrecnsclues.Copiu 01 I c rietu pampller were distriltttccl /ree Jttri~cgNoveatber by the Alcoblic Fou~ulationthrough rl* group secrctarics. E m n possible liberty of belief and action. Alcol~olicsAno~~ymous has no “mnsts.” Few rnl)ics ncny be luul at 10 ceats each 6 y addressing requests to: AIcoholic Fnrmdation, P.O. Box A.A.xgroups impose penalties on anyone for non.conformity. We do suggest, but wc 459, Crnncl Ccrrtral Anscx, New York 17, N. Y . ) don’t discipline. Instead, compliance/or non-compliance with any principle of A.A. is a matter for the conscience of tl~e’individual; he’ is the judge of his own cor~duct. Tl~oser o d s of ol? tine, “Judge nrpp we observe most literally. ‘allut,” sorne will argue, “if A.A. has no authority to govern its individual members or groups, how shell it ever Ix sure that h e comnlon weltare does come lirst? How is it possible to h governed widlout a governmeat? If evcryotle cnn do as he pleases, I~owcan you have augl~tbut anarchy?” The answer seems to I)e that weA.A.s cannot really do as we please, tl~ougl~ tl~creis no constituted l~umanaittl~orityto restrain us. Actually, our common welfare is prolectetl 11y powcrf~dsnfcgunrcls. T l ~ emoment any action seriously threatens h e C O I I I I I I ~ I Iwdfarc, grosy opi~~ion ~nobilizcslo rcmind us; our conscic~~cc I)cgit~sto cot~qhin. If one persists, he may becon~cso disturbed as to get drunk; alcohol gives I~ima 1)cnting. Group opinion shows him that he is oi[ the bcam, his own conskieace tells II~IIItlmt he is dcncl wrong, and, if he goes too far, Barleycorn brings 11in1real conviction.

JANUARY 1948

On the 2nd Tradition By Bill

F o r ortr g r o u p ptcrl~osctkcrc is lmt oriu r c l h r a ~ oartilrority – a louirtg C o d as I I e may cxprcss I l b r s a l j i n orcr grorip cnusci~~tce.”

Sooner or Inter, every A.A. con~csto depend upon a Power We 11111nblyhope and believe that our growing A.A. Trndition greater thnn I~imself. He finds that the God of his understauding will prove to l ~ he e will 01 God for us. is not o d y a source of strength, He is also n source of y o d i v e direction. Realizing that some frnction of that infinite resource Many people ure coming to think that Alcol~olicsA ~ ~ o n y n ~ o i ~ s is now available, Iris life takes on an entirely difierent COIII- is, to some extent, n new form 01 11umn11society. In our discus. plexion. Ile experiences n new imcr security togelher with such sion of the 1st Tradition, it was empl~nsizedtlut we I~nve,ill A.A., n sense of destiny and purpose ns he had never known belore. no coercive 11umnn nutl~ority. Because each A.A., of necessity, As each day- -posses, our A.A. reviews his mistakes and vicissi- llns a sensitive and responsive conscience, a d because alcohol tutles. IIe learns from daily experience what Iiis remaining will discipline l ~ i mseverely if he I~ackslides,we are finding we cl~nractcrdefects are and becomes ever more willing that they have little need for man-made rules or regulations. Despite the IJ~:removed. 111 tl~isfasl~ion11e improves his conscious contact fact that we do veer off at times on tangents, we are becoming a with God. more able to depend absolutely on the long-term stability of h e A.A. group itself. With respect to its own affairs, the collective Every A.A. grorlp follows this snme cycle of development. We nre coming to realize that each group, ns well as each individual, I.OII~I:~I!II(:I: 01 1111: g r o ~ ~ p will, giwn I ~ I I I I * , SIIIIIIY IIIWIOIIi11111os1 strate its I,crfccl ~ l c l ~ c ~ ~ d i ~ l , i l ‘I’l~c i~y. prol~pct~r~scit:r~cc will, in is a special entity, not quite like any otlier. Though A.A. groups — sre basically the snme, each group ,does have its own special atmosplierr, i!* own peculiar state of development. We Ijelieve that every h.A. group l ~ n sn conscience. 11 is the collective con. science of its own mernbersl~ip. Daily experience i d o r n ~ sand exl~ortntionsnntl p c ~ ~ ~ i s l ~ n ~ c n l s scc~nin~ly SII ~~c:t:cssi~ry III olhcr ir~str~tcts this conscience. ‘ h e group I~cginslo recognize its own societies. Alltl we ncocl 11otI I C ~ I I ! I I ~ IIVC~IIIIICII1111 ~ I I S ~ I ~ ~ C I I Icdcrs. tlcfccts of cl~nrocternnd, one I)y onc, ~ l m earc rc~novctlor Icssl,leca~~se our nctive lci~clcrsl~il~ of scrvicc I:IIII,c traly rolr~ting,wc cned. As h i s process conhues, the group Imomes I~etterul~le enjoy a kind of tlcrnocrr~t:yrr~wlyI~ossil~lc clscwl~crc. III h i s to receive right directiot!for its own aflairs. Trial nlid error protluce group experience, and out of corrected experience colnes custom. When a customary way of doing tl~ingsis tlefi~~itely .. respcct we may IIC, to n.lergc 111.grca:. I I I I ~ I ~ I I C . I ltcrclorc wc of Alc:ol~olit:sA ~ ~ o n y n ~nrc o ~I : I~: s~ ~ I I ~ I I111ntI I I C ~ C is h t one ~~llitni~le null~orily,”11 I o ~ ~ I( Ih/1: 11s IIC nlny C X ~ ~ S S proved to Le best, illen that custom forms into A.A. Tradition. hi1nsel1ill our group conscic~ic:~.” I The Greater Power is then working tl~rougha clear group conscience.

FEBRUARY 1948

‘On t h e 3rd Tradition By Bill ‘

ing at all, there arc no fees a ~ i dclues.” ‘l’hs, in a 1)rief hour, “Our melnbersltip ou&t to include all who sufler alco- is our friend disamed o l his suspicio~~ u~~tl rcl)cllio~~.flie eyes holism. Hence we may refuse norie who wish to recover. begin to open on (I new world of Irie~rclsl~ip und u~~dersta~iding. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money ~ a n k r & tidealist tl~u’tIIC has bccn, his icl-:I is no 1011gera dream. or conformity. Airy two or three alcolrolics ‘ After yenrs of 1011elysearch .it now stu~~cls ie~\ulcd. ‘Il~e~,e*tytogether for sobriety may call tlrenlselues art A.A. group, of Alcoliolics Ano~iyrno~~s I~ursts upon llilu.*<~<~collblics :provided that, as a group, they have no other afiliation.” Anonymous is saying, “We lluvc son~ctlhgpriceless to give, if only you will receive.” That is all. I h t to our new frierld, it is This is a sweeping statement indeed; it takes in a lot of terrieverytl~ing. Witliout more ado, IIC 1~cco111cs or~cof us. tory. Some people might think it too idealistic to be practical. Our aieml~ersl~ip traditio~~ docs cor~tnit~, I~owcvcr,o11e vitally It tells every alcoholic in the world that he may become, and important q~~olilication.l’llut rlt~alificatiorl’rc1;ttes to UIC use of remain, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous so long as’& says our name, Alcollolics AIIOII~III~IIS. We Mieve that ally two or so. In short, Alcoholia Anonymous has no membership rule. ‘ three alcoholics gntl~eredtogether for solwiety may cull h e m . Why is this so? Our answer is simple and practical. Even , selves an A.A. group provitlcd tl~at,us a group, they have no in self protection, we do not wish to erect the slightest barrier other alliliation. Ilcre our p~crposcis clcur and u~~cc~uivocul. between ourselves and the brother alcol~olicwho still suffers. We For obvious reasons we wish the Imlle Alc:ol~olicsAuo~~y~nous to know that society has been demanding that he conform to its Le used only in co~~riectio~l with straight A.A. ac~ivities. One call ‘ laws and conventions. But the essence of his alcoholic malady think of no A.A. n~en~ber who wo111tl like, for example, to see is the fact that he has been unable or unwilling to conform,either the formation of “dry” A.A. gro~cl)s,”wet” A.A. grorlps, Ilepubto h e laws of man or God. 11 he is anything, the sick alcoholic lican A.A. groups, C o n ~ m ~ ~ ~ A.A.~ist groups. Few, if any, would is a rebellious nonconformist. How well we understand that; wish our groups to be designntcd by religious denomi~~ations. every member of Alcoholics ~ n o n ~ ~ m o was u sonce a rebel himself. Hence we cannot offer to meet him at any half-way mark. We We cannot lend the A.A. nnnle, even i~idircctlyto other activi-‘ ties, however wordiy. If we do so we sl~allLeconle l~opelessly must enter the dark cave where he is and show him that we understand. We re’alize h a t he is altogether too weak and confused con~promiseda d divided. We think tl~atA.A. sl~ouldoller its experience to the wl~oleworld for whatever use cat1 be made of it. to jump hurdles. If we raine obstacles, he might stay away and But not its name. Nothing c o ~ ~ll ~d e more certain. perish. He might be denied his priceless opportunity. Lct 11s of A.A. therefore resolve 111otwe sl~allalways be inclu- So when he asks, “Are there any conditions?” we joyfully ‘ sive, and never. exclusive, ollering all we have 10 all men save reply, “No, not a one.” When skeptically he comes back sayour title. May all barriers I J ~t11us Ievclecl, niay our r~nitythus ing, “But certainly there must be hinge that I have to do and be preserved. And may God gtml us a long Me-and a useful believe,” we rpickly answer, “In Afcoholics Anonymous there one! are no musts.” Cynically, perhaps, he then inquires, “What is this all going to cost me?” We are able to llaugli and say, “No~ll-

February 1948

disease, and shows him how he can in coholism? How can it be prevented? this way make amends for some of How can it be cured? What causes Calls for Restatement of AA Purposes the havoc he has created in the world some individuals to become alco- – shows him how he can do this and holic? still remain anonymous himself if AA has only one reason for its exthat is his wish. istence, that is to help the individual AA does not exist today because of alcoholic with his individual alcoholic the misguided efforts of some indi- problem. If we lose sight of that or viduals in AA who wish to hang the allow AA to be crowded off that alcoholic up on a clothes line. main course we will be guilty of kill- AA needs today to take an inven- ing the goose that laid the golden egg tory of itself and find out whether or for us. And when we kill that goose not we have or are being crowded off we will kill ourselves. the main course by these misguided AA cannot do its job and allow itindividuals who, seeking self-aggran- self to become involved in the mass dizement, are using AA for their own alcoholic problem because that job selfish interests and, not caring who involves organization, finance, and knows about them, are forgetting leadership, all of which are dynamite that maybe the newcomer and some to the program of life set forth in the AA helps the individual alco- ease of alcoholism. AA is a Society of holic cieate within himself a alcoholics who have found a successspiritual and physiological change. ful method of staying sober and who of the others do not care to wash their book Alcoholics Anonymous. dirty linen in public. AA teaches us the broad principles Don’t misunderstand me; I am not of true democracy, and those go out AA is not trying to start a mass move- are trying to pass that information on as an individual ashamed of the fact the door when we build an organizament for the betterment of the whole to other alcoholics who are honestly that I’m an alcoholic. As an indi- tion out of AA. human race. looking for a way to rid themselves of vidual I’m proud of the fact that I Every member of AA today should AAs are banded together not for the obsession to drink. had courage enough to admit it and ask himself this question: Am I doing the purpose of educating the general AA did not come into being to c then did something about that admis- what I’m doing in the name of AA public on the problems of alcoholism make a public show of the alcoholic sion by joining AA. I’m very much of because of a true desire on my part to but for the prime purpose of helping – he can and does that job expertly the belief that AA has done its part in help the individual alcoholic or am I, the individual alcoholic with his indi- himself – but rather to give tbe indi- arousing the interest of the general deep inside me, looking forward to vidual alcoholic problem. vidual alcoholic a sanctuary where he public, the medical profession, the the time when 1 will be known as the . AA as a society is not primarily in- could find the help he needed from ministry, and the judiciary. person who helped put AA on the terested in hospitalization, psychia- other individuals. Having accomplished that, we map as a big time organization, with try, or theology. Those are all a part AA exists today, not because of the should turn the scientific part of the hopes that I will receive the homage of the education of the individual al- vast amount of publicity it did and alcoholic problem over to the agen- due me as a great benefactor of man- I coholic and he learns to use as much does receive, but rather in spite of it. or as little of them as he needs as an The reason it does exist today is beindividual in the solution of his per- cause it does continue to help the incies that have been created for this ex- kind. press purpose, and go back to the ong- AA’s continued existence depends inal and prime purpose for which AA on our coming up with the right sonal alcoholic problem. dividual alcoholic and shows him came into being. answer, and that answer must be an AA is not a cure for alcoholism. how he can not only help himself but AA must leave to others the honest, fearless, and lasting one. There is no known cure for the dis- can help others who have the same answers to: What is the disease of al- J. I;: H., Sun Diego, Calif.

MARCH 1948

tion can be absolutely relied upon to bring an erring group back ,. into line. An A.A. group need not, bp coerced .by aay..human government over and above its own members. Their own experience, plus A.A. opinion in ,surrounding groups, plus God’s . prompting in their group ionscience would be sufficient. Much travail has already taught us !hi’ H&e y e ‘may confidently’ . ,. I ;I.. :. ;.l.l! i . ‘,I ,::!11\ ; . ‘ , /. I ! : : I . 6’ say to each group, ?You should be . . no other author- ‘ to With respect. to,.its %,ownanairs, ,each A.A: group :,.A. . slrould be respilrsible,tq.~o,~ & ~ , b & t h ~tlqn ~ ~ tits. y, ity than your own conscience!’ , , . . ,!. consciencei .But when its.plaw concern,tha, welfqre of Yet please note one important qualification:,It!will be seen neigltbo~inggroups also, those groups ought to be con- that such extreme liberty of thought and action applies only to the “I .,’ . sulted. And’ no ‘ group;’ r e g i o d &o~nhittee,’,;.’ori~uli-‘. group’s own aflairs. Higl~tlyellougll,.tili$ Tradition gos;;on to vidual should ever take any action tlrat lnight greatly ‘say, ‘”But iulrerr its plnns concern rhe wclfare 01’nei~lhloring affect A.A. as a ,whole without, coitf~rrirtg,,witlr the trw! I .. ‘groups also, these groups occglrt lo be cot~s!clted.”.’ pl)vidirsly, if tees of The Alcolwlic ~ouiidakion.~ \On?shch issuki’ 6ur.1 ‘., uny inclividual, group or rcgio11111 ‘ co~n~niltcc colrlcl r!tke 1111 a+n comnton welfare is yara~~toun~.” .’ . which might scrionsly nITcct t l ~ cwcllnrc of ~ l c o l l u l i ~ Ar~o~ij~nous : ‘as a whole,.or seriously disturb s ~ ~ r r o u t ~ c l i u ~ , ~hr au tu l ~ Cbultl s, 2 .

This Tradition, Number 4, is a specific,application of general I,. . . pot ‘be liberty at all. It w d d LC sl~cer licellse;’ it would : . . … ..! . . I Im principles already outlined in Traditions 1 and 2. &Tradition1 anarchy, not democracy. states, “Each rhember of. Akohlics Anonymow is but a small .! , , Therefore, we A.A.s hovc u~liversolly ado&ti $e &ciple part of a g r e d whole. A.A. muct continue to live or most of w . of consultatiun. This IIICIIIIS 111111if a single A.A. group wisl~cs will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But indi- , ‘ to take any action wl~ic:l~ might ~ ~ l l c cs tu r r o ~ ~ d i n g gro~~l)s, it vidual welfare follows close afterward.” ‘.Tradition 2 statps, “For ‘ consults them. Or, if tl~erehe one, it confers with the interour group purpose there is but one’ ull{?ate ?t$wrhY-(r loving group committee ior tl~cown. I.ikcwisc, if a group or regjonnl God as He. may express Himself in our group.~onscience.” cunmittce wishes to tnkc nny nctio~~ h r t mnigl~tnllcct A.A. as n With these concepts in mind, let us look more closely at Tradi- ‘ whole, it consults thc trustees 01 The Alcol~ulicFoundation, who tion 4. ‘ The.first sentence of Tradition.4 guarantees each A:A. , nrc, in ellect, our ovcr-nll Gc~~crnl Scrvice Com!nittee. For ingroup local auionqmy. “With resp&t togitsown affairs, the group \ stance, no group or intergroup co~llclfccl free10 irdiatc, wid~out \

may make any decisions, adopt pnyl’attitudes that it likes. Yo consultation, any publicity h a t ~niglttnlTect A.A. as a whole. over-all or intergroup eytllority /should”cha1len~et h i ~ . ~ r i & a r ~ ” ‘ Nor could it assume to rcprescni the wl~oleo i Alcol~olicsAnonyprivilege. We feel this ought to be so, even though the group . nlous by prir~tir~g a d distrilmhg at~ytl~ing purporti~~g to he A.A. might sometimea act with complete indifference. b our tradition. , I standard literature. This sa~ne-principlewould naturally apply For example, an A.A. group could,’ if hit wished, hire a paid to all similur situatious. l’l~oughthere is no for~~~al’cornpuleio~~ preacher and support I!im out of the ‘pyocecds of a group nigl~f to do so, all nndertnkings of this gc~~eral cl~nrac~er are customclub. Though such an absurd prpcedur? would be miles outside’ arily cl~cckeclwith our A.A. Gcnernl Ilentlq~rnrters.~ . . :

our tradition, the group’s :’rig111 to be wr?ng’,’,would,le held i!~-, This idea is clearly su~nn~arizcd ill tl~clust sentence of Tradiviolate. We are sure,that each group can be gqnted; and safely . ‘tion 4, which observes, “Un such issues our conrncon wellare is granted, these .most extreme privileges. We. know Illat lour . paran~ount.” a ‘ . I

familiar orocess of trial and error would summarily eliminate .. , I)otl~the preacher and the night club.’ Those severe growing pains ” which invariably follow any radical ddpa;ture ‘from A.A. tl’adi-

APRIL 1948

On the 5th Tradition’, , By Bill

Eaclr Alcolrolics Anonymous. group ougltt to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose. -that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suflers. Says the old proverb, “Shoemaker, stick to thy last.” Trite, Fortunately most of us are convinced that these are perilous yes. llut very true for us of A.A. 11ow well we need to heed die speculations, alluring ingredients of h a t new heady wine we are principle that it is better to do one thing supremely well than now being offered, each bottle marked “Success”! many things badly. Of this subtle vintage may we never drink too deeply. May Because it has now become plain enough that only a recovered we never forget that we live by the Grace of God–on borrowed’ .alcoholic can do much for a sick alcoholic, a tremendous respon- time; that anonymity is better than acclaim; that for us as a movesibility has descended upon us all, an obligation so great that it ment poverty is better than wealth. nmounts to a sacred trust. For to our kind, those who surer alco- And may we reflect with ever deepening conviction, that we holism, recovery is a matter of life or death. So the society of shall never be at our best except when we hew only to h e primary Alcoholics Anonymous cannot, it dare not ever be diverted from spiritual aim of A.A.-”rhat 01 carrying its rnessap ‘to he a&oholic its primary purpose. who still suflers alcoholim.” Temptation to do otherwise will come aplenty. Seeing fine, works afoot in the field of alcohol, we shall be sorely tempted to loan out the nnnie and credit of Alco)~olicsAnonymous to them; ns n movemerit we shall be h s e t 16 finance and endorse other causes. Should our present succed continue, people will comnielice to assert that A.A. is a brand new way of life, maybe a new religion, capable of saving tbe world. We shall be told it is our bounden duty to show modern society how it ought to live. 011,how very attractive these projects and ideas can be! How flattering to imagine that we might be chosen to demonstrate that olden mystic promise: “The firstd~allbe last and the last shall be first.” Fantastic, you say. Yet some of our well-wishers have begun to say such thinga.

MAY 1948 -enterpriee does a lot of good with a lot of money. To these efforts, money is usually primary; it is their life blood. But money is not the life blood of A.A. Will1 us, it is very secondary. Even in small quantities, it is scarcely more than a necessary nuisance, something we wish we could do without entirely. Why is that so? c On the 6th Tradition We explain this easily eiioi~gl~; we tlon’t ~icecltnoney. The cale of our A.A. procedure is “one alcoholic talking to anotlier,” By Bill wliether that be sitting on a curbstone, in a home, or at a meeting. It’s the message, not the place; it’s tlie talk, not the alms. That The sixth of our 12 Points of A.A. Tradition is deemed so im- does our work. Just places to meet and talk, tl~at’sabout all A.A. portant h a t it states at length the relation of tlie A.A. movement needs. Beyond these, a few small ollices, a few eecretariea at to money and property. their desks, a few dollars a piece a year, easily met by voluntary Too detailed to print here, this Tradition declares in substance contributions. Trivial indeed, our expenses! that the accumulation of money, property and the unwanted per- Nowadays, the A.A. group answers its well wishers saying, sonal authority so often generated by material wealth comprise “Our expenses are trifling. As good earncrs, we can easily pay a cluster of serious hazards against which nn A.A. group must them. As we neither need nor want money, why risk ita hazards? ever be on guard. We’d r a h e r stay poor. Tliaiiksjust the snme!” Tradition 6 also enjoins the group never to go into business nor ever to lend the A.A. name or money credit to any “outside” enterprise, no matter how good. Strongly expressed is the opinion that even clubs should not bear the A.A. name; that they ought to be separately incorporated and managed by those individual A.A.s who need or want clubs enough to financially support them. We would thus divide the spiritual from the material, confine the A.A. movement to its sole aim and insure (however wealthy as individuals we may become) that A.A itself shall always remain poor. We dare not risk the distractions of corporate wealth. Years of experience have proven qese principles beyond doubt. They have become certainties, absolute verities for us. Thank God, we A.A.s have ne@r yet been puglit in the kind of religious or political disputes which embioil the world of today. But we ouglit to face the fact that we have often quarreled violently about money, property and the administration thereof. Money, in quantity, has always been a baleful influence in group life. Let a well meaning donor present an A.A. group with a sizeable sum and we break loose. Nor does trouble abate until that group, as such, somehow disposes of its bank roll. This experience is practically universal. “But,” say our friends, “isn’t this a confession of weakness? Other organizations do a lot of good with money. Why not A.A.?” Of course, we of A.A. would be. the first to say that many a fine

MAY 1948

A~~onymity From Palestine, Texas The individual who does not seem to care if the public knows he is a member of A.A. is taking on a double responsibility to A.A. and other groups around him. Suppose he slips: that reflects on all A.A.s The effect would not be too serious-but we all should want to add to A.A. and not detract. There has been quite a lot of personal publicity of late in various groups in Texas. This means no personal criticism. Your opinion and conscience guides you as mine does ine. . But we can thank the founders and writers of A.A. for a Program that has saved our lives, so we might do well to read and listen to their counsel as put forth in the o5cial A.A. journal, which say that the first, oldest and most vital tradition of A.A. is our anonymity. It proves that A.A. practices what it preaches, and that individual members are really giving of themselves and their experiences without thought of material return or peisonal publicity. t No one ever has to call attention to his bwn ability or virtue. His good qualities speak loudly for themselves. These aqualitiea arc not developed for the purpose of being talked about. They are to serve as a blessing to others. A true blessing is not a forced activity. It is a spontaneous act that goes out from the heart.-Dr. B.

JUNE 1948

On the 7th Tradition By Bill The A.A. C r o u p r tlrentralver ougltt t o b e fully rupported by t h e volrntnry contribution oJ t h e i r own members. We tltink thnt ench g r o u p r h o u l d roon nchieve it8 irlenlr tltnt a n y p u l ~ l i crolicitntion oJ jrtndr using t h e rtnaae o/ alcoholic^ Anonymotu ir higltly dnngerour, whether by gruupr, c l u l ~ r , horpilnlr o r o t h e r orcfricle agencies; ha^ acceptnnce o j lnrpe gijtr j r o w nny rource, o r 01 c o n t r i b u f b n r cnrrying a n y oldigntion whnfcver, i r rrn~aire. T h e n too, we view wit11 rnuclt concern tltoae A.A. trenrurics which conrinrte, beyond prudent reserves, t o nccuntulate j u n d r l o r n o rmrcd A.A. purpose. Experience hnr oJten wnrned. u r tknt nothing cnn s o rurely rlcstroy o u r spiritunl lceritnge nr jtttife clirputer o v e r proparty, money, nnd nutltorify. Our growth continuing, the combined $2,000. a month-the direct result of not sl~o~tlclnot cnch of 11s ell Iiirnsclf, “Yes, income of Alcoholim Anonymous mem- drinking. we A.A.s were o ~ c ca I~urdcn on cveryhers will soon reach the astounding total “But”, some .will contend, “our friends I~ocly. \Vc were ‘takers.’ Now tl~otwe are of $250,000,000, a quarter of billion dol- want to give us money to furnish that new sol~cr,oncl Iiy \lie Grncc uf God have belars yearly. This is the direct result of club house. We are a new sniall group cotae rcspo~lsil~le citize~isof h e world, A.A. membership. Sober we now have it, Most of us ‘are still pretty broke. What why sl1011l1l11’twc now o l ~ o ~ fncc ~ t a11cl IIC. drunk we would not. then”? con~c’tlinr~kful givers’! Yes, it is high By contrast, our over-all A.A. expenses I am sure that myriads of the A.A. time we did!”. are trifling. voices would now answer the new group For instance, the A.A. General Oflice saying, “Yes, we know just how you feel. now costs us $1.50 per member a year. We once solicited money ourselves. We As a fact. the New York oBce asks h e even solicited publicly. We thought we groups for this sum twice a year because could do a lot of good with other peoples’ not all of them contribute. ,Even so, the money. But we found that kind of money sum per member is exceedidgly small. If too hot to handle. It aroused unbelievable an A.A. happens to live in a large metro. controversy. It simply wasn’t worth it. politan center where an indrgroup ollice is Besides, it set ,a precedent wliicli l ~ a s absolutely essential to handle heavy inquir- iempted many people to use the valuable ies and hospital arrangements he contrib- name of Alcoholics Anonymous for other utes (or probably sho~tldcontribute) about than A.A. pt~rposes. While there rnny IIC $5.00 annually. To pay the rent of his little harm in a small friendly loan wliich own group meeting place, and maybe your group really means to repay, we coffee and doughnub, he might drop really beg you to think hard before yo11 $25.00 a yea; in the hat. Or,’ if he be. ask the most willing friend to make n longs to a club it conld be 150.00. In large donation. You can; and you soon case he takes The A.A. Crapevine he will, pay your own way. For each of you squanders an extra $2.50! ‘ these overhead expenses will never amount So, the A.A. member who really meets to more than the price of one bottle of his group responsibilities finds himself good whiskey a month. You will he everliable for about $5.00 a month on the lastingly thankful if you pay this small average. Yet his own personal income obligation yourselves. may be anywhere betwan $200. and When reflecting on these things, why

JULY 1948

On the 8th Tradition By Bill “Alcoholics Anonymour should remain forever non~professional. Ire dcline professionalism m the occupation of counseling alcoholics lor fees or hire. nut we nray ett~ployalcoholics where they are going to perform thorc services lor tuhich ~ u cmi& otherwise have lo engage non-alcoholics. Such spcciol services may be rucll recompcnscd. But our usual A.A. “126 Step”‘ work u never to be paid for!’

Throughout 111s world A.A.8 are “12t11 side world and bring our proslrcts face Because our thinking about thua peostepping” with thousa’nds of new prospects to face with us. Tl1at.8 not “A.A. tl~erapy”; ple is s ~ i l lunclear, we often feel and act it’s just a lot of very necessary 1~11 often a month. Between one and two thousand as though they were such. The impression of tl~cse stick on our first presentation; d~anklesswork. of professionalism subtly attaches lo them, So, where needed, let’s revise our attipast experience shows that most of the re- so we frequently hear they are “making mainder will come back to us later on. tude toward tllose wllo labor at our special money out of A.A,!’ or that they are “pro- services. Let us treat them as A.A. asso- Almost entirely unorganized, and com- fessionalizing” A.A. Seemingly, if they pletely non-professional, this mighty spir- ciates, pnd not as hired 11elp; let’s recomdo take our A.A. dollars they don’t quite p n s e tl~cm fairly and, a1)ove all, let’s itual current is now flowing from alco- Ixlong with us A.A.s any more. We aomeliolics who are well to those who are sick. absolve them from the label of polestimes go further; we underpay tlmn on sionalism. One alcoholic talking to another; that’s the ll~corythey ought lo be glad to “cook” all. Let us also d i s ~ i n ~ u i s l ~ clearly between for A.A. cheap. “organizing the A.A. movement” and sct- Could this vast and vital faceto-face Now isn’t this carrying our fears of ellort ever be professionalized or even or. .ling up, in a reasonably business-like manprofessionalism rather far? If these l e a n ganized? Most empl~atically,it could not. ner, ila few .essential services of conlac1 ever got too strong, none but a Mint or T l ~ efew ellorla to professionalize straight and propagation. Once we do tl~nt, all an Incompetent could work for Alcoholics “12111 Step” work have always failed will be well. T l ~ emillion or so brother Anonymous. Our supply of Mints being alcoholics who are still sick will then quickly. Today, no A.A. will tolerate the quite s~nall,we would certai~dywild Up continue to get the break wc 60,000A.A.s idea of paid “A.A. Therapists!’ ort’brgan. with less competent workers tlran we I I C C ~ . have already had. izers”. Nor does any A.A. like to be told We arc beginning to see tlrat our few’ Let’s give our “service desks” tlw I~and just how he must handle that new pros. paid workers are p c r f o r ~ n i ~o~dgy tltos~ they so,well deserve. peel of Ilia. No, this great lifegiving scrvicc tasks tl~atuur volunlccrs cannot stream can never be dammed up by paid consistently handle. I’ri~narily tl~esefolks do-gooders or professionals. Alcoholics are not doing 12th Step work. They are Anonymous is never going to cut its own just making more and bcttcr 12111 Stel) life lines. To a man, we are sure of that. work possible. Secretaries at their desks But w11at about those who serve us full are valuable points of contact, information lime in o t l ~ i rcapacities-are cooks, careand ~ u b l i crelations. That is what tl~cy takers and paid Intergroup secretaries are paid for, and nothing else. They help “A.A. professionals”? carry tl~egood news of A.A. to the out-

AUGUST 1948

On the 9th Tradition By Bill

E n c h A.A. C r o u p ndedr t h e least p o s s i b l e organisation. R o t n t i n g lenders h i p ir t h e bert. T h e r r n n l l g r o u p m a y elect i t s secretnry, t h e l n r g e g r o u p i t s ro!ating coarrnittee, nnd t h e g r o u p s o f a l a r g e M e f r o p o l i t a n n r c n t l t e i r c e n t r o l o r i n t e r g r o u p coarrnittee, w h i c h o f t e n entploys n / d l – t i m e secretnry. The Trustees 01 T h e A l c o l ~ o l i cF o u n d a t i o n are, in eflect, o w A.A. Cenernl Service Conrpiuee. They a r e t h e c u r f o d i a n r o J o u r A.A. T r n d i t i o n a r i d tlte receivers oJ volrrntnry A.A. c o n t r i b u t i o n s by wlriclr w e ~ ~ r n i n t n ionu r A.A. G c n e r n l Service Ofice in N e w York. T l t e y a r e a u t l t o r i s e t l by t h e g r o u p t o l m n d l e o u r u p a Founclation, a Gcncral Ofice o r a o v e r n l l p u b l i c r e l n l i o n s nnd t h e y yrcnrnntcc t h o i n t e g r i t y o/ o u r p r i n c i p d nctus- Grapevine, h e n we are organized f o r servp i p e r , ” T h e A.A. Crnpevine.” A l l r u c l r representolives n r e t u b e guitletl in ice. ‘The A.A. book end j ~ a n ~ l ~ l ~ l e our ts, t h e s p i r i t oJ rervice, f o r t r u e lenders i n A.A. w e b u t t r u r t c d a n d experiencecl meeting places a ~ ~ t clubs, l our dinners o l d servnntr of t h e whole. T l t e y d e r i v e n o r e a l nutlaority f r o m t h e i r titles; t h e y regional assc~~~l~lics-hcsc arc scrviccs too. Nor can we secure good l~oslritalconnecd o 1101 govern. U n i v e r s a l respect i s t l r e key t o t h e i r asejulness. sponsor IICW prospccls and lions, ~ w o ~ ~ c r l y ol~tai~ good ~ jwljlic r e l u t i o ~ ~ jwst s Ily cl~ancc. The least possible organization, that’s perts wielding a l l the latest porapherl~alia I’eople have to I* a p l t o i ~ ~ t etod look after our universal ideal. N o fees, no dues, no o f sound and script; such would be our these tl~ings, sonrcti~ncspaid people. Spe: rules imposed on anybody, one alcoholic promoters dream. “Yea sir,” Ite would cia1 services are pcrforn~cd. bringing recovery to the next; that’s the bark “My two year plan calls for one mil. I h t 11y none of hese special services, substance o f what we most desire, isn’t i t ? l i o n A.A. members b y 1950!” 110s our spiriluol o r socinl activity, h e But how shall this simple ideal best be For one. I’m glad we have both conser- great current of A.A. cvcr k e n really realized? Often a question, that. vatives and enthusiasts. They teach us orgn~~izcrl or ~~rofcasio~~ulizctl. Yet our We have, for example, the k i n d o f A.A. much. The conservative w i l l surely see to recovcry Ilrtjgrutn lms I ~ c c ncnorn~ously ‘who is for rimplicity. Terrified o f any$ i t that the A.A. nlovement never gels over oiclccl. \Vhilc i n q ~ o r t a ~ l~l lm , c scrvicc ac- . t l ~ i n gorganized, he tells us that A.A. i s organized. But the promoter w i l l continue tivities, arc very small by col~lraslwilh our getting too complicated. He thinks m o d y to remind u; bf our terrific obligation to main elfort. only makes trouble, committees only make the newcomer and to those hundreds o f As .well facts and d i s ~ i n c t i ~ ~ l~ecotne ~~ dissension, elections only make politics, thousands o f alcoltolics still waiting a l l clear, we 4 u l l c~tsilyIny ositlc o w fears paid workem only make professionals and over the world to hear o f A.A. of l d i g l ~ t i i ~ o gr p n i z n t i ~ n ~ or liozartlous that clubs only coddle slipees. Says Ile, We shall, naturally. take h e firm and wealth. As n n ~ o v c ~ n c ~ we~ ts, l ~ a l lr c n ~ a i n let’s get back to coif& and cakes b y cozy safe middle course. A.A. has always viocontfortnl~ly poor; for our service ex. firesides. I f any a l w l ~ o l i wstray our way, lently resisted the idea o f any general j>cnses ore t r i l l i ~ ~ g . let’s look after them. But that’s enough. organization. Yet, paradoxically, we have ever stoutly insisted upon organizing cer- Wit11 sue11 nss~~rances, we shall without S i n ~ p l i c i it s~ our answer. , tain special services; mostly those abso- doubt, c o n t i n ~ ~toe intprove and extend our Quite opposed to such l ~ a l c y o n simplicity vital lifelines of special service; to better is the A.A. promotor. Left to himself he lutely necessary to elTective and plentiful carry 0111our A.A. message to others; to would “bong the cannon and twang the 12th Step work. make for ourselves a finer grcater society, Ifre” at every crossroad o f the world. Mil- If, for instance, an A.A. group elects a nnd, Cod wil li116, to assure Alcol~olics lions for drunks, great A.A. I~ospitals,bat- secretary or rotating committee, i f an area A n o n y m o ~ ~as long life a ~ ~ t l perfect unity. teries of paid organizers and publicity ex-. forms an intergroup committee, i f we set

AA GRAPEVINE, SEPTEMBER 1948

we must meet them all. We cannot alcoholics throughout the world will flee from them, nor ought we try. If surely resume the hopeless journey these clrallenges do come, we sl~all, to oblivion. That must never be. 1 am sure, go out to rncct them gladly and t~nc~frl~id. 1’11ut will be As though by some deep and conrthe ucid test of our worth. pelling instinct we have thus far On the 10th Tradition Our Ilest defcnse? ‘I’l~issurely lies avoided serious controversies. Save in the formation of a l’ratlition re. ininor and 11ealthy growing pains, B y Bill specting serious controversy so pow- we are at peace among ourselves. erful that neither the weakness of And 1)ccause we have tl~usfar ad- No A.A. Croup or member should ever, i n such a way as to impli- persons nor the strain and strife of hered to our sole aim, the whole cate A.A., express any opinion on outside controversial issues- our troubled times can harm Alco- world regards us favorably. partictrlarly those o j politics, alcohol reform, or sectarian religion. holics Anonynlous. We know that May God grant us the wisdom and The Alcoholics Anonymous Croups oppose no one. Concerning such A.A. must continue to live, or else fortitude ever to sustain an unbreakmatterr they can express no views whatever. many of us and many of our brother able unity.

T o most of us, Alcoholics Anony- and practices hy which we may demous has I~ecome as solid a s the serve, as a movement, it long lifc Hock of Gibraltar. We like to be- and a useful one. To h i s end, none lieve that it will soon be as well could be more vital than our 10th known and just as enduring as that Tradition, for it deals with the subhistoric landmark. We enjoy this ject of controversy–serious contropleasant conviction because nothing versy. has yet occurred to disturl) it; we On the other side of the world, reason that we must hang together millions have not long since died in or die. Hence we take for granted religious dissension. Other millions our continued unity as a movement. l~ave died in political contraversy. Dut should we? Though God has The end is not yet. Nearly everybestowed upon us great favors, and body in the world has t u r ~ ~ e d re. though we are bound by stronger former. Each group, society and naties of love and necessitv than most tion is saying to the other, “You societies, is it prudent to suppose must do as we say, or else”. Pothat automatically these great gifts litical controversy and reform lly and attributes shall be ours forever. conrpulsion has reached an all-time If we are worthy, we shall probably high. And eternal, seemingly, are continue to enjoy them. SO- the real the flames of religious dissension. question is, how shall we always be Being like other men and women, worthy of our present blessings? how can we expect to remain for- Seen from this point of view, our ever immune from these perils? A.A. Traditions are those attitudes Probably we shall not. At length, – 93

been necessary. And it has become derstood Him, we still had increasingly clear that the degree sneaking ideas of personal justificaof harmonious living which we’ tion and excuse. We had to discard achieve is in direct ratio to our them but the ego of the alcoholic earnest attempt to follow them liter- dies a hard death. Many of us beally under Divine guidance to the cause of activity have received praise best of our ability. not only from our fellow A d a but from the world at large. We would ET, withal, there are no “shib- be ungrateful indeed to be boor& Y boleths” in A.A. We are not when that happens yet it is so easy The Fundamentals – – bound by the thongs of theological for us to become, privately perhaps, doctrine. None of us may be ex- just a little vain about it all. Yet, communicated and cast into outer fitting and wearing halos is not for In Retrospect darkness. For we are many minds us. in our organization and an A.A. decalogue in the language of “Thou shalt not” would gall us indeed. W””” a11 seen the new member who stays sober for a time, BY largely through sponsor-worship. Look at our 12 Points of A.A. Then maybe the sponsor gets drunk Dr. Bob Tradition. No random expressions and you know what usually happens. these, based on just casual observa- Left without a humali prop,i the From Akron, Ohio in some retrospect regarding certain tion. On the contrary,’ they represent new member gets drunk too. He has fundamentals. Much has been writ- the sum of our experience as in- been glorifying an individual in- HE feeling that one belongs to T and has a definite personal part in the work of a growing and spiritually prospering organization ten, much has been said about the 12 Steps of A.A. These tenets of our faith and practice were not worked out overnight and then presented to dividuals, as groups within A.A. and stead of following the Program. similarly with our fellows and other Certainly we need leaders but we organizations in the great fellow- must regard them as the human ship of humanity under God through- agents of the Higher Power and not for the release of the alcoholics of our members as an opportunist creed. out the world. They are entirely sug- with undue adulation as individuals. . mankind from a deadly enslavement Born of our early trials and many gestive, yet the spirit in which they The 4th and 10th Steps can not be is always gratifying. For me, there tribulations, they were and are the have been conceived merits their seri- too strongly emphasized hereis double gratification in the realiza. result of humble and sincere desire, ous, prayerful consideration as the “Make a searching a d fearless tion that more than 13 years ago, an All-wise Providence, whose ways sought in personal prayer for Divine guidepost of A.A. policy for the in- moral inventory of ourselves … dividual, the group and our various continue to make p e r s o d inventory guidance. must always be mysterious to our As finally expressed and offered, committees, local and national. . .. promptly admit it when we are limited understandings, brought me they are simple in language, plain We have found it wise policy, too, wrong.” There is your perfect antito “see my duty clear” and to con- in meaning. They are also work- to hold to no glorification of the dote for halo-poisoning. tribute in a decent humility, as have able by any person having a sincere individual. Obviously, that is sound. So with the question of Anonso many others, my part in guiding desire to obtain and keep sobriety. Most of’ us will concede that when ymity. If we -have a banner, that the first trembling steps of the The results are the proof. Their it came to the personal showdown word, speaking of the surrender of then infant organization, Alooholics eimplicity and workability are such of admitting our failures and decid- the individual-the ego-is em- Aponymous. that no special interpretation% and ing to surrender our will and our blazoned on it. Let us dwell thought- It is fitting at this time to indulge certainly no reservations, have ever lives to Almighty God, as we un- fully on its full meaning and learn .

thereby to remain humble, modest, dividuals, the rcl)uilding of broken ever-conscious that we are eternally I~on~cs.And always, it has been the under Divine direction. constructive personal 12111Step work boscd on an evcr upward-looking faith which has done the job. A LCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS wos n u r t ~ ~ r c din its early days around a kitchen table. Many of our pioneer g r o u p , sonlc of our most I N as Itlrgc an organization as ours, we naturally have had our share resultful meetings oncl h t programs of tl~osewho fail to rncilsure 1111 to have 11ad their origin around that certuiu obvious stonclords of conduct. with the l’l~ey have i~~cludedsc11c111ersfor modest piece of f u r r ~ i ~ u r e coIT& pot Ilandy on the stove. personal gain, petty swindlers and True, we have progressed mate- confitle~~cc~ncn, crooks of various rially to better furnilure and more kinds a11t1 other human fallibles. comfortable surroundings, yet the I{elntively their number has been kitchen table must evcr be uppro- small, much smaller than in many priate for us. It is the perfect sym- religious and social uplift organibol of simplicity. In A.A. we hove zations. Ye\ they hove been a proljao V.I.P.’s nor have we need of any. l e n ~and not on easy one. They have Our organization needs no title-hold- caused many on A.A. to stop thinkers nor grandiose buildings. That ing and working constructively for a is by design. Experience has taught time. us that simplicity is Lasic in preser- We cannot condone their actions, vation of our ~~ersonal sobriety and yet we must concede that when we Idping tlmse in need. have used normal caution and pre- Far better it is for us to fully c n u h r ~in dealing with such cases, ~rnderstand the meaning and prac- we m y safely leave the111 to that tice of “Thou good and faithful I1igher Power. 1,et me reiterate that servant” than to listen to “With 60,- we A.A.’s are many nlen and women, 000 membcrs you should have a 60 that we are of many minds. It will stories high odrninistration head- be well for us LO concentrate on the, quarters in New York with an as- goal of person01 sobriety and active sortment of trained ‘ists’ to direct work. We 1111rnonsand alcoholics on your olloirs.” We need nothing of strict moral stock-taking must conthe sort. God gront that A.A. may fess to at least a slight degree of ever stay simple. larcenous instinct. We can l~ardly Over the years we have tested and nrrogate the roles of judges and exdeveloped suitable tccl~niques for ecutioners. our purpose. They are entire1y flex- Thirteen grand years! To have ible. We have all known and seen been a part of it all from the bemiracles-the healing of broken in- ginning has been reward indeed.

AA GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1948 rious puLlic relations calamity could now, tempted to exploit dre names Editorial: always turn thousands awny from us to perish-a matter of life and death of our well known public characters. We have rationalized that other soindeed! cieties, even the best, do the same. The future poses no greater prob- As individuals, we have sometimes lem or challenge to A.A. than how believed that the public use of our best to preserve a friendly and vital names could demonstrate our per- On the llth Tradition relation to all the world about us. Success will heavily rest upon right sonal courage in the face of stigma; so lending power and conviction to, principles, a wise vigilance and the news stories and magazine articles. deepest personal responsibility on But these are not the allures they, By Bill the part of every man jack of us. once were. Vividly, we are becom- Nothing less will do. Else our ing aware that no member ought to brother may ngoin turn his face to describe himself in full view of the Our relntions with the general public should be characteri~edby the wall because we did not care general public as an A.A., even for personal anonymity. We think A.A. ought to avoid sensational ad- enough. the most worthy purpose, lest a pervertising. Our names and pictures aa A.A. members ought not be So, the l l t h Tradition stands sen- ilous precedent be set which would broadcast, filmed, or publicly printed. Our public relations should tinel over the lifelines, announcing tempt others to do likewise for purbe guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There that there is no need for self-praise, poses not so worthy. is never need to praise ouraeluea. W e feel it berteito let our jrienda that it is better to let our friends We see that on breaking anonyrecommend ua. .recommend us, and that our whole mity by press, radio or pictures, anypublic relations policy, contrary to one of us could easily transfer the Providence has been looking after ready so much better than our actual usual customs, should be based upon valuable name of Alcoholics Anonythe public relations of Alcoholicii character ! the principle of attraction rather mous over onto any enterprise or Anonymous. It can scarcely have Surely these phenomennl blessings than promotion. Shot in the arm into the midst of any controversy. been otherwise. Though more than a must hnve a deep purpose. Who methods are not for us-no press So, it is becoming our code that dozen years old, hardly a syllable of doubts that this purpose wishes to let agents, no promotional devices, no there are things that no A.A. ever criticism or ridicule has ever been every alcoholic in the world know big names. The hazards are too does, lest he divert A.A. from its spoken of A.A. Somehow we have that A.A. is truly for him, &n he great. Immediate results will always sole purpose and injure our public been spared all the pains of medi- only want his liberation enough. be illusive because easy shortcuts to relations. And thereby the chances cal or religious controversy and we Hence, our messages through public notoriety can generate permanent of those sick ones yet to come. have good friends both wet and dry, channels have never been seriously and smothervg liabilities. To the million alcoholics who right and left. Like most societies, discolored, nor has the searing More and more, therefore, are we have not yet heard our A.A. story we are sometimes scandalous-but breath of prejudice ever issued from emphasizing the principle of per- we should ever say, “Greetings and never yet in public. From all over anywhere. sonal anonymity as it applies to our welcome. Be assured that we shall the world, naught comes but keen Good public relations are A h . public relations. We ask .of each never weaken the lifelines which we sympathy and downright admiration. lifelines reaching out to the brother ‘ other the highest degree of personal float out to you. In our public rela- Our friends of the press and radio alcoholic who still does not know us. responsibility in this respect. ,As a tions, we shall, God willing, keep have outdone themselves. Anyone For yeare to come, our growth is movement, we have been, before the faith.” can see that we are in a fair way to sure to depend upon the strength and ba spoiled. Our reputation is al- number of these lifelines. One ee-

OCTOBER 1948

A.A., and if he is not a physician of course, exercise the precaution or a psychiatrist, the audience will of not only refraining from assumwonder why he was invited, and by ing the role of an official representawhat authority he undertakes to dis- tive of A.A., but will actually warn A Dilemma cuss this subject. his audience that lie does not speak There appear only two approaches for A.A., but only for himself. If he is a business or professional that such a speaker can make. First he can go into a statement of his man and is addressing an audience To Admit or Not to Admit interest in the subject, and his study of church women, whose ages preof the subject over a period of years dominate above 50 years, he should, (which for most alcoholics would be think it over carefully before contrue). fessing his alcoholism. An audience This approach is not too satisfac- made up of men or women of adtory because it requires personal ref- vanced age is far less likely to have From Phoenix, Ariz. matter over I decided in favor of erence, which may not be considered an open mind on the subject of alcaution. Therefore, I did not advise in good taste. coholism than a young audience. I SPOKE before a gathering of women at one of the leading the audience that I was an alcoholic or a member of A.A. Although, The second approach for the But since no A.A. can say that he speaker who is maintaining anon- is no longer an alcoholic, the ap- Protestant Churches in the City of most of the wide awake listeners ymity, is to simply launch into a proach to such audience is going to Phoenix. must have suspected such to be the discussion of the subject and let the be badly fouled up with obsolete and It will be no surprise that my sub- case from the nature of my remarks. audience judge from the content of outworn notions that drinking ,is imject was, “Alcoholism-America’s I think it almost impossible for his talk whether they think he knows moral and sinful, and the alcbholic Public Health Problem Number 4.” an AA. member who has been on his subject. excessively immoral and sinful. qiny I am a lawyer by profession and the Program for any length of time It seems to me that this approach homogeneous audience of persons ennot unaccustomed to speaking in to discuss alcoholism without be- is preferable to the first, and is not gqcd in social service, or profespublic. However, I find myself as- traying through his approach to the as likely to get the speaker off to the sional people, or business men, or sailed with mixed emotions as a re- subject, or the manner in which he wrong start. The intelligent and industrial workers is far more likely sult of the problem which confronts deals with the subject, that he is in discerning members of the audience to assume a friendly and sympathetic a member of Alcoholics Anonymous A.A. I think this is true no matter will certainly have no difficulty in attitude towards the speaker who adwhen invited to make such a talk. how much scientific knowledge he reaching a sound conclusion as to mits his alcoholism. So far as I know, the committee did may have acquired on the subject the speaker’s qualifications. The A.A. speaker when he goes *not know that I was an alcoholic. from sources other than A.A. There- Wherever possible I believe that a outside his own bailiwick must also Consequently, the dilemma with fore, I doubt whether it is possible speaker should disclose that he is an remember that the public has a long which I was immediately confronted for an A.A. speaker, talking to alcoholic. and if he deems it advis- way to go in the process of informawas whether or not I should disclose church or civic groups, to success- able, to hake the further disclosure tion and education on the subject of my A.A. membership. fully conceal his affiliation. that he is a member of A.A. He will alcoholism.-D.P. I am proud of my membership in Nevertheless, the problem still re- A.A. and my disposition was to be mains, and it is a dilemma for every A Thought perfectly frank about it, even at the speaker who finds himself in this risk of doing myself professional in- position. If he does not admit that ET’S so live that the preacher will not be unduly embarrassed at OUT jury. However, after thinking the he is an alcoholic and a member of bbL funeral.”-lefierson City VeeHly, leflerron City, Mo.

NOVEMBER 1948

stricts the A.A. group to a single fires of reform, political or religious purpose, i.e. carrying our message to dissention. Trudilion Eleven asks, in other alcoholics. our public relations, that we be alert against sensationalism and it declares T radition Six points at the cor- there is never need to praise ourroding influence of money, prop- selves. Personal anonymity at the erty and personal authority; it level of press, radio and film is urbegs that we keep thcse influences gently required, thus avoiding the pit- On the 12th Tradition at a minimum by separate incorpora. fall of vanity, and the temptation tion and management of our special through broken anonymity to link services. It also warns against the A.A. to other causes. By Bill natural temptation to make alliances or give endorsements. Tradi- We o j Alcoholicr Anonymour believe that the principle of Anonyniity haa an immense spiritual significance. It reminds ur that we tion Seven states that we had best pay our own bills; that large con- T radition Twelve, in its mood of humble anonymity, plainly tributions or those carrying olliga- enough comprehends the preceding are tb place principles before personalities; that we are a c t d I y to tions ought not be received; that pub- eleven. The “Twelve Points of Tradipractice a genuine humility. Thia to the end that our grea blessings lic solicitation using the name Alco- tion” are little else than a specific may never spoil us;that we shall forever live in thankful contempla- holics Anonymous is positively dan- application of the spirit of the tion o j Him Who preaides over w all. gerous. Tradition Eight forswears “Twelve Steps of Recovery” to ~ u r professionalizing our Twelfth Step group life a i d to our relations withi work but it does guarantee our few society in general. The Recovery paid service workers an unquestioned Steps would make each individual

0 NE may say that anonymity is the spiritual base, the sure key A will GLANCE at the 12 Traditions instantly assure anyone that amateur status. Tradition Nine asks A.A. whole and one with God; the that we give up all idea of expensive Twelve Points of Tradition would to all the rest of our Tradi- “giving up” is the essential idea of organization; enough is needed to make us one with each other and tions. It has come to stand for pru- them all. In each Tradition, the in- permit effective work by our special whole with the world about us. Unity dence and, most importantly, for dividual or the group is asked to give services-and no more. This Tradition is our aim. self-efiacement. True consideration up something for our general wel- breathes democracy; our leadership Our A.A. Traditions are, we trust, for the newcomer if he desires to be fare. Tradition One asks us to place is one of service and it is rotating; securely anchored in those wise prenameless; vital protection against the common good ahead of personal our few titles never clothe their hold- cepts: charity, gratitude and humilmisuse of the name Alcoholics Anony- desire. Tradition Two asks us to ers with arbitrary personal author- ity. Nor have we forgotten prudence. mous at the public level ; and to each listen to God as He may speak in the ity; they hold authorizations to serve, May these virtues ever stand clear of us a constant reminder that prin- Group Conscience. Tradition Three never to govern. Tratition Ten is an before us in our meditations; may ciples come before personal interest requires that we exclude no alcoholic emphatic restraint of serious contro- Alcoholics Anonymous serve God in –such is the wide scope of this all from A.A. membership. Tradition versy; it implores each of .us to take happy unison for so long as He may embracing principle. In it we see Four implies that we abandon all care against committing A.A. to the need us. the prnerstone of our security as a idea of centralized human authority movement; at a deeper spiritual level or government. But each group is , it poinls us to still greater self-re- enjoined to consult widely in matters I nuncirtion. affecting us all. Tradition Five re-

NOVEMBER 1948

About Tradtion Fiw Euh group has but one primary purpose . . . to carry its message to rbe dcoholic who still suKcrs.

un broad, wide-open requirement for membership brings us many with 0 just an honest M r e to stop drinking, and some who even delete ‘honest.” There are those who after severe birthpains come up with “I un an alcoholic,” but some are in danger of breaking their urn patting themselves on the back for their accomplishments. Others latch on to only put of Step Twelve and join the eager beavers. So we have all kinds of members to make up AA groups .. . good, bad or indifferent. Forty per cent of AA groups do not contribute to our General Service Headquarters. Only twenty-five per cent of the groups contributed to the Third General Service Conference last April. 1 like the old story. A minister visiting a poor country church to conduct service one Sunday noticed on entering the church a s d l box with the card: “Give what you can.” He put in a half-dollar. After services he was informed that there was no money to pay any part of his expenses but he could take the contents of the little box. He found it to be a half-dollar. On the way out his son wid, “See Daddy, if you’d put in more you’d taken out Inore.” Bill, ]mrm Bearb, Pka.

AA GRAPEVINE, DECEMBER 1948

I Statement: By: Tire Trustees of ‘I’lre Alcolrolic Fouritlatiorr, Iric. ( E d i t o r ‘ s Note: T h e /oliowing statement was nut pronrpled by the incidents mentiorrccl i n the Editorial on the opposite puge but relers to other departures /ronr u~rorrynrityand to inherent value 01 preserving the principles.) EETING in regular session, the trustees of The Alcoholic Foundation, issued to wlrom it may concern the following statement regarding “Anonymity”, and the use of the name, Alcoholics A Request “The practice of auonymity in our public relations already has had u profound elTect upon us, and in the years to come it will undoubtedly and an Apology remain one of our vital traditions. “We would like to take this opportunity of thanking the press, radio arid motion picture companies of the nation for the splendid job they have tlor~cand are doing to respect our tradilion of anonymity. “Occasionally, there occurs a break in this tradition; the name or picture of an A.A. member moy be publicly printed, or he moy speak or be spoken of by name in a radio interview. The responsibility for these regrettable, sometimes sensational, situations may rest with the outcome of talks recently given, press reports carrying my A.A. himself. There are no rules or regulations that can bind him ull name have appeared. to the tradition if he chooses to disregard the wishes of the movement Since two of the 12 Points of A.A. Tradition emphasize the great as a whole. In some of these instances the general public does not importance of maintaining personal anonymity at the level of 1)ress realize that the alluring temporary benefits of personal publicity must and radio, I naturally feel uncommonly embarrassed and concerned be ignored by us in favor of the long-term benefits of anonymity. at llaviug been the subject of these anonymity breaks. Just Itow or why “So, if you are an A.A. member, or a friend of Alcoholics Anorrythese lapses occurred, 1 have not yet learned; I had thougl~tsuital~le mous, we earnestly request your personal cooperalion in helping to precautions had been taken against them. Perhaps they were i,artly maintain a world-wide policy of anonyrnky at the public level as exdue to my own failure to caution reporters present at these particular pressed in the Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. “Our relations with the general public should be characterized by In any case, 1 feel that all A.A.’s are entitled to this explona~ionand personal anonymity. We think A.A. ought to avoid sensational adverto my sincere apologies. tising. Our names and pictures as A.A. members ought not to be broad- Everywhere the press has been l ~ n i f o r m i l ~ cooperative on anonymity cast, filmed or printed publicly. Our public relations should be guided ,when it is explained as a vital protection to the Alcoholics Anonymous by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There never is movement. May I therefore urgently request all A.A. groups to care- need to praise ourselves. We feel that it is better to let our friends fully cover my anonymity on any future appearances and 1 shall, of recommend us! course, try to take far greater care myself. “Finally, no person is authorized to speak for Alcoholics Anony- Let us never let go of this vital principle. mous, nor, obviously, should anyone introduce, publicly, the A.A. name into his own personal alTairs or controversy at the public level.”

FEBRUARY 1949

I Think of the Other Fellow’s Anonymity Frvm Kansas City, Mo. In my case, and in that conlmunity, it doesn’t matter. These people 1,L this talk about our tradition A of anonymity was brought Iionle to lile recently in my own community. had approached me with a certain respect. It’s quite possille that their ‘

imaginations conjured up some rather I live in a typical suburban town, not dramatic fiction about me. You an c.xclusive place, but an ordinary know. the Inan who was “saved from littic village that is not particularly nosey. a fate worse than death, etc .. .” From Nashville, Tenn. than to drift into morbid reflec- I~urtliermore,these four had a reason. I h r i n g a 12111 Step call in the One had a l~rotherwho drank too tion. Instead, let us remember a p r t m e n t house I live in, 1 let the OU, for whom this is par- that, so long as the future remuch. The others had “friends.” ~u~~crintendent know I was in A.A. Yticulnrly intended, are new. mains, omissions of the past No, there was no harm clone in As far as I can recall he’s tlie only Every so often you run into need not determine our life. We this instance. But it showed me how person I ever told. I wasn’t con- cynics and skeptics among your have shortcomings that can be fast the news spreads, once you let cerned with my anonymity. Didn’t old acquaintances, friends, and corrected with the help of our down the bars. It might have hapeven think of it in fact. even members of your family. own partic~llnr Higher Power. pened to somebody who could have These pseudo prophets of dis- We also have handicaps which Imagine my surprise when, in a been hurt, whose livelihood was deaster make you wonder whether we must accept and make the matter of three weeks, four people rived from the community. For, if or not you are going to make best of. Let us not, however, found the occasion to sidle up and four spoke out about it, how many the grade, and their attitude dwell only on our limitations, whisper, “I hear you’re a member others must know? There are probfills you with anxiety and but let us make an inventory of of Alcoholics Anonymous . The . .” ably some who class me with the worry. Be concerned to the our good points, and with the grocer, the girl in the lending li- Village Idiot, or have silently conpoint of doing all that is pos- help of the Higher Power, let I)iory, the manager of the branch demned me as somebody not to be sible to remedy unhappy con- us recognize and develop good l m ~ k ,and the young man who works trusted. It doesrl’t bothkr me. But ditions, but do not be fretful. points as we look to the future at the filling station 1 patronize– il’s taught mc a lesson about anony- And do not worry about the with confidence.-P.S.H. thcy all knew my “secret.” mity.-S.A. W. past. Nothing is more useless

Dying Embers

“ACERTAIN sponsor was worried over a backslider who once had been a regular attendant at meetings. He went to the man’s home and found him sitting at an open fire. Without saying a word the sponsor took up the tongs, lifted a glowing coal from the fire and laid it aside on the hearthstone. In silence they watched it die out, whereupon the backslider exclaimed, ‘You need not say a single word. 1’11 be at the next meeting.’ “-A.A. Coordinator

just something to appeal to newcom- literature featuring names of mem- 1 T H E A.A. 1 ers or did it represent a basic p i n ciple, justifying its use in the name I~crs. (3) I’crsonal pul)licity in connection with A.A. nic~nlmshipis con- A.A.? trary to the basic traclitio~~sof Alcoholics Anonymous. ept an “open mind” on the t”,e:A “.! until the end of his first when Andy volunteers to meeting. ‘ n ~ egroup secretary tllen T ? i f ~ a ta meeting, t ~ i stl~cmeis k~cgan I)assing out yellow 11andl)ills I~uilton one word It’s a n o ~ ~ y n ~ i t y . that looked like an advertiscmrnt for Andy knows tltat sonicone will illways AND: first n~ecting(at a ~)uhlicauction. One gli111cc con- Ilc wanting to promote A.A. like nn a ne~ghboringtown for lirrnwl Andy’s worst fears. Jil(; old time mc:tlici~rcsl~ow. Somc intlisecrecy’s sake, of course) DOIN’S NI’X’I’ I A Y ! 101′ vitluiil will always pop up with 111c was a peculiar revelatiol~. 1,ONGWIND’S SECOND ANNIVIIt- idea that solwic~ycntl Itc “solcl” like Although it was announced SAItY MEI’:TINC. DON’T MISS ;I program for civic Iwt~(.rmcnt,c o ~ n as an “open” o r public JOE’S GI{OUI’ OF ‘rI~l<RIl~l(: . ~blete will1 ”na~nc” spvi~kcrs, magic meeting, each speaker chose SPEAKERS. E A R I I N – 1anter11 slides ancl so~ind-rccortling to identify himself by Ibis NYBONE, ANNIE JAY’rALKEI<, apparat~is. Like 111e calm voice of full name. During t h e MIKE LOWJiO’lTOM. PASS TIIE sanity come Andy’s words: L’I.et’~ talks, names of several WOIID AROUND FOR A BIG guard our anonymity–its hull of ANONYMITY? A.A. members not present received spontaneous men- TURNOU’I’. Andy shuddered and stoITed the A.A.” Here’s an expression of his viewtion: “So-and-so of the Neartown notice into his pocket. 1Ie had a point: From Daribury, C0n.n. Group” or, “My friend Bill Some- qnick vision of his ow11 name Ijlow- For every prospect n~tractedI)y a 1)ody and his wife Betty who are both ing around town on colored I ~ a n d l d l s Iwrson pdtlicly announc:ing his nnili-

“I GUESS that anonymous part of Alcoholics Anonymous doesn’t mean anything any more.” The speaker wasn’t a new member. He members celebrated their first anniversary in A.A. last week.” Andy whispered a question to his lalwled “alcoholic.” At thi~tinstant ation, a hundretl alcol~olicsin need n mcntal reservation was Lorn that would cost the newcomer his job, his of help may be repcllrtl. Just as modesty and h ~ l m i l i t ~ wife, and months of agony. “I’ll just needed hy every A.A. for his own reare sponsor and received a reassuring was just an alcoholic who should answer; “Most of us don’t mind using lick this problem myself,” dccitlc:cl covery, so must they IIC essential to have become a member–except that names-just among ourselves. It Andy. “That way at least 1 can try Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. somebody scared him off. helps show that we’re no longer to be really anonymous.” Andy came to his first A.A. meet- afraid to be known as alcoholics.” glorification, factionnlisrn ing with the usual hazy ideas of what That sounded reasonable enough, months later when A ~ d ycame PYn”,”frirlg pcrsonnl ”leadarsl~ip” the Program was all about. However, but an ulleasy doubt was beginning S’twk for his scrond try n t sulmiety l~elpcd to wreck the only prcviom one principle had been firmly planted to stir in Andy’s mind. IIe recalled he tliscoverecl several irnportnnt large scale sol~ricty-program cver atin his mind-anonymity. Fellows a series of newspaper storiea about a things ahout the second Imlf of the temp~cd. (See articles on the “Wasl~who made the 12th Step call assured person in public life being identified name A.A.: (1) Meml~ers usually ingtoninns,” A.A. Grapevine, Dccemthe newcomer that his name would be by name with Alcoholics Anonymous. make a sincere effort to respect the ber, 193.11,and January, 194.9, issues.) respected by older members equal1y There were two o r three recent in- anonymity of others. (2) Most Here is the way Andy sums up his with their own. stances. Was the “anonymous” idea groups avoid printed promotional talk:

“‘1’0 me the very name ‘Alcol~olics p i n ; seeking no l d & c acclaim or A~~onynlo~ is~ s ‘ preciow and import- limeligl~t;olrcring our wo14i as well ant. as our will to a I’owcr greater than ” LAlcol~olics’tells what we arc – self. ~~coplc who cannot drink alcoholic 6 L Yes, the word ‘ a ~ ~ o ~ l y n ~ s o ~u se ‘l l s I~cvcrngcsat any timc ill any form. half of our name ‘Alcol~olicsAnony- “L A n o ~ ~ y n ~ o tells ~~s’ wllat we are mous’; I tilink il’s the Letter half. now l i b – ~ r ~ c r n l ~ cofr s a fcllowsl~ip tlctlicatctl to service without personal Let’s keep it sl~initlgbrigl~t.”-L.D.

Courage Erom Nashville, Tenn. us analyze some of our alcot~oliccharacteristics. Among From Rirrrrirrgliant, Ala. in:: he meet in^. Afterwurd he said: L 9 m is fear, and fear eats out the heart, warps the mind, and “I like w l l a ~I have I~eard. I be- destroys the body. I t is a killer, so toward fear it is not a question story that makes you stop of “live and let live,” it is a question of kill o r get killed. Fear is lieve A.A. can 11clp me, Ilut I wish i n is t ~ ~ i s one, ancl it I could read thnt llig Book you told the sign that we have been groveling in the valley of despair, but may give you new couragc. It’s a me al)o~~t.” in A.A. we learn to walk on the high plain of faith. Fortunately story of corlmge and kinclness. It’s At onct:, a member olTered him the fear is on the inside of man, not the outside. That in itself is hopea l ~ o u t two A.A.s who live in Fort loan of the Big Ilook, only to be ful, for we know that each of us. with the help of his particular I’ayne, Ala. told: “I never learned to read. I Higher Power, is master of all that is within him. If, therefore, One meml~er of that group is was an orphan and llever got much we have sincerely accepted the preceding Steps, then faith has en- ~~l~ysically I~anclicaplwd. W i t l l o ~ ~ t raisir~g.” tered the front door of our hearts, and when that happens, fear I ~ e l pI I ~could never i\ttct\d an A.A. I’crl~aps you have guessed tlw end goes out the back, for certain it is that fear will not dwell in the mccting. h t some of the Loys al- of t l ~ i sstory. Fort Payne Group llas heart which is filled with faith.-P.S.H. ways stop by, a d get him to the a man who is p l ~ y s i c a l l ~Iranditnecliugs. capped; it has a nlember who never One uigl~t rece~~tly, there walked learr~ctlto read. And now., the . man into the Fort I’ayne mccting a who cannot walk is reading aloud yo~~ny: nlnn. Ilc wore ovcritlls, Iwt to the youl~gman who “nevcr got he was ncnt and llad a c:lt::~n-c:ut np- ~nucllraising” t l ~ cstory of A.A. as ~ M : U ~ ~ I I C C I. le listc~lccl intcn~l y dur- told in the Ilig 1look.-L.J.

OCTOBER 1949 any fundamental disunity among us to be a spiritual entity havmg but could instantly disillusion tens of one prirnarypurpose–that of carrythousands who would again turn ing its message to the alcoholic their faces to the wall. Hence those who still suffers.” disruptions common to great wealth, So long a s we remain grateful for power, or controversy ought never what has befallen us, and for so be for us. Too many of the “mil- long a s this Tradition of high and We Approach Maturity lion who ddn’t yet know” would single purpose is indelibly emsurely die. blazoned on our hearts, our destiny Therefore our Fifth Tradition will be assured. We shall me worthy declares: “Each A A group ought of God’s providence.

By Bill

LCOHOLICS Anonymous i s destruction in the form of money; 14 years old. Yet no one we might forget our resolve to stay thinks we are just entering poor. These may well be the cruadolescence. On the contrary, we cial problems of our maturity; even are approaching maturity. Therefore now one sees their outlines. our problems and responsibilities Yet, I am deeply, yes, fervently a s a society are on the increase. convinced that Alcoholics Anony- It i s becoming clear we cannot be mous will weather all adversities T h e Gentleman From Vermont forever immune from the fearful and every test of time for so long pressures that are tearing modern a s God shall need us. My faith in society apart. Like other societies our future rests upon certain facts of men and women, we shall no of our experience: doubt be tempted to enter upon serious controversies. Perhaps some of us will seek fame and fortune F IRST, we now humbly gaze upon 80,000 miracles of per- A A FEW months ago I attended the convention at Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Friday evening I visited the headquarters in the Mount Royal Hotel. In the salon I started a conversation with an affable gentleman who told me that he originally came from Vermont. at the expense of Alcoholics Anony- sonal recovery; we see that each Since Maine and Vermont have many things in common, we continued mous. We shall be tempted to at- of us has been enabled by God’s our talk. Naturally I asked him the stock question of how long he had tack those who attack us; we shall Grace to achieve the impossible. been dry and he replied, “Fourteen years.” yearn for alliances with powerful In each life, unity has risen far I figured back in my head. That would be 1935, which was about the friends; we shall wish to write above former chaos. This being time Alcoholics Anonymous was founded. laws aqd so enter politics. It will God’s grant to us personally, we Thinking this man.was either kidding me or trying to tell me politely be difficult to remain neutral in may, if we are worthy, surely exto mind my own business I thought I would put him in his place and I the science versus religion con- an equal unity for AA a s a whole. replied, “That is nothing. Rip Van Winkle was dry for 20 years.” flict; some might wish to see AA Second, we are sure there must He smiled very broadly. In fact, I would call it a good New England grin. divide on sectarian lines. And, a s be a million alcoholics who would join A A tomorrow if only they knew Imagine my surprise to later learn that I was talking to Bill W.! we become better known, we shall Since then I have been slightly more humble.-&.F.G.,watemille,Me. certainly be offered large grants of what we do. We keenly realize that 104

NOVEMBER 1949

A A group, and for our far-flung side and with each other, they

TRADITION WEEK society itself? Yet many of us still take the basic unity of Alcoholics Anonystate our attitudes toward power and prestige, toward property and money. They would save us from mous for granted. We seem to for- tempting alliances and major conl get that the whole of modern so- troversies, they would elevate ciety is on a dangerous and con- principles far above personal amtagious “dry bender.” We evidently bitions. And, as a token of this assume we are so different from last, they request that we maintain other men and women, that dis- personal anonymity before the open integration can’t hit us. Our unity public a s a protection to AA and appears as a gift of Heaven; some- as proof of the fact that our society thing to be perpetually enjoyed by intends to practice true humility. us A A s quite without effort. For the information of the gene- Criticism is not intended, be- ral public and for the instruction cause our present attitude is natu- of new AA members, the 12 Traral enough. It stems from the fact ditions have just been released in that no society in its infancy has a much condensed “short form” ever enjoyed more providential which we hope will be as widely protection against temptation and read and understood as the 12 HE idea is in the air that AA then the 12 Steps of Recovery, T might adopt Thanksgiving Week a s a time for meetings and medibringing to him a “personality change.” The shattered prospect untoward happenings than has ours. hlinor troubles we have had, but none serious enough to test our Steps of Recovery. Should this happen, our current growing pains will be lessened and we shall tation on the Tradition of Alco- feels reassembled; he now says he adult strength. It’s not strange commence to lay up a great store holics Anonymous. The friend who seems all one piece. We under that we are a bit complacent and of insurance for the years ahead. hatched this notion tells you– stand exactly what he means, for self-satisfied. Surely there need on another page–why he thinks he describes the state of being be no counsel of fear, nor lack of What then could be more approe8 I the idea good. I heartily agree with at oneness”; he is talking about faith in the prediction that a far priate than to set aside Thankswhat he says and hope you will too. personal unity. We know he must greater time of trial may yet be giving week for discussion of the Pre-AA, we alkies could some- work to maintain it and that he ours. When we think our situation practical and spiritual values to times achieve that dubious state can’t stay alive without it. through, simple prudence and fore- be discovered in our Tradition? called “sobriety, period.” How Will not the same principle hold sight will tell us that. We could thus reinforce our faith bleak and empty this alleged vir- true for AA a s a whole? Isn’t it The 12 Traditions of Alcoholics in the future by these prudent tue is, only God or a dried-up alro a fact that the alcoholic i s in Anonymous are a distillate of our works; we could show that we dedrunk can fully testify. The rea- no greater peril than when he experience of living and working serve to go on receiving that priceson? Of course every AA knows takes sobriety for granted? If vigi- together. They apply the spirit of less gift of “Oneness” which God it: nothing has taken the place of lant practice of sound principle is the 12 Recovery Steps to our group in His wisdom has s o freely given the victim’s grog; he’s still a man a matter of life and death for him, life’ and security. They deal with to us of Alcoholics Anonymous in of conflict and disunity. Comes why isn’t that equally s o for the our relations with the world out- the precious years of our infancy.

NOVEMBER 1949

TRADITION WEEK the movement. They were written low us into AA have a great stake by Bill in an attempt to distill and in the future of AA; let’s follow condense into usable form the the course that experience has knowledge that the groups and in- charted. dividual members haveaccumulated So, I propose that we give more over the past 11 years–since the attention to the existence of the

You have a stake 12 Steps were formulated and the Traditions begun. The Traditions 12 Points of Tradition; that at least once a year all of the groups devote at least one meeting to a are a pattern of practical exper ience, a guide that will spare oth- discussion of the Traditions. Let’s

in the future of A A .. ers many headaches. The course of action and policy set forth so simply in the 12 Points of Traditry to make the 12 Points of Tradition, now conveniently available in pamphlet and condensed form, By T.D.Y. tion would steer the A A movement a s prominent in our activities a s past dangerous rocks and shoals, the 12 Steps and the Big Book. and keep the groups moving in a Let’s keep the Traditions alive safe direction. We and all who fol- and at work daily. I F A A were to be defined in the vernacular. it might be called a blend of principle and tical experience, and that every member can share in a free flow of the experience throughout the The suggestion made in the accompanying letter that practice which packs a terrific movement. special attention be given once a year to the 12 Points kick but causes no hangovers be- A A experience .can be found in of Tradition is being passed on by General Service cause it has been distilled from two priceless packages. One i s Office to dl group secretaries. the essence of experience. the 12 Steps and the other’is the A further suggestion is also being made that all The great majority of us–in 12 Points of Tradition, and the groups might wish to designate the week of Thanksfact, all except two–who have Traditions seem to have the same .giving each year as A A Tradition Week and during this gained sobriety through AA are the important relationship to the move week hold one meeting exclusively on the Traditions. beneficiaries of the experience of ment that the Steps do to the indi- I f the groups respond to the idea, special material those who preceded. Paradoxically, vidual member in his personal Pro- on the Traditions will be sent out from the Ceneral we also continue to benefit from gram of Recovery. I think, there- Service Office to all groups. Material also will be the experience of those who came fore, that we should make the 12 made available to d l group publications wishing to in with us and those who have fol- Points of Tradition a s dynamic a give the event special mention. lowed. One of the chief reasons force in the movement a s the 12 why A A works is undoubtedly the Steps. fact that it offers a minimum of The Traditions are the essence theory and a maximum of veryprac- of the experience of the ~ r o u p sand

NOVEMBER 1949

Editorial laws of behavior for A A members or AA groups. The Traditions are AA has no place in controversies, even those that deal with althe boiled-down wisdom of all A A coholism. You may holler your head experience, some of it gained the off at some medical opinion, as an hard way. individual. Just don’t speak your TRADITION WEEK The Traditions are statements piece in the name of AA, that’s of AA principles, not a precise all. You may enter politics. You cope of ethics. They are written to may even run for President–and give you something to check your we’ll all vote for you–unless you By Their Works Ye Shall Know Them own ideas against. You may not campaign on the strength of your care about your personal anonym- connection with AA. In short, the ity. But the principle of anonymity principle of minding our own colis proved as one of the basic rea- lective business is important to sons for A A ‘ s success. You may all of us. RADITION Week i s AA’s very same time we recognize that.this T first attempt at concerted a c tion on an international basis. A s w almost” perfection rests on a foundation of our individual human not see any danger in owning property, clubhouses or even hospi- It must be fairly evident that A A tals, but the principle of keep in^ has been guided through these a movement we are so loosely knit weaknesses. AA cannot let itself A A clear of material possessions formative years by a wisdom far that we are hardly geared to rally down. If that ever happens, it will (including inordinate sums of mon- greater than the best brains A A behind any outside “cause” or to be you and I who do it. ey) has already been demonstrated can assemble. The 12 Traditions conduct any “crusades.” That’s In this issue of The A.A. Crape- represent our humble efforts to many times and in many places. a s it should be–according to the vine, the 12 Traditions are tho- Management of such worldly afTairs realize our blessings; to live by very Traditions we seek to per- oughly discussed and their relation quickly takes precedence over the the Grace of God, a s it has petuate. to the individual, t o the group, and one job we really know how to do. been shown to us! This, however, i s strictly within t o the general public fully treated. the family. We are, in effect, ask- These 12 statements are not @a ing ourselves to take the 4th and musts.” Nothing in AA is. You 10th Steps en masse; to take a are perfectly free ;o disregard them moral inventory not s o much for if choole. In that re&ct they our individual good but for the are a lot like the laws of nature. good of AA a s a whole. It may be Nobody’s going to stop you from the first time many of u s have breaking them. But just a s . s w e l y stopped and seriously considered a s the sun rises in the east and our relation t o the group and to the entire body of AA. A s an annual habit it may some day turn out to flowers bloom in the spring, nature has a way of making you pay. The AA Traditions are not mere 0 H Lord, help me. to utilize the chosen Steps making each day my single goal. Help me to exercise their precepts, learning a way that keeps me whole. Let me draw happiness from my day, sharing this feelbe our salvation! words that Bill thought would look ing with another. Let me store wisdom in A A , bearing its healing to Most of us agree that AA, a s it nice in print. Nor does Bill or a n y my brother.–l.A.L., lackson Ileights, /,.I., New York stands,is well nigh perfect. At the one else dream of laying down any

NOVEMBER 1949

TRADITION WEEK

Do t h e 12 Traditions of A A have My own feeling is that they have any special meaning for t h e indi- personal a s well a s group meaning vidual? Are they important t o you and that groups c a n apply them efand t o me, personally, or are they fectively only when t h e individual significant merely a s they help u s members understand them, accept to make sound group d e c i s i o n s ? them and believe in them. 1 f . a

group rejects the experience of- those personalities might be. If sense of the importance of A A , not Without A A few of us could long fered in the Traditions, it is a doubts and differencesshould arise only to myself but to others for survive to lead hopeful, fruitful, threat to me personally because it in any group with which I may be whom A A may in the future mean constructive lives. The 12 Tradiweakens a part of the structure of associated, I want the solution of s o much. I can see more clearly tions show us how A A can be Dre- AA, which helps keep me sober. those doubts and differences to served and kept strong. And that Take away a sound group struc- emerge from something bigger than how easily the great gift of A A i s all I have to know to lead me to ture in AA and you will leave me personalities, something bigger might be dissipated if the simple accept those Traditions a s key floundering. I have the 12Suggested than the group itself. yet costly experience of the past elements in my own personal sur- Steps to fall back on, but would The 12 Traditions seem to me were rejected. viva1.–R.B., Redford, N. Y. they be enough in time of crisis? to express a deep sense of the hu- They might be, but I know that mility and responsibility upon which working in and with a group of A A s AA is based. To help make A A conmakes it a lot easier to stay sober. tinue to serve, I must also bring And 1 prefer not to do things the humility and responsibility to bear hard way. upon all personal decisions involv- If I, a s an individual, need a ing AA. Some of those decisions group affiliation, it must be with a will be made at closed meetings group whose roots are grounded in of A A groups. Others may involve AA wisdom, experience and prin- purely personal relationships. Yet ciples. I am not looking for socia- in each decision I cannot help but , bility, conviviality or a chance to shape, in some small way, the fumake business contacts. I came to ture of AA for myself and for others AA to achieve and retain sobriety. who may be affected. This is a I wanted to share a gift that had grave responsibility for any one of been made possible by the costly us. We can discharge such responexpetience of others. The 12 Tra- sibilities far better when the deciditions of A A disclose that exper sions we make flow from the reserience to me. They tell me what voir of A A experience contained in had to be done,and what had to be the 12 Traditions. avoided to help insure the continu- The Traditions had been pubing sobriety of the early members. lished for many months before I And they remind that if the early approached them with an open members had not continued sober, mind, to investigate what they I might not be sober today myself. meant and how they could help me. In the Traditions I can read an Their importance did not sink in, assurance that AA will continue did not penetrate, until I actually to be guided by principles, not by began to read them thoroughly, to personalities. That is important. study them and to measure them The domination of a single group against my own limited experience by personalities would be distaste- in AA. ful to me, however well-intentioned As a result, today 1 have deeper –

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NOVEMBER 1949 Someone knew something about the available, but it i s within easy TRADITION WEEK preceding groups; someone had read something or been told somereach in a convenient package-the 12 Points of Tradition. Included thing about how other groups were in the experience that i s condensed staned. into the Traditions i s this collec- Furthermore, the majority of tive experience of the groups in groups in existence today did have their beginnings, their early growth the benefit of the printed material and their continued growth. What about AA, the 12 Steps, the Big have these groups learned about Rook, the letters and bulletins clubhouses, hospitals, finances, from the General Service Office. anonymity and other important mat- Experience–the keystone of so ters that every group faces sooner^ much that works for personal re- or later? What ways have they covery in AA–is also the key- found to be the smoothest? What stone to successful group activi- pitfalls have they spotted s o that’ ties and growth. The accumulated others may avoid them? experience of the thousands of All of these questions are angroups which have been formed swered in the 12 Traditions. The over the past decade i s invaluable answers are not specific or pointed. to the continued growth of AA They are not dogmatic. through the formation of still more The 12 Traditions are only suggroups. gestions, consistent with the A A This experience i s not only valu- policy of the helping hand, never able to the new group just begin- the ruling hand. Of course, any ning but to older groups whose individual and any group is privigrowth leads them up against a leged to disregard experience, to succession of new problems. The make the same blunders, suffer the problems are new to them but not same group agonies a s others beto all other groups, because some- fore them. where other groups have already The Traditions might well be encountered and solved these same made a vital part of group affairs. problems. That is one of the com- They can be a living, dynamic foning aspects of AA–therevs ai- force in the continued growth of ways somebody who has been present groups and the founding of Anyone who has shared the early been founded and nursed through through the same thing ahead of new ones. They offer the guidance pains of a new group will undoubt- infancy the hard way–without you and i s there to’pass along his that will smooth the way for the edly agree that here i s one place benefit of experience. It can be experience to help you. The same multiplication of A A groups and in the development of A A where done, perhaps, but probably no i s true for the groups; their collec- thus help to reassure further growth experience i s vital. group after the first was started tive experience i s available to all and new happiness for thousands 1.0be sure, many groups have without any experience at all. subsequent groups. more through sobriety and AA. Not only i s this experience –T.D., Greenwich Village, N.Y. 110

NOVEMBER 1949 mance, and a touch of t h e old-time further the careers of the indivi- TRADITION WEEK Horatio Alger sentiment. Anonymity i s a tacit guarantee of our utter d u a l s making them. Do you suppose that outsiders aren’t going t o a s k sincerity–and hwnility. In short, themselves, “Hey! What happened we provide the sort of material t o t h i s anonymity b u s i n e s s ? I writers like t o write and editors thought t h e s e people were going to like t o print. . keep their drinking t o themselves From what they’ve read and and not g e t in my hair!” T h a t would heard, people a l s o know it i s b e one chink in t h e armor and no t* safe” t o admire us. It isn’t going amount of explaining i s ever going t o c o s t them anything! They can t o make it whole again. praise A A t o t h e s k i e s without fear Suppose one AA, just one, dethat one of u s i s going t o show up, c i d e s t o u s e h i s life story p s c a w h a t in hand, asking them t o back paign material in running for a pubu p their admiration with “a little l i c office. It may turn your stomach something t o k e e p things going.” e v e n t o think of AA being abused The public a l s o knows that we s o selfishly. Rut i t could happen! are not some sort of “cult.” It i s All of u s feel our A A s o persons a f e t o encourage our growth be- a l l y that we’re inclined t o believe c a u s e they d o not fear that we’re that everyone h a s t h e same appregoing t o turn on them some day and ciation and understanding of it. try t o “reform” t h e world. We a r e T h a t just ain’t so. T h e public a p not going t o disturb their religious proves, but enough bad examples beliefs, or their prejudices, or even and it will be a n e a s y matter for their drinking habits! the man-in-the-street t o say, “So, By our words and by our a c t i o n s they turned out t o b e phonies too!,’ w e h a v e given outsiders every May be your sobriety wouldn’t b e c a u s e t o admire, and little c a u s e affected. Maybe you have enough for alarm. But we a r e s t i l l nothing AA in your heart and in your mind s p e c i a l t o them,other than a bunch t o survive any s u c h upheaval. Hut of people who have found a way t o think what it could mean t o t h e milacquire the commendable habit of lions out there who a r e s t i l l drunk. sobriety and, in s o doing, have be- Will they be encouraged t o come t o come humbly happy–and happily AA if t h e g r e a t m a s s of people have humble! begun t o suspect. that we a r e not What the public thinks about u s enough c a u s e to turn really critical Let’s make a couple of tentative precisely what we s a y we a r e ? You i s of ever increasing importance t o –and public opinion could con- c r a c k s in that sol id front, however, know they won’t, and s o a lot of e a c h individual member of AA. If ceivably wreck AA altogether1 and s e e how quickly i t a l l can alcoholics will die, c u t off from t h e outside opinion ever h a s reason t o SO far we’ve had a n excellent change. Suppose we have a *’wavew c h a n c e t o learn what you have turn sour o n AA, it c a n slow down press. “Comebacks”are good copy of anonymity breaks a t high levels. learned! our growth. Give enough people any time. They have drama, ro- Suppose t h o s e breaks are made t o Your job i s obvious. Know t h e

NOVEMBER 1949 Traditions, and live up to them. membership at the public level. For the Traditions are the only For all of us who love AA, it check on our behavior in our own might be well to remember that public opinion, once aroused, is TRADITION WEEK groups and toward the public. There is no power in A A which can stop the mightiest force on earth-any individual from doing any of next to Divine Power itself. Rut the things we have mentioned here we can hardly expect the Higher –or worse! Rut you can stop you Power who has already given us MEMO from doing them. Your example may so much, to act also a s our Public be the straw that will deter the Relations Director. That’s our job, fellow who, thinkingly or unthink- yours and mine!–1I.S.’ Great ingly, i s planning to abuse his AA Neck, L.I., New York To: Group Secretaries Program Chairmen

Ilorc~are you going to observe “Tradition Week’ in DON’T HUMOR HIM your group? There i s no precedent. You’re p i n g to be UST recently an A A wife asked me if I thought wives should humor setting one. In fact, you may be establishing a new J and baby their A A husbands on the chance that, if they didn’t, the bum might take a drink. My answer was no, and by that I meant an A A Tradition by the manner in which you conduct your “Tradition** meeting, or meetings. wife should regard the usual rules of give and take in marriage and Won’t you let us know how you work it out in your should obviously treat the guy with normal Christian charity but she group? should nor indulge in any unusual or excessive giving in because of fear It may be just a round-table discussion on the Tradithat he might go back to drinking. tions. If so, we’d like to know if it was a good discus- The reason for this answer is, to me, obvious. You see, if the A A i s sion. You may devise a program with s p e c i d speakers. on t+ Program completely, from beginning to end, it’s not because of the wife and kiddies and the mortgage. He’s on it for a very selfish reason. If so, tell us what kind of speakers you chose, and how He wanis to live a normal happy and complete life and he can’t do it they made out! Or you may turn the whole thinR over to and drink. It follows therefore that if the principle of self-interest i s the “old-timers” of your group. If so, let us know if the working as strongly a s it should, an A A is going to stay on the Program old hoys and/or girls did a good job! no matter what his ever-loving wife does, and regardless of what anyone Let’s apply the AA principle 01giving each other the else anywhere does. So you see, it’s not necessary to spoil him. benefit of our common experiences. Whether your meet- An alcoholic is by nature a frustrated person. Through drinking he has ing is a great success, only so-so, or dotr)nright dull, lost all sense of values and i s unable to steer his existence toward an it will help if you’ll give us a truthful report, even ultimate goal. He is a human being without a purpose. Ile merely exists if it hurts. The A.A. Grapevine will act .merely a s and does not live. He has become pig-sty or common garden variety a clearing ‘house for this interchange–as a p i d e to selfish. He is a guy who needs to sit down and take an inventory and all of us for next year! discover where his real self-interest lies, and then get selfish about it l u s t a few lines on a postcard will do! Thanks! –I00 per cent. When he does this and becomes ready and willing to recognize his limitations, his particular purpose in life will become clear THE EDITORS to him. Then he will be able to relax and give full vent to those ambitions which promote happiness and peace of mind.–E.M.I;., Tuscolu, 111.

NOVEMBER 1949

T H E TWELVE TRADITIONS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

O U R CROUP EXPERIENCE SUGGESTS T H A T :

1 depends O u r common welfare should come first; personal recovery 7 Evcry A A C r o u p ought to be fully self-supporting, declining upon A A unity. outside contributions.

2 For our Group purpose therc is hut one ultimate authority – 8 Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-profesa loving God as H e may express himself in our G r o ~ ~ p Con- sional, but our service centers may employ special workers. science. O u r leaders are but trusted servants – they d o not govern. 9 AA, as such, ought never he organized; but we may create service boards o r committees directly responsible to those 3 drinking. T h e only requirement for A A membership is a desire to stop they serve.

4 ing Each G r o u p should he autonomous, except in matters affect- 10 Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public other Groups o r AA as a whole. controversy. 5 Euch C r o u p has hut one primary purpose – to carry its 11 O u r public relations pnlicy is b a r d on attraction rather than message to the alcollolic who still suffers. promotion; w e need always maintain personal anonymity 6 An A A Group ougllt never endorse, finance or lend thc A A a t the level of press, radio and films. name to any related facility or outside enterprise lest prohlems of money, property and prestige divert us from our 12 Anonymity is the, spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, primary spiritual aim. ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.

DECEMBER 1949

….on the 12th Tradition inks, etc., which dangerous procedute has proved disastrous in more for s o doing. Alcoholics Anonymous belongs to all alcosome places. holics who have a sincere desire Anonymity i s a potent reminder Anonymity discourages members to use its principles. Certainly all 7’0 preserve harmony, that we are just one among many, from becoming professionals, of us should feel duty bound to an infinitesimal agent of a great charging fees for counseling alco- preserve its principles and praclet us respect o w tice, not only for ourselves, but power. It has a very substantial holics and other services, and preanonymity spiritual significance, remindink vents personal publicity in all for the millions of sick alcoholics us to respect the common welfare printed material, photographs, ra- yet to come. Few of us realized of the movement ahead of our own. dio, television, etc. the warmth and the solace of Anonymity stymies self-glorifi- Let us all remember that Alc brotherly love until we found this

A LCOHOLICS Anonymous Traditions admonish us that to cation and insures the other fellow holics Anonymous is a spiritu$ movement. Let us protect our the right to preserve his own iden- entity only. It has nothing to sell anonymity and fortify ourselves preserve harmony and to enand doesn’t want to buy anything. against possible disaster.–Doc., hance the survival value of our tity. U ‘b you are in AA i s not It gives away everything and has Portland, OreRon movement, we should seriously re- important. spect the anonymous aspect of Anonymity protects the movethe Program. ment. If a group “wheel-horse” In Main Street America it i s more suddenly reverts to a mash diet, difficult to remain anonymous, but a s sometimes happens, wraps his many small town groups have found car around a telephone pole, makes by trial and error that anonymity the newsprint or the “bucket” or should be encouraged at all times. both, AA is left unscathed. A11 too often in groups we find Anonymity fonifies us against members violating this Tradition, political invasion and alignment many, no doubt, because of lack with religious or other movements. of knowledge a s to just how impor Former movements have been detant anonymity is to u s and why it stroyed by the invasion of political should be respected. speakers and alignment with va- What Makes A A Work? The common “explosion” one rious sectarian organizations. By usually confronts when broaching remaining strictly nameless, we the subject is, “Why should I be by-pass these and all controversial ashamed of Alcoholics Anonymous? issues such a s the wet and dry I’m proud of it, I think all of us should let everybody know we bequestion and other promotional’ projects. IF you are inclined to “analyzew the Program, take it apart to see what makes it work, you might remember a certain botanist. He found long, etc. etc.” Such a person Anonymity insures u s against a beautiful plant by the wayside, whipped nut his microscope, and set needs to be enlightened. Personal members forming small groups, about tearing the lovely flower apart. attitudes are important, of course, associating personal names with In a very few minutes he could tell you the precise classification of but are only a minor factor concern- the well-known name, Alcoholics the flower, its color, its size, number of stamens and pistils, and petals ing why we should stay nameless. Anonymous, and obtaining credit, and tracts. Other vital reasons are: loans or gifts for clubs, furnish- But the life and the beauty’ and the fragrance of God’s handiwork were gone–forever.

FEBRUARY 1950

&# Thus conscience A A s rn know just how far he can stop drinking, well–he’s a s much does malie corcvuds go in exercising his nuisance a member of A A a s you or you-value. He has an unerring though or me! But a lot of our people are of U S all”–Williun, bleary eye for the newcomer and convinced he has no desire what- Shakespeare unless some case hardened old- ever to quit the bottle; that he has ‘ timer shoos him off, he’ll victimize staked us out a s easy touches and the defenseless beginner who is he works us svstematically. looking for an opportunity to demon- Others believe he is unquestionstrate his own gratitude in some ably a psychopathic case. Rut material way. where in A A docs it say anything Now, don’t get me wrong. This about us being competent to pracgroup of ours i s about as com- rice medicine? The state makes passionate a bunch a s you’re people go through a lot of schoollikely to find anywhere in AA. In ing to qualify before they issue a the two years that this has been license t o tell other people what’s “OUR GROUP CONSCIENCE” going on, we’ve tried everything we know–as a group and a s indiwrong with them. And even if we had such a license, I doubt if anyviduals. We’ve been soft. We’ve body could get close enough to been tough. We’ve been generous. this chap-mentally or physically T HAT phrase appears in our second Tradition. And has orir streets, sleeping in box cars or empty doorways when he isn’t in We’ve been stingy. We practically ran an ambulance service, caning –to examine him properly. By now, om group’s problem group got a conscience? If you re- the calaboose. He’s been in the member the story of the huge ele- him in and out of hospitals. We’ve should be plain. What do we do city hospitals s o many times that phant thrown into panic by the itty even they don’t, want to bother put him in re1 igious institutions. with this guy? Most of us feel that bitty mouse, you have some idea with him–even to commit him to We’ve pulled him out of gutters– we ought to take steps for the proof the disproportion of our dilemma. a state brain bin. and thrown him back in. tection of the group a s a whole– Here, Mr. Anthony, i s our prob- You can’t insult him. You can’t the greatest good for the greatest It isn’t that we lack experience. lem. Every meeting night this guy even threaten him. Each week, number, etc. But who’s going to Our group i s seven years old. Even shows up–drunk, filthy, and on there he is–so completely repul- cast the first stone? And what kind so, one man–one very drunken the make. In cold type, that des- sive that he sickens the women of stones do you hurl at a guy who drunk–is driving us nuts. This cription doesn’t do him justice. who see him and works a double can be neither insulted nor threatman is a former member of our out- There are degrees of filth, and of hardship on our earnest new- ened? The police and the local fit and several years ago he at- smells. I’d have to be fundament- comers. He won’t go’way. Further- hospitals are fighting a s shy of tained about seven or eight months ally crude to tell you in s o msny {more, he does the same to other him as we are ourselves. of sobriety. But for the past two words what I mean by that last. grqups in our vicinity. Sort of a We would like your advice beyears he’s been, to put i t mildly, lend-lease arrangement. fore we take the straitjackets off a pain in the neck to all and sundry. We know the Thud Tradition as several of our members who have tle came from the local bottle gang originally and that’s what he A LSO I ought to embellish that “on rhe make.” With all the cunning of the “career bottle babj.” well as the next one and so long as this fellow says he wants to a simple solution. They want to kill him!–W.A.S., Flushing, N. Y. went back to, mooching in the he knows enough about A A and

APRIL 1950 half of it for cigars, coffee, and wants profit, or is Reking it. tipping waitresses. A s an A A member, however, if The group–next in imporrar~ce you’re really in it and the work, to the individual, and the only you’re getting something for nahing , means of getting and holding the when you hang back on the regular individuaIs.together–is suffering. chipin for the Foundation, and Rent, lights, caretaker fees, box when you shell out those puny rent, the cost of refreshments, nickels, dimes, and quarters for everything that keeps the Eroup the group’s expenses. meetings going–these costs are And I’m not barking at the guy , not coming down any more than who’s brand-new in AA and really the price of potatoes. happens to be short. Check on this If you still believe in AA, in any case, you cannot let your group die or waste away. Put some money … with your group treasurer (the financial situation, I mean) Don’t let AA get a record for in the pot, boy. This dough you cheapness-Treasurer, a Penm .. The c o i n c i d e n c e a v e r a g e is high in A A . but not t h i s high! can lay your hands on easy, is in your own pocket–the one where sylvania group

Where t h e r e i s s o much smoke, t h e r e must b e s o m e fire! you keep the folding money. Check with your elected leaders and see OU interested in money? You dilemma, or mess. The collection where your group stands finan- Y care for cash–the tinkle of –the old “hat passing” has silver, the smooth, filthy feel of fallen off to about 60% of what it cially; a statement is usually on the bulletin board. When you went the long green? At, a near, the used to average. My predecessor in a bar with any possibility of chd d this item I am going to tell tells me this has been going on c staying there two hours, you didn’t you where there i s a wad of dough for months. A couple of weeks reach for the chicken feed, did you can lay your hands on, easy. later 1 was in New York, dropped you? Even coffee and cakes at a First, let me ask if you believe in at the Foundation to get some group session nowadays costs -the high cost of existing being literature, and learned this finan- more than a dime, or a quarter, if what it is-+hat your personal in- cial gimmick is worrying a lot of you’ve got your appetite back. come i s high enough now. Any ob- local boys around the country. We don’t like to ask for money. jections i f it should be cut lo%, It seems the good A A work is We’re not beggars. AA pays its 30%.or in half? going on apace, in fact lads go own way; that means you pay it. Precisely that i s happening, out on Twelfth Step jobs and ex- Speakers don’t like to stand in and has happened, to a lot of our tend their efforts to laying out front of the audience and yap about AA Ilroupsi A S the newly elected $10, $20, and $50 on a single money, urging you like a back- ,sccrcrary.treasurer of a small group case. When the hat i s passed at woods preacher to feed the kitty. which I am not going to name, lest meeting time, they feel they’ve The Foundation, too, has steady, I need a few drinks to face them done their bit and drop in their fixed expenses–they keep AA q a i n j I walked into a financial loose change, saving back perhaps knit together in that loose way, poviding real services. Nobody

AA GRAPEVINE, APRIL 1950 CHICAGO DAILY NEWS INTERGROUP OF NEW YORK Let’s not kid ourselves. We like t o read complimentary words like SETS A PRECEDENT 14 * MONDAY, PEBR t h e s e reprinted here. But let us, too, k e e p our h a l o s in place andour e g o s c u t down to size! AS WE SEE IT- We i n AA and AA a s a whole a r e in a unique position and one AA Rejects a Legacy which might be envied by other THE Alcoholics Anonymous Inter- organizations that must depend T’ group Association of New York, con- upon public contributions for their gratulations for a courageous action. The funds. T h e s e groups need, in many group has rejected a legacy of $10,000 i n s t a n c e s , highly skilled probequeathed by a grateful woman member. f e s s i o n a l s t o carry on their pro- Readers of The Daily News know of the fine service AA has performed in re- grams of help t o others. T HE Intergroup Association of AA of New York, Inc. recently could b e d o n e with t h e money if t h e group a s s e m b l e d were t o acclaiming victims of alcoholism. In declining the legacy a spokesman for AA said: In t h e final a n a l y s i s , the work of Alcoholics Anonymous c a n g o found i t s e l f o n t h e horns of a rather p l e a s a n t dilemma. It w a s f a c e d cepr it, and h e told of t h e p e r i l s which could a r i s e from t h a t accep- “Members have discovered they can- on just a s it began. .. with one not mix money and its management with man helping another. We could, if with accepting or rejecting a s i z e – tance. the spiritual nature of the work they are we had to, go on helping s i c k alcoa b l e legacy .. . $10,000, which had b e e n willed t o it by a wealthy T h e voting d e l e g a t e s made their trying to do.” Each case of alcoholism must be reh o l i c s without t h e aid of our dearly d e c i s i o n and unanimously a c c e p t e d beloved coffee and c a k e s . woman, an e a r l y member of AA. a resolution t o r e j e c t t h e legacy. garded as an individual matter. It must be treated individually. The victim and U’e a r e indeed fortunate in hav- In traditional AA fashion, more T h e resolution read in part: ing proved t o ourselves and the than 100 d e l e g a t e s from t h e groups those who help him must give each case “WHEREAS, s u c h large be- personal attention. The problem cannot world that ours i s a truly working in t h e a r e a , met t o t a l k t h e thing out. q u e s t s or donations will be handled by hired case workers. Those Tradition. Traditions Seven and B i l l W. w a s a s k e d t o e x p r e s s b e made in t h e future, who do the work mast do it because they h i s views. .. “This i s an un- “Now then b e i t resolved, t h a t believe that the doing is its own reward. Eight work for us, but they might not f e a s a b l y work for others. precedented meeting,” he said. it i s t h e e x p r e s s e d d e s i r e of t h e There should be a thought here for tt other organizations that seek to accom- S o l e t u s not g e t roo s e t up over History c a n b e made, here, to- D e l e g a t e s of t h e Intergroup Asso- t h e s e fine tributes. L e t u s rather night, if you c h o o s e t o d o so. No one is more committed t o simpliciation of AA of New York, Inc.. plish social or political reforms. Organization may be essential. But a big cam- look at our accomplishments .. . c i t y t h a n I.. .” T h e n h e sketched in meeting a s s e m b l e d t o r e j e c t s u c h imminent b e q u e s t and t o here paign fund is no substitute for earnest individual endeavors. One firm and wellour international headquarters, our f i n e c l u b s and meeting p l a c e s , briefly t h e history and t h e e a r l y signify their intentions of rejecting informed volunteer advocate of a cause and humbly thankGod that we h a v e struggling d a y s of Alcoholics any s u c h future b e q u e s t s , donations can do more by direct contact with his fellow men then a crew of paid exhorters. b e e n able t o maintain them through Anonymous. H e told of t h e t i m e s or other offerings and, when s i z e a b l e contributions from In too many organizations with our own efforts. At the same time, “BE it further resolved, that l e t u s r e a l i z e that t h e Tradition of t h e d e c e a s e d literally kept t h e t h e s e D e l e g a t e s , heartily s u g g e s t worthy objectives, management of the sheriff from t h e door of t h e l i t t l e machinery becomes the major bbjective refusing outside aid throws a and e n d o r s e similar action o n t h e and the tail wags the dog. greater burden of responsibility office o n V e s e y Street. He pointed part of t h e T r u s t e e s of T h e Alcoout, too, t h a t many t h i n g s t h a t o n e a c h one of us. holic Foundation.”

JULY 1 9 5 0

one group’s solution fact that these nickel contribu- .. ey .New York newspapers (cartions were not to replace our ried headlines–“How Much i s a regular twice-a-year con- Dee-load? ” I to Headquarters tributions based on our membership. A nickel in the telephone has I “

I “Don’t scorn the power of a pulled many of us out of a tough contributions nicttel,” our oldtimer said. ” A few spot. So we dedicate our “AA Jit- , years ago a sizeable quantity of ney Jug” as a practicql, p h i a l honey was stored in a large New solution toward he/ping AA pay York warehouse. A couple years its own way. 1

later it was discovered that bees –Michigan Veterans Facilities A A had removed virtually all the hon- Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

and a suggestion from Down Under N regard to the “falling off” than he. Whatever the reason, there I of income via the passing of are always those who are g l a d t o ! On Starting a “JITNEY JUG” the hat, it seems to me that AA is mainly to blame. give, and some who are not. Our group had the same uodble At each meeting the members until it was put to members ihis ‘ , are told just what AA is, and way, at each meeting.’ !

T HE General Service Headquarters’ bulletin on A A finances w h i ~ happeared in the May issue Put a container on the table-we dug up an ordinary Sealright ice cream carton, cut a couple in- “AA has no dues or fees.” Then, sometime during the meeting a col- A A has no dues or fees,’ but the rent must be paid, dnd A A i s lection is taken. To the member self supporting, s o each member of ,the Grapevine disturbed mem- ches off the bottom, put a slot in looking for an’*out,” it establish- i s asked to put in if he can afford it. bers of the Michigan Veterans Fa- the top, and labelled it–“AA es a reason for not contributing. We still haven’t much spare cilities AA Group in Grand Rapids, Jitney Jug.” Perhaps he thinks it is a gesture cash, but we do pay the rent. Mich. So much s o that we devoted “Dearie, you’re so much older on the part of those more affluent –I).].. . Glebe, NSW, Au’stralia consider ble discussion to the than I” sang out one of the younger P development pf an idea for aug- members. “What’n’ell’s a Jitney?” menting contributions to the “You’ll learn, bud,”replied the ~ohdation. oldtimer, who then suggested that Our Group is about a s l o w – 4 – at every meeting it become pracnancially–as it’s possible to get tice for each person attending to and still be dignified by the pres- dropa nickel inthe “Jitney Jug.” ence of a treasurer. But we are a When a respectable amount had t

grateful gang. And most of us who been accumulated, it would be 1 I \ adtend meetings now have at least forwarded to Gerieral Service a nickel in ow pockets. So here’s Headquarters. “Achievement i s not a swiftride on an elevator. It is’ a long hard climb I up a long, steep hill.” ow idea! ‘ Emphasis was placed on the I I ,

AUGUST 1950 (:entml (;roup. We were on fire with enjoying sobriety we no longer exentl~usiam and we predicted great pect, nor should we accept finanthings for P: the future. For a while cial aid outside of o w own o r we functioned as .I normal A A ganization. group, then son~ething happened. ~issension’sprangup within the The blessings that have come to group. Attendance began dropping us through A A were not handed to off. liad we continued to rake per- us on a silver platter–we had to sonal inventory we would have re- ewn it. All things worth having alized that when we left the North are worth working for. The m i s – MONEY,MONEY.MONEY I Avenue Group we took with us the greatest enemy of the alcoholic-takes of the past proved to be a blessing in disguise, to the exwholesale’ resentments against the tent that we are again reunited in do we need it? minority. And so, one by one, we a great cause and we are selfwere drifting back to the original supporting. group. Some were lost on the way The 12 Traditions were comand they never came back. Finally piled as the result of vial and AS operating alcoholics most of us were financial wizards. wanted to start a campaign to raise funds to purchase a n w home for the ‘Central Group was down to the error. We need to keep some things fresh in our minds because they us. He wrote an articleF., last man–one lone A A holding Collectively we spent a fortune on I ~ Ithe local serve a s a reminder that all exthe hag–the money bag, that is. alcoholic beverages. We spent an- newspaper to that effeci. ‘We yere lie happened to be the group treas- perience, including our mistakes other fortune on flighty adventures elated. We had “isions of :he finest urer. What happened to that money and failures, can have value–prowhich were induced by alcoholism. A A home in the Southeast. We hela is amatter of dpeculation. And so vided we learn to look upon them As the result of these wild orgies a business meeting one lnight to we \earned the hard way that an- both a s an education and a warning. we spent another fortune on hos- discuss this offer and to vote on it. other Tradition has stood the test. As A A continues to grow, may pitals and drying out places in or- The entire membership t u r ~ e d,out we pray that the 12 Traditions, Experience is a great teacher. By der to get us i n physical shape to in full force. The pros and cons along with the 12 Steps, will stand admitting our ,own weakness we start all over again. Money, money, had a verbal battle royhl., It was as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, were able to gain strength. During money. Where did it all comefrom? decided by a substantial. majorit) a monument to the spiritual insight our drinking days we always de- ‘Only the individual can answer to accept this offer of outgide help. of its founders, a challenge to all p e ~ d e don someone else to carry that question. Surprising a s it The leader of the ypposition comers. –A. Y., Atlanta, Ga the load for us. Now that we are seems, the dried up alcoholic has got in touch with the newspaper become tight–financ ially, that is. man and demanded that he withdraw K’e thought nothing of spending five this offer in order to curb the dis: I I bucks for a bottle. Now we reluc- unity which was threatening to untantly drop two-bits in the basket dermine our organization. That qffer 1 a s a price for our sobriety. was withdrawn, but thq damage Let’s turn the calendar back a had already been done and the few years and take a look at one group was split wide open. The The f’ellow who is still undecided or slipping differs from us in that of our traditions. A well-known majority immediately withdrew and he is still suflering with ‘Alcoholism’, while we are enjoying’Alcoholwasm’. newspaper man and friend of A A formed a new group known1a s ‘the

I meeting. Later, as our group kept The treasurer is ;he only one who expanding, the City Commissioners knows how m’uch each individual m d e available to us,ftu an almost member is pay inR. give awayprice,an old fire station 13y sepuating A A and business, I which we have converted into an putting all the finances a* conideal club house and meeting ronm. troversy into Alano, we havk rid ‘I’o finance the deal, we had to in- ourselves of all controversy in AA. corporate Alano as a charitable U’e can get all worked uI, in Alyo, LEST PROBLEMS O F MONEY, 1 organization. but iA the A A meering all is sweets Although incorporated, our orig- ness and light. If things get to: P R O P f i R T Y A N D PRESTIGE inal set-up remains unchanged. hot in the Alano meeting, which Alano supplies the group with a they sometimes do, there’ is always meeting place and all the neces- someone to get up and make q mb-I ‘ sary pamphlets, literature, etc. tion to table the discussioni until Alano pays all the bills invol- the next meeting. fly that ,time ‘ ved with club operation. The Al- everyone has cooled off ,and,gymano Corporation is governed by erally the matter is, not broqght T THE present time the Way- rectly concerned with the A.4 nine directors, who elect their up again. A c r o s s Froup of A A is three Program itself. own president, treasurer, vice Maybe this plan won’t work for and a half years old. During that In our group, we have no treas- president and secretary. The di- others, but it works for us. Vi$i- ,time we have set up a plan of np- ury, all donations from A A meet- rectors are elected for three year tors tell us that we have one of the eration which is slightly different ings being turned over to the “AI- terms, three being elected each smoothest operating groups in the from most A A groups I have vis- ano” treasurer. A l l pamphlets, year. To be eligible for election country. Certainly we have never ited. It workk smoothly for us, and books, literature and expenses of to the directory, the member must had the splits and dfssenhions visitors from other groups have any kind are furnished to A A with- have, a minimum of one year so- that have been observed in some suggested that we give it to you out cost. We are careful not to briety. Any member of A A may be- groups and which were generally for consideration. have anything of a controversial come a member of Alano by paying caused by finances. I I-listorically, our plan started nature brought into an A A meet-, dues. These dues are necessary If any group would ‘like to have, when our roup was seven months ing. If something of that nature is t old and on d the members attend- brougl~t in, the chairman or some to finance,the purchase of the club rooms. The member himself or hera more detailed account of our club operating plan we +I1 be , ed the Memphis Convention. There other member declares the subject self sets the amount of dues he or glad to furnish it. The group adhe learned that emphasis was be- t8 out of order” and the chairman she can pay. Some pay $1.00 per dress is P.O. Box, 478, Waycross, ing placed upon separating bus- announces a meeting of Alano di- month and others up to $20.00. Georgia. –A. A. Waycross, G’a iness and AA. The Waycross Chup rectly after the A A meeting, at was small at the time, consisting which time the subject can be of about seven members meeting discussed. in a member’s home. The name A s our group grew, we obtained “Alano” was adopted and all bus- club rooms rent free at the City iness matters turned over to “Al- Hall. We continued to keep Alano ano” to handle. By business mat- and A A separate, not even electters, we mean everything not di- ing a meeting chairman at an A A I Ecclesiastes, Jr. observes that the chap who isn’t happy in’his 50- I briety doesn’t have A A , –he has indigestion. 120

I n Gratitude,

in H u m i l i t y ,

we observe

TRADITIONS WEEK, 1950′ INCE l a s t y e a r when Dill s u 3 – N o t a b l e antong t h e e v e n t s which S g e s t e d t h a t a11 AA g r o u p s s e t a s i d e one meeting during Thankss t i r r e d t h e movement w a s o u r !-irst International C o n f e r e n c e held in , qiving Week t o d i s c u s s , a n d d i s – C l e v e l a n d l a s t July. Many AAs, c o v e r , t h e full meaning of our 12 among them s o m e of our most re: , T r a d i t i o n s , AA h a s had a s i g n i f i – s p e c t e t l ‘oldt iniers,’ looked w,ith I c a n t 1 2 months. b u r own s h o r t 15 unJerstandalle apprehension oh y e a r h i s t o r y h a s b e g u n t o c a t c h up such an ambitious and spectacular , with us. We h a v e “come of ; I ~ P ” u n d e r t a k i n ~ . Was t h i s t h e begina n d h a v e c a u s e t o b e thankful in- ning of ‘organizing’ 4 A ? Was AA, d e e d t h a t t h e quiclinq p r i n c i p l e s , t~econiinr; ‘!jig P u s i n e s s ? , ‘ T h e y distillet1 from our own e x p e r i e n c e , needed t o b e a s k e d . ‘lave b e e n s e t down for a l l t o w e . T h e y nee&d t o h e a n s w e r e d nl- Our n e w a w a r e n e s s of t h e v;ilue s o . And 7,000 ,4As, in o n e of t h e of our T r a d i t i o n s s p r a n g from mo- otldest c o n v e n t i o n s t h a t e v e r ‘conm e n t o u s t h i n g s thnt h a v e happenetl v e n t e d , ‘ g a v e t h a t a n s w e r with a s i n c e l a s t November. And from q u i e t dignity hardly t o Le expctcfeJ s o m e t h i n g s thnt d i d not happen. of men a n d women who only r e c e n t – I

I I

ly w e r e p:oblems t o t h e m s e l v e s , a b o u t what didn’t happen. T h e b u s i n e s s b e c a u s e we h a v e to be. ‘ , s a d d l e d upon theni. ~ h u ‘ s ,c ‘b ~m e~s their f a m i l i e s and their communi- p o s s i b i l i t y w a s not p l e a s a n t t o T h e Dig Rook and t h e literature into i t s Third Heritage! E l s e w h e r e t i e s i T h e r e w e r e n o ‘delegates,’ contemplate. But e a c h of u s grad- a r e h i s life’s blood and our life in t h i s i s s u e Bill t o u c h e s upon no’ R r a s s H a t s , no breast-beating, ually c o m e s ’round t o thinking of l i n e t o t h e poor guy r e a c h i n g o u t t h e proposed method of turning n o exhibitionism, n o politics. t h e d a y when neither Dr. Bob nor for help. o v e r to A A s t h e m s e l v e s some of Nobody g o t e l e c t e d t o anything. R i l l will b e with us. What t h e n ? We a r e in t h e public r e l a t i o n s t h e b u r d e n s Dr. R o b and h e h a v e Instead, 7,000 AAs s p e n t t h r e e We b e g i n t o understand how much b u s i n e s s not b e c a u s e we want to b o r n e s o long. I precedeht-breaking d a y s and n i g h t s of o u r unity i s v e s t e d in our love b e but b e c a u s e we h a v e to be. You H e r i t a g e No. 1 – our 12 S t e p c o n s i d e r i n g hot how they c o u l d ‘organize’ AA but how we, individa n d r e s p e c t for t h e s e t w o men. c a n hardly pick 100,000 ‘lost s o u l s ‘ of Recovery – i s t h e very ‘heart o 1 Again w e were thankful for our out of t h e g u t t e r without a flood of AA. Everything we have done, ually and collectively, can best T r a d i t i o n s . Within t h e i r framework q u e s t i o n s a s t o how i t happened. everything we will do, should b e ‘ relate ourselves t o the society in we know w e c a n k e e p our h o u s e in T h e wrong a n s w e r s might c o s t aimed a t keeping i t s me$sage pure, which w e livh. If a n y o n e brought order. We know that we a r e not s o m e poor d e v i l h i s c h a n c e , h i s life. f i t t o b e handed on t o thelnext fela n y p e r s o n a l ambitions t o C l e v e – proprietors, only tenants. O t h e r s S o w e h a v e a Foundation t o low. Heritage No. 2 i s o u t T r a – ‘ land t h e y were q u i c k l y e n v e l o p e d in g e n e r a t i o n s t o come will h a v e w a t c h over t h e s e o p e r a t i o n s and d i t i o n s – a record 6f our own mis- L in t h e a t m o s p h e r e of humility t h a t n e e d of t h e s h e l t e r we h a v e found. t h e money,your money, which p a y s t s k e s turned ,into group w~sriom. 6ermeated t h e very a i r a l o n g L a k e O u r s i s a s t e w a r d s h i p , not a li- for them. We h a v e s e c r e t a r i e s a n d F o l l o w them c l o s e l y and w e c a & Erie. I c e n s e t o remodel or rebuild. Our , correspondents who devote their c a r r y t h i s precious’ ~ r o g r a h of I a n y o n e needed e v i d e n c e of job i s simply t o k e e p t h e light l i v e s t o ‘carrying t h e message,’ o u r s s a f e l y through t o t h o s e who \Adis c o h e s i o n without o r g a n i r a – burning in t h e window, a n d t h e c h a n n e l i n g s t r a n g e r s into your will h a v e t h e s a m e d e s p a i r i n k “eed tion – t h s c t a c l e at C l e v e l a n d ejF door of welcome a l w a y s open. group and yours, and yours; fan- of it that w e o u r s e l v e s ‘had only was it – in s p a d e s ! ‘ T h i s h o u s e of o u r s i s not t h e ning a spark of hope in s o m e dere- yesterday. Y e t evpryone of t h e nearly 10,000 brick and mortar of a h o s p i t a l , or lict h e a r t half a c r o s s t h e world. S o it will b e goocf4, i n 1 1950, t o who crowded into t h e P u b l i c Audi- a c l u b , or a mission. It i s a s i m p l e You and I p a y for i t , g l a d l y , proud- carry on t h e precedent de, starred torium t h a t Sunday afternoon w a s s t r u c t u r e of service. When a d e s – l y and a s k nary a question. For l a s t year. 1)evote a t l e a s t o n e a l s o remi,nded of AA’s need to s u s – p e r a t e drunk p u t s a n i c k e l in a t h e r e s t a n d B i l l and Dr. Rob. T h e y T h a n k s g i v i n g Week meeting t o t h e 1 t a i n i t s e l f for t h e future, for to- phone s l o t t h e r e must b e a v o i c e know how t h e s e t h i n g s a r e done. T r a d i t i o n s . In t h e light of what h a s I morrow’s d r u n k s a n d for d r u n k s y e t t o answer. When a shakii-lg hand Nothing’s g o i n g to happen t o AA happened in t h i s p a s t year, in t h e unbornwho w i l l need to know what k n o c k s timidly a t our door someone a s long a s they’re around! bigger view t h a t i s opening t y e a c h , we h a v e learned. Dr. Bob brought m u s t b e t h e r e t o o p e n it. P r e c i s e l y ! But AA h a s known of u s , w e will b e t t e r see our nked t h a t h o m e ‘ t o us. T h e r e w a s more Yet even these simple services a n infancy, and a n a d o l e s e n c e . for them. And b e a b l e t o a b r r e c i a t e t h a n a drunk’s sentiment i n t h e require money. Not much money, t o T o d a y we’ve come of age. Rill a n d fully t h e s e p r a c t i c a l and s p i r i t u a l roar t h a t went u p when h e s t e p p e d b e sure. A modest few b u c k s h i r e s Or. Rob h a v e ‘raised* u s a n d now v a l u e s which, l i k e t h e I’rogram before us. T h e r e w a s r e v e r e n c e a h a l l and k e e p s a group i n coffee t h e y , mere mortals too, want t o i t s e l f , w e l l s u p f r o m ‘ t h e , Infinite springing from gratitude, d e e p l y and c a k e s . Rut a t t h e international b e r e l i e v e d of s o m e of t h e t e r r i b l e Wisdom which h a s guided AA from felt – level, with a growing membership load which we in a l l affection h a v e t h e beginning. T 1 T h e r e s t o o d Dr. Bob. Everyone of 100,000 in s o m e 36 c o u n t r i e s , knew t h a t t h e g r e a t and good 1 3 0 ~ – t h e primary job of ‘carrying t h e tor h a d been, and w a s , a very s i c k m e s s a g e t o t h e millions w h o d o man. H i s ‘prolonged, c r i t i c a l ill- not yet know’ i s , of c o u r s e , a bign e s s set many AAs t o thinking – g e r one. We a r e in t h e publishing When w e d o wrqng we d o w o r s e in s e c r e t l y e x c u s i n g ourselves. ,

1 1 either money or t h e management of A our necessary affairs t o obscure our spiritual aims. T h e same loving God whose Divine Wisdom h a s shown u s that one d e s p e r a t e and wf;, 4 ‘/ . shaky drunk, fumbling for a nickel to call for help, looms larger than \ 1 is not big business any ‘organization’ w e s h a l l ever have, or need! At Cleveland, July l a s t , 7000 AAs s e t their approval t o t h e Twelve Traditiqns of Alcoholics Anonymous. We took our d e s t i n y by t h e hand. Alcoholics Anony- T HANKSGIVING i s coming. And with, it, Tradition Week. ly been given t o us. We learned our l e s s o n about mous had grown up. T h r e e of those Traditions de- I never felt happier. money early. We feared organiza- fine t h e “Services” of Alcoholics Our t r a d i t i o n s a r e s e t down on tion l e s t we solidify and destroy Anonymous and outline our colpaper,. ‘ ~ u tthey were written first o u r s e l v e s a s a movement! At t h e lective responsibility for them in our hearts. For e a c h of u s same time we faced the moral and management responsibility and knows, instinctively I think, that humane obligation to make our pro- AA i s not o u r s t o d o with a s we gram instantly available t o a l l who please. We are but caretakers t o asked for it. And they came in preserve t h e spiritual quality of ever increasing numbers. our fe4lowship; k e e p it whole for Yes, we’ve had need of money thoselwho will come after u s and and we’ve had t o provide services. have need o f what h a s s o generous- Rut we’ve resolved never t o allow

In gratitude, B i l l explains a plan t o preserve AA … but not to rule i t !

mous an urgent appeal. It was a your common funds. Ule have never plea that you take full money re- asked you to take any direct responsibility for your A A Headquar- sponsibility for them. But times THE TRADITIONS.,. ters -the Alcoholic Foundation and i t s A A General Service Office have changed. Alcoholics Anonymous is now grown. Its founders A 5in onethisofgreat the “little people” AA movement, ,

I would like to put in my two cents at New York. We who work in your are perishable. We cannot be your worth. In the first place let me state I

Headquarters ‘are delighted with guardians always. I like them,ae ie ! that I have no desire to run any- 1 I the result. (;roups who never help- So the hour is come when you thing, steer anything, assert any cl e be ore have now done so. New t groups, very small groups, inst imust take these things into your own keeping. We ask that you guard personal authority–all I want to do, is serve a s best I can in my tutibnal grdups not really under them well for the future of Alco- small way. I can twist this around any way I any obligation, have made sacri- holics Anonymous may much de- I am happy to note The Twelve care to but I always come up with I

fices. If this keeps up, our deficit pend on how you maintain and sup- Traditions were confirmed at the the same answer, namely “there at Headquarters will be a thing of port these life-giving Arms of First International meeting held are no bosses, or brass hats1 in 1 , the past. Never have I been s o en- Service. in Cleveland in July. AA.”Maybe I’ve got a simple hind, couraged a’bout the future of our Anticipating that you will hap- I literally cut m y eye teeth on but I’ve an idea there are mdny I Services. Your generous and re- pily accept this new responsibil- The Twelve Traditions. You see it AAs who go along with my thinking. I isponsible action makes a fitting ity, the Trustees, Dr. Bob and I was this way: When I came into Frankly I am most $tolerant of setting for the news I am about to propose The General Service Con- A A five years ago–each week we any member’s method of living’the , give you. /erenee o / Alcoholics Anonymoris; alternated discussions of the Program, as long a s it has no di- For twelve years, warmly aided a body of State and Provincial rep- , Twelve Steps and The Twelve Tra- rect bearing on me. By this I mereby great friends, Dr. Rob and I resentatives who will sit yearly ditions. Believe me! it was very ly mean, if he willfully violates have stood sentinel over your Head- with our Foundation Trustees a s confusing at first, but I won! I fi- one of The Traditions which affects I

quarters. We have been holding their traditional guide. We have nally managed to sort them out me directly, I believe that I a s a these valuable, assets in trust for long considered and will soon pre- properly. Since that time 1 have member in good standing have a you y o d General Service Office, sent a detailed plan designed to steadfastly maintained that The right to question his motives. ,Here your book “Alcoholics Anonymous’,’ bring this great change about. Tweloe Traditions are a s vitally is where I believe our A A prayer 1 your principla magazine The A.A. Alcoholics Anonymous has come important as the Twelve Steps in is necessary–“Courage to change Crapevine, &our public relations, of age. It’s a great Thanksgiving! our Program of Recovery. the things I can .” While Bill definitely states these Rill was s-0-0 right whei he Traditions are merely suggestions predicted (page 35 Book h , ~ r a d i for our future–I choose to accept tions) that a member who tries to them just a s they are written. I have “boss” will find himself passed no desire to twist them around to by N election time. I’ve jusi seen I suit my own particular convenience. it happen. I In all fairness to myself I could It i s my ownperLonal opinion that not honestly bring myself to do if we, a s members of AA, attempt such a thing. to practice the Twelve Traditions For example: The Second Tradi- in conjunction with the ,fiuelve tion says “For group purpose Cteps, there will be far less ‘feuthere i s but one ultimate auttiority- din’ and fussin’ among o d various a loving God as he may express groups. Thanks for listening! , himself in our proup consciencr.” –tI.S., Olathe, K b s o s I

NOVEMBER 1950 ,

0 ‘ Program “tick,” and that i s of ject from the orthodox religious course the Spiritual part of the aspect is sometimes il)-adv,ised Program. but not always. T; defipe Spirit a s This voluntary lack of recog- a living entity composed of nothnition seems foolish and harmful. ing, is admittedly also a bit too All groups are approached by a thin to chew. Rut to say that life , smattering of sceptics and so- has a spiritual aspect apart from called agnostics, and while I have purely physical manifepations, heard it said that people may be that there arc powers that ~ontrol …”Lavmg one 0 scared away from AA by being frank about the Spiritual aspect, not only our lives hut thq entire1 universe, are obvious facts on I have my first one to see. which all are agreed. The importance of meetings and !

group therapy cannot be overem – The benefits of A A $re derived primary purpose” phasized, it has manifold advan- from meeting people whb undertages and benefits, but these alone stand our disease and extend genwill not help us form a new pat- uine sympathy, who have a , s ncere t i ! tern of life, so we can stay sober ifherest in us ,and a tolerance for and like it. Without inward sense us we never :knew before. This.I and consciousness and an open tolerance and fellow feeling dive]acknowledgement of God, or a lops into mutual tinderstanding, Power greater than ourselves, our overcomes our sales rFidtance 1 attempts to attain and maintain and we are willing ‘to c’ooperafe. sobriety will eventually fail and But this i s not enough, ,We must The Fifth Tradition reads a s the sooner this admission i s made further fortify o u r s e l v ~ sb\y the de- T N ihe Twelve Steps of our 1 Recovery Program, t h e words follows: the better. velopment of our ,Spiritual !life bo poker, God and pronoun Him is “Each Alcoholics Anonymous The manner in which the sub- we can maintain this new pattern used nine times, and in the Twelve Group ought to be a Spiritual en- ject is approached is, of course, of life .when group therapy is not 1 Traditions there is a constant tity having one primary purpose – important. To approach the sub- available.—Doc., Portland, Or. trend, calling attention to the Deity that of carrying its message to the ‘in phrases such a s “A loving alcoholic who still sufers.” God,” “Spiritual entity,” “Spir- What message do we have to itual Significance,” “Spirit of ser- carry to the sick alcoholic? Surely vice,” “He Who presides over us we do not counsel the newcomer all” etc, but in spite of the em- by saying come up to the meeting phasis placed on this many good and meet the bunch, or come over A A members, including many chair- to the club and have a cup of cofmen – $ompletely ignore the Spir- fee, and keep on coming and you I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors itual aspect of the program, once will stay sober, without imparting of other men, living and dead, and I must exert myself to give in the the meeting is under way. information a s to what makes the same measure a s I have received and am still receiving.- -Alberh Einsteil i I

NOVEMBER 1950 who d i s c u s s e d the ‘l’raditioni. We I I TRADITION WEEK D OWNEY, CAL.IFOI<NlA Dur Tradition meeting w a s held did not try t o cov’er a l l of the shbject in one meeting but s e t akide onThanksgiving Day. We assigned one l’radition t o e a c h of 12 mem- two for the purpose. Our entire bers. We gave them e n o u ~ hadvance group found the meetings t o be {innotice to acquaint themselves with formative and enlightening f s well the Tradition on which they were a s instructive, t h u s helping us t o Xleetiny S u g g e s t i o n s to speak. T h e meeting w a s differ- preserve our unity. — llelene I

I from some who ol)srrvclcl I ent, enjoyable and educational and we felt that it w a s a s u c c e s s . L nBUOCK, T E F A S More than 100 members attend- I I I

T r a d i t i o n W ( x e k last y r n r – Some members felt that we should I have more of such meetinqs and it ed our meeting held in observanck was suggested that one meeting of Tradition Week. Each Tradition e a c h month could very well be de- was d i s c u s s e d separately tbed a’ voted t o the d i s c u s s i o n of a Tradi- g e n e r a l d i s c u s s i o n w a s held by t h e B I IRI.I~~<;TON, IOWA Thi i s t h e way we observed P I’I”ISI%URG, NllW k ‘ O H K We observed Tradition Week tion. We open our regular meetings entire group. From our observation” 1 Traditio Week l a s t year. IJpon receipt of the announcemerit from by having o n e member first d i s – by reading the preamble and the 12 S t e p s and we have now decided w e found t h e meeting t o b e very valuable, not only toenlighten ,new { c o s ~the 12 Traditions and then General Service lieadquarters, we a l l present took part in a n open to read t h e short form Traditions members, but t o remind older memappointed’ a chairman, one of our discussion. T o make this e a s i e r before closing each meeting. -1.B. bers, who are prone t o forget, just older members, and he assigned for everyone we distributed, free, what function AA has. We feel that 1 each of t h e Traditions to one of INNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA every member left t h e meeting with the members present. T h e s e memc o p i e s of the November Tradition i s s u e of Tire A. A. Crapet~int~to M When we d i s c u s s e d the obser- a much better idea of why t h q s e , bers were ,instructed to study t h e each member. — T.8.41. vance of Tradition Week, it w a s Traditions a r e necessary for u s to1 accomplish our aims and purposes assigned Tradition. Ny arranging decided that b e s i d e s a d i s c u s s i o n for the meeting early, it Save each of t h e Traditions, we could a l s o of AA. As a result of t h i s meeting assigned member about two weeks e x p r e s s our thankfulr~ess by doing we intend t o have t h e 12 Traditions study. On Tradition Meeting night ONCOIII), CAI.IFOKNIA something for someone else. As a d i s c u s s e d a t regular intkrvals in presentation w a s limited t o three minutes,l after which qeneral d i s – C Although our group i s small, we observed Tradition Week a t result w e s e l e c t e d a family with five children, who needed some t h e future; I –/A. 1

help, and we gave them a Thanks- HILADELPHIA, PENYA. c u s s i o n followed. During the presentation and discussion the s e c – T h a n k s g i v i n ~ .We had no speakevs that night but e a c h one of the mem- giving basket with turkey and a i l t h e trimmings. Then after it w a s P We conducted a meeting devoted entirely t o the discus’sion of I ,

retary held !he long form Traditions bers d i s c u s s e d one of the Tradipamphlet, thus enabling him t o tions. It w a s interesting to note a l l over w e liked t h e idea s o well t h e 12 ~ r a d i t i o n s . ‘It w a s interestclarify for the members some of that some of our group confused that we decided t o d o the same ing t o note that a number of fairly the shortened Traditions. A genera I the 12 S t e p s of Recovery with the thing a t Christmas. . — 1.1,. representative c i t i z e n s had never mutual understanding was brought 12 Traditions. We feel that t h i s heard of the Traditions. In fact 1 about and we, a s a group, feel that STORIA, OH EGON about t h e only one which seemed much good w a s accomplished. meeting helped t o clear up sdme of t h e confusion and brought about A Tradition Qeek w a s a great t o be well known was t h e twelfth, ‘ I — E. C. H . a better understanding. — I..% s u c c e s s with our group. We obser- and that one i s not always pbserved. T h e widest difference of ‘ ved it by s e l e c t i n g five members I I ‘ I 1 1

I I ! I NOVEMBER 1950 opinion w a s encountered in the vance, four new contacts were did i s c u s s i o n of t h e F i r s t Tradition. rectly traceable t o t h e meeting. I had thought that I knew a l l t h e — Let41 /I. answers to’that Tradition but when I heard the pros and c o n s expressed by t h e other members I discovered that t h e old adage s t i l l holds R 1 0 d e J ANEIRO, BRAZIL We welcomed the suggestion to observe the 12 Traditions durgood.. .”the truest things in life . ing Thanksgiving Week One of our we learn, after we think we know older members undertook t h e job of it all.” — R.H. translating t h e short form of the I

Traditions into Portuguese, then (The Alcoholic Foundation-A.A.”Headquaners”-is in effect I a general service board for the AA movement. It publishes , OLORADO SPRINGS, COI-O. after editing and checking we Cs We observed Tradition Week by holding a n open meeting. About typed out enough c o p i e s t o b e d i s tributed t o t h e members attending the book Alcoholics Anonymous, maintains the General Service OAice in New York, guarantees the financial and traditional i n t e g i t y of The A.A. Gra evine, and i s re- I sponsible for AA public relations ar t/e national a n d in- I 125 were present, including in- t h e meeting. P’e a l s o wrote a short ternationel level. Address: The Alcoholic Foundation, I ,I terested laymdn, docrars, members introduction t o t h e Traditions s i n c e P.O.Box 459, Grand Central Annex, New York 17, New York) of t h e clergy and t h e clerk of t h e most of u s in our rather new group local police court. We had a short were unfamiliarwiththeTraditions. talk on b a s i c fundamental AA After reading t o t h e assembled I 1 I which led into a brief history of members t h e introduction and t h e OUR General Service Head- “the million who s t i l l don’t kno~,.” Y t

AA and t h e ‘ n e e d for crystalizing translated Traditions, we left t h e quarters Office w i s h e s t o ex- T h i s year, a s l a s t year, groups ur group experiences in t h e 12 meeting o p e n for debate. T h e s e b o i n t s of Tradition. Four members turned out t o be quite lively with p r e s s d e e p gratitude t o t h o s e of you who haveresponded t o t h e letare planning t o have s p e c i a l meetings t o study and d i s c u s s t h e ! had been requested t o be prepared I t o s p e a k on t h e ~ rpersonal experithe result that a l l t h o s e present felt that t h e meeting w a s most inter s e n t out t o t h e groupsby Bill – T w e l v e important P o i n t s of A A t h e semi-annual request for volun- TraditionEverywhere AA i s “growe n c e s a d t o comment briefly on P our Traditions more concerned teresting and very useful in promoting better knowledge of AA. tary contributions t o T h e Alcoholic ing up.” Heartily endorsed by rising Foundation. We know that there vote of t h e membership preg&nt a t with our public relations. Although We decided, before closing t h e a r e many more whose contributions t h e First International Conference, it i s difficult to accurately measure meeting, to observe Tradition Week a r e in t h e mails even now, or will our Traditions are recognized a s a public reaction, we in t h e group again a t Thanksgiving time and b e in t h e d a y s t o come before t h e powerful force which we’lds us’ to-, 1 feel that t h i s meeting w a s very a s o n e of our women members put end of t h i s year. W e a r e indebted, gether a s one – dedicated t o t h e much worthwhile and t h e good re- it,”Let u s render thanks on Thanks- too, for t h e many kind things you s i n g l e purpose of carrying t h e AA sulting from carrying the message giving Day, and so celebrate 365 have had t o say in your letters, Recovery Program t o t h o s e who 1 t o other alcoholics will be evi- “Thanksgiving Days” which we need u s and a s k for our help. concerning t h e s e r v i c e s of t h i s ofdenced for s e v e r a l years t o come. enjoy e a c h year s i n c e we started fice. T h a n k s for your cooperation We hope that Thanksgiving will , , Shortly after our Tradition obser- on t h e 24 hour Program. –l/arold and understanding of ‘the need t o b e a happy time for AAs everyl

I I A A CALENDAR November %Annual AA Intergroup 1 maintain t h e s e vital over-all services. Your response i s heartwarming t o us, and will enable u s where, and that the m e e t i n p you will hold t h i s Tradition Week will have a s p e c i a l significance, m d 1

Dinner, Hotel Astor, New York. tocontinue tocarry the message t o meaning for all. 1 I

DECEMBER 1950

TO THE NEWLY ANONYMOUS ; I

start with if I had it to do T0 over I’d keep it to myself I am an AA instead of enthusiastically lies; but if the man wishfs cdntact ‘ with us some A A ‘ s will gladly call after working hours! She gets the telling my friends. This led some last word anyhow: “Well, I’m sorry tosay “For goodness sak’es, I did- I bothered you if you feel: that way n’t know you drank like that!” Ex- about it but I thought you liked to planations. Then the friend who help people!”. .i ~ w e n t ~’minutes 1 says: “Well, I wish you’d do some- gone to pot; a cool glance frdm the thing for that awful John Smith; boss who looks meaningly at a sign, look at his poor wife etc. etc.” on his desk. “Use telephone for Ex plannt ions again: We cannot emergency only.” I’ drag John Smith to a meeting with- Another reason &hy I wiqhl 1’d’ out John Smith’s consent. Then kept my big mouth shut is becavse there’s our neighbor who calls I tried answering questions yfter, “There’s a drunkard sitting on my two or three meetings, having only I , door-steps. Please send an AA the vaguest conceptio” ~f khe, real around!” Explanations: We areenot and magnificent pu:pose O ~ ~ A”y- A policemen. Says she: “Well, I self; its. deeper spirituAl sianif ithought it was your business to cance, as w l l a s physica! aid, aqd cure these drunkards!” Explana- so no doubt gave incorrect replies nations: We can cure no one; only and now gravely wonder if I did not show him the way as shown to us. possibly do more harm thap good. Says she: “Well, it seems to me Rut actually, the most important like you ought to do something to reason why I wish I had hShd my get this horrible man off my steps. silence is because of the words of I’d call my husband but he’s at Bill W. himself in “A A Tradition” work!” Explanations: AA’s also “We.. .of Alcoholics Anonymous work and can’t drop tools or led- believe that the of anony; ger every time a drunk appears mity has an immense spiritual on the horizon, otherwise we’d significance.” I lose our jobs and starve our fami- , — C.D., AlexanZria, Kirgi’nia I I

DECEMBER

The anonymity in Alcoholics ual strength.Simplicity of the qual- I Anonymous is a means of carryinr: ifications for membership is a poli-1 out the intent of privileged com- cy. The request to the press to re- I munications imposed ethically and spect anonymity is a policy. It is a legally on physicians and clergy- policy for speakers and writerp to men. It is at once your strength and mention that the ideas expreped your bulwark. It should not be are their own and do not necessarlightly laid aside and never taken ily reflect those of Alcoholics’ from another without his authoriza- Anonymous as a whole.It 1isI a poltion. And finally if anonymity is icy not to conduct hospitals, re-‘ sacrificed, the perpetrator is ipso treats, research, education, re- I facto no longer AA. habiliation. It is a Ipolicy to yake

On Anonymity Conflicting opinions arise largely out of a lack of precision in speech and come to represent a contradiction in terms. Devices this way of life available to those who seek it. For these purposes various devices have arisen. The congregerassume the proportions of prin- tion of adherents have formed by Dr. Leonard V. Strong, Ir. ciples which in turn are confused groups and ha& employed persods with policies. to act a s liaison between the te- The principles of Alcoholics covered and the unrecoverqd. In- I Anonymous ate contained in the tergroup committees, h a d arijen HE anonymity of Alcoholics ymous. Rut to the knowledge of T Anonymous is a relative term. You1 are not anonymous t o your this writer, none has ever betrayed the confidence of his confreres title and in the Twelve Steps plus the negative but important one of and serve as clearinq houses to abet hospitalization and public reavoiding controversy which gen- lations locally. Sectional confer-‘ as’sociates, to your family or to in either regard to anonymity or to e erates resentments. ences have developed for a wider your fellows. You travel incognito the confessions that have been The policy of Alcoholics Anony- discussion of common problems. if you choose and largely to the made to him in private. Each cate- ‘ mous is consistent with the princi- The Works Publishing Company extent you choose. The press otten gory is equally sacred and is held ples. Anonymity besides being a was formed to print a book which times, At some expense to them- a s privileged communicatibns. spiritual principle is a policy in would help some not otherwise selves, have’been most courteous that it averts both stigma and aq- approachable. in fionoring the spirit of anonymity The disclosure of one’s busiqrandizement. Communal poverty The Alcoholic Foundation i? a whether or not they sensed at the ness affairs, state of health, sois a policy in that wealth is a device by which individu Is and time the valye it held for those cial, political, or religious afiilia- I source of controversy. It is policy t groups are related through an pffice yet unrecovered, or could fully tions is reserved to that person’s not to participate in political or maintained for correspondence and comprehend the role it played in discretion, when he alone is insectarian issues for the same rea- which by its ability to quster group recovery. Intermittently and for what apvolved. A doctor or priest may not divulge, and in most instances is , son. To have a minimum bf organi- presgure can censor transgreksors I I zation avoids the temptation of in- and those who see,k personal podt peared at !he time, good reason, estopped by law from divulging, ternal politics and conflict.The pol- or to use the good name of Alcoindividuals have laid aside its even on the witness stand, inforicy of attraction rather than promo- holics Anonymous for purpose not !a cl ak and represented themselves mation received in the course of tion is a buttress to the other pol- in keeping with its stated policy: a s articipants of Alcoholics Anon- carrying out his professional duties icies a s well a s a sourceof spirit- Since it is a medium implem&ting 129

I , the Twelfth Steponnn international Alcoholics Anonymous into disreplane and is supported by the pute, either by proselyting, comgroups or me,mbers it must be re- mercializinp,, by violation of anonsponsive a s ,wcll a s responsible. ymity or by any other means m u s t If it can only earn their support, be curbed or the effects will connot alone financially but more es- demn many to insanity or. death. pecially in consolidating senti- Such a curb, if it is 10 be effectual ment, by some form of participa- and ‘not create faciions must be tion on their part then that partici- exercised with the full’confidence pation must be welcomed. This is and cooperation of all. This con- Iaxlomatic and there are two other fidence is now mediated through the coequal gxioms. One is: that the founders. flow is it to be perpetservices of the central office must uated if not by some form of parbe con/inueci if many alcoholics ticipation. are not to die prematurely or to go Yet another device is available insane (only a small fraction have and that is thc Grapevine. It serves been peqmitted the opportunity of to reflect current thought and ac- Alcoholics Anonymous) and the tivities and can serve to keep other is:, that any person or p r – principles and policies alive by. ,sons acting to brins the name of reiteration. ‘ I M – .

APRIL 1951 breatl cast upon the waters. No one Th:t makes $78 a year – exactly can estimate what good he may $1.50 a week – and i t pays for have dpne. hfeanwhile Joe himself every basic A A function. has had more than value recieved This is Joe’s ‘meat and potain personal satisfaction. toes’ bill, When he’s paid it, Joe is doing his lull share towards JOE Nevertheless, Joe is in the position of the head of a family who keeping A A alive not only in his gets a big kick out of buying his own neighborhood but in neighborhoods which Joe only knows from BLOW’S wife a new hat; a 30 inch television set for the kids to enjoy Hop- geography books. along Cassidy – but forgets to Guess which of those 78 bucks it i s hardest to get out of Joe! Not pay the grocer! DOUGH We’ve said that Joe’s money the 52 for his group. Not the 12 for mathematics in A A are simple. his Intergroup. Not the 3.50 for the Let’s see just how simple. Let’s book, nor the 2.50for the Grapevine. say that Joe averages one meeting It’s that one measly buck for the a week (normal for the entire cross General Service Office. And the , section of AA. He tosses a dollar reason is simple too. First of all, into the hat each time. That’s 52 it’s only a buck – “so what’s the bucks a year. difference if 1 put off sending mine and AA’s Common Welfare! Joe lives in a metropolitan area in or even if I forget to chip in at that supports an Intergroup Associ- all it’s only a buck,” says Joe! ation, On a per capita basis, the Last Fall Rill personally had to local Intergroup costs Joe one send out a hurry-up call because

T HE money mathematics of the individual AAare remarkably simple. Yet, somehow, in our o p Joe is .deeply grateful for what has been given to him. He wants dollar a month which he gladly pays. That’s another $12. the exchequer was getting low at our national headquarters. The not only to do his part but to pay Then, at the international level, deficit was plugged almost by reposition to ‘organization’ we have, his way also. Sometimes Joe runs there’s the General Service Head- turn mail. Checks were often acwith the delightful convolutions of up quite a bill too; all on his own, quarters. They only need to put the companied ,by open-hande2 comalcoholic rationalization, managed He has bursts of monetary gener- bite on Joe for one dollar a year. ments like ‘why didn’t you let u s to make them seem as complicated osity while wet nursing a 12t6 Step That’s a total of $65. know sooner?’, ‘if this isn’t and almost as mysterious as the case. “Poor guy, needed a pint to Let’s say that Joe i s a typically enough, just say the word!’ A Romb! to get him to the hospital.” Joe good AA. He gives a book away to This episode proved two things. Let’s take one example. Joe ‘endows’ almost any philanthropy someone whocan’t yet afford to buy First, that AAs still rememberhow Blow. It doesn’t matter where Joe that has to do with the local Skid one. Joe averages buying a book a to pick up a check.. .when they’re lives. It could be anywhere. Joe’s Row. He doesn’t hesitate to ‘fling year, three fifty, And since Joe i s reminded. And, second, sure a s been sober a couple of years now. in a fiver’ here and there and is a good AA he is, of course, a gin and vermouth make a Martini, He’s back on the job and while his earnings are nothing fancy, he’s generally a pretty soft touch for Grapevine subscriber – another AAs will axcjin get so preoccupied anything or anybody that has any- two fifty. That’s a grand total of with their personal and local afgetting along all right – settling thing to do with ‘alcoholism. $71. Let’s add another 10%for in- fairs that they’ll ‘forget’ soon up old bar bills and paying off the loan companies. ‘ A l l of this i s fine. Joe isn’t flation or just for the hell of it. again their oblig ation to Tradition throwing his money away. It is all

One, “Our common welfare comes buck fifty a week. P e a n u t s ! Yet it first; personal recovery d e p e n d s insures having a p l a c e t o t a k e upon AA unity.” that drunk of yours; literature for If every AA were to t a k e two his shaking hand and shakier mind; minutes t o think the thing through It h e l p s maintain AA’s good name quietly and seriously we think he’d in public relations which in turn come, inevitably, t o one of our very opens hospital doors and e n l i s t s own maxims – first things first! the firowing interest of medicine Playing Lord or Lady Bountiful and the clergy. It helps all drunks t o t h e drunk on t h e corner often – everywhere. Not just the poor h a s more appeal than dropping a guy you’ve got in tow! buck into t h e h a t for the group, t h e Once we know our house i s in intergroup and, finally, our General order, we c a n g e t a bigger kick Service Headquarters. Rut actually than ever out of our personal phiour dollars d o the most good for lanthropy. T h e pint for the drunk the g r e a t e s t number t h a t way. down t h e s t r e e t will not b e depriv- F a r be it from u s t o discourage ing another poor but far off gulr any AA from indulging h i s personal of h i s c h a n c e a t AA. emotions in offering a helping hand In short, let’s pay for keeping (with a coin or a bill in i t ) t o any secure t h e roof over our heads. drunk he may encounter. All we’re T h e n we c a n let our emotions run trying t o s a y here i s pay t h e gro- riots – landscaping the joint with cer and the landlord first! a lot of showy shrubbery and state- T h e most it h a s t o c o s t any AA ly s h a d e t r e e s under which t o r e s t member i s $78 a year – a \mere \ our personal egos.

April 1 9 5 1 A *

into AA, must and should protect itself. It’s where it leads. Gratitude, their personal anonymity -doctors, T h e few breaks we’ve had s o far for instance. Rut for the most part have been made by people who Humility, the average AA thinks that h i s own unquestionably had no motives individual anonymity, in h i s own other than wanting to s h a r e what Anonymity. individual circle, i s s o much pop- they had found. Most of u s g o pycock. A wonderful ‘come-on’ for through a period when we, literally, and the greatest of these is,., the sweating but s t i l l proud new- want t o shout it from the housecomer – but something of an un- tops. In fact, you hear that very real and negative virtue after a phrase quite often in AA meetings. fellow’s had some sobriety and T h e viewers-with-alarm often h a s begun straightening out h i s use a rebuttal which sounds pretty 1 tangled affairs. weak. “What if h e (or s h e ) g e t s (In view of t h i s seemingly wide- drunk? Then AA h a s been ridiculspread opinion about personal ed on a coast-to-coast hookup or anonymity it s e e m quite remark- t o several million readers of able that there have been s o few ‘Glance,’ ‘Prance’ or ‘True Confesanonymity breaks a t the public sions.’ And that,of course, i s s u p level of press, radio, films, and posed t o drive away more people

ANONYMITY ! now, television. When they have occurred there h a s been a divided opinion among AAs. Some s e e no that t h e anonymity-breakers ever . lured in. T h e r e were several dissenters; immediate harm in it. “Sure, so- t h e gentlemen from Philadelphia, and-so h a s let the whole world t h e gentleman from Boston, the know,” they argue. “So what? He gentleman from Chicago. But t h e h a s done a lot of good t o o b e c a u s e gentleman from Cleveland got t h e he i s well known t o the public. floor. He s a i d that the b a s i c point + Why , I know three or four who have involved i s not whether the anonycome in a s a direct result of hear- mity-breaker eventually brings in ing or reading t h i s fellow’s story. more drunks than h e repels. AA i s Alcoholics Anonvmous’ name. Isn’t that what we’re a l l trying t o already t o o big and t o o securely SOME of t h e visiting firemen were s i t t i n g around a n AA luncheon table in New York. T h e T h e average AA member will t e l l you h e doesn’t give a hoot do – carry the message?” It’s a pretty difficult argument grounded t o b e materially influenced by the words or actions of conversation w a s t h e usual AA about h i s personal anonymity. tocombat on a practical work-a-day any individual, in or out of t h e talk until it got around t o the sub- Everybody knew h e w a s a drunk, level and in terms of any recogniz- public limelight. ject of anonymity and a bull s e s – didn’t t h e y ? And i n t h e c a s e of a b l e damage done. Actually though It i s t h e spirit of anonymity sion w a s turned into a forum. It new acquaintances – a new em- that isn’t where the argument lies. which i s involved – not the lac1 w a s a mature d i s c u s s i o n which pro- ployer, particularly, most of u s Our little group decided that t h e of anonymity. If one AA t a k e s h i s duced some rather long range think- f e e l b e t t e r when t h e f a c t s a r e known first anonymity breaks are a good pen in hand or gives h i s story t o a ing about t h e spiritual value of t h e Everyone conceded there a r e deal like t h e first drink. It isn’t ghost writer or a reporter – or if word which i s t h e second half of certain people who, upon coming t h e damage that first one d o e s by another b a r e s h i s soul and h i s

name over Station DRIP – AA’s Instead of being what we are public relations have not been mor- today a bunch of people with the tally wounded. But a potentially admirable quality of minding our dangerous precedent has been es- own business and doing our job tablished, one that could destroy us the best way we know how, we if followed to a logical conclusion. could wake up some fine morning If J. jvorthington Loudfellow gets and discover we’d become a band his name plastered all over the of shouting evangelists. Reformplace and nothing fearful happens, ers, hamming it up. Tear jerkers then Lancelot P. Vain gets the (or jerks) with a message! And idea that he too can grab off a hunk then we’d soon find out that other of personal glory. The desire to drunks don’t want to be ‘reformed’ see one’s name (and picture) in the any more than you and 1 did just public prints has huge appeal to a short time ago. human vanity. And once the pre- When we put our personal graticedent was established, the ‘bleed- tude on public display; when we ing hearts’ among us could go to peddle humility; we cheapen not town – each, mind you, under the only these noble emotions but A A honest delusion of ‘doing good.’ itself. Our collective dignity is Theonlydefense A A has against perhaps our greatest single asset such a possibility is the group in public relations. conscience, the sheer weight of There was no inclination to con- – AA opinion not an edict from on demn the few who for one reason or high. Without this conscience A A another have broken their anonycould easily be turned into a three- mity on a wholesale scale. There ring circus of competitive egos – was, among this particular AA each trying to do the most good, ath he ring, rather a desire to be by getting the ,,lost publicity an& thankful to them for an example therefore reaching the most people. which points the way down a road Let’s not kid ourselves, it could to oblivion before too many of us happen. In fact, that is precisely made a wrong turn. what did happen to the Washington- In the final alalysis, the idorians more than a hundred years ago. ma1 forum decided, it all got back Such a chink in our armor (which to the inspired wisdom set down protects us from ourselves) could by Bill in the 12th and last Traquite easily destroy the spiritual dition: fabric of AA and do it s o subtly, “Anonymity i s the spiritt,/al and under such high sounding aus- /oundation o/ all our Traditions, pices, that we might not realize ever reminding u s to place princiwhat had happened until it was ples above personalities.” too late. — H. S., Great Neck, Long Island

JULY people it brings rather unsavory good for our fellow members, or pictures to mind. While only doc- for potential members, isn’t there tors and attorneys have been men- even greater satisfaction to be detioned here, it is true for everyone rived from doing secretly or quietof us. One of the few specific ly, than publicly and with much “don’ts” that apply to everyone of fanfare and clamor? I US i s therefore, “Don’t reveal any You see, to me, anonymity is a NONYMITY is a widely dis- thing except that we are drunk other person’s anonymity without constant reminder to forget self, A cussed topic, vital to each of again. If, however, we have broken our anonymity indiscriminately, his specific permission.” From these two examples we can see at and to strive for honest humility. us, individually, and a s a group. Of course, there are times when Perhaps the first thing to be said and have made “brags” about our least three reasons for remaining i t i s necessary and proper for is that our group is called “Alco- new life in AA, the public w i l l anonymous. First, in the event of members to reveal their affiliation holics Anonymous.” A s a recent naturally form some peculiar ideas possible slips,many of the general with AA. When explaining the Pro- Grapevine article pointed out, l* as to the purpose of AA. The great – public who do not understand our gram to doctors, clergymen and law Anonymous” is half of the title. est danger here is the fact that purpose may form bad opinions of enforcement bodies, there i s no True, we are all admitted alcohol- some alcoholics who have not yet AA. This can cause two more evils; question a s to the propriety of disics, but to be AAs, we must remain become acquainted with the aims of damaging of personal reputations, closing one’s anonymity. It i s neanonymous. If we go telling all AA may be among the scoffers. and causing potential members to cessary to enlist the aid and coand sundry of our affiliation with Thus they may well become skep- shy away from a real chance at operation of these groups for the Alcoholics Anonymous, we become tical of any good in AA and possi- sobriety and happiness. purpose of giving new members “Alcoholics,” period! There is no bly throw away their last chance at These are all very real and prac- proper treatment, and also because “Anonymous” about it if we tell sobriety. We therefore have one tical reasons for preservation of many potential members come to everyone. That much alone, is suf- very practical way in which indis- anonymity. However, to me, the these persons for aid with their ficient to point out to many AAs criminate disclosure of our anony- meaning of, and reason for, anony- alcoholic problem. However, these the meaning of anonymity, and the mity can be harmful. mity goesdeeper than these surface are all usually reliable people, inreason for remaining anonymous. Another thing to be considered, reasons. I believe that it ties in terested only in helping, and are It i s well, however, to discuss it i s the anonymity of a fellow AA. with humility very closely. Remain- not about to go shouting from the further, to clear up any doubts or I think that it is of far more con- ing anonymous in whatever good house tops the names of A A s who questions. sequence to reveal another’s anon- we can do, and therefore expecting are seriously trying to help. Now, anonymity has many prac- ymity than t o reveal our own. In no credit for it, i s really something. There are also members of our tical and logical aspects. Let’s the case of professional men this We have all been s o used to doing immediate family who are vitally lookat the most obvious ones first. is very easy to see. Naturally most SO few “goods” that on those few interested in us. Naturally, they One of the first reasons for anony- patients select their doctors, and occasions we expected a lot of should be given an explanation and mity i s the very real possibility of clients their attorneys largely by credit and recognition for what a clear understanding of the proba return to our drunken, alcoholic reputation. It can very easily dam- little we did manage to accomplish. lems involved. However, these ways. We realize that all alcoholics age their business if their mem- Now we are trying to minimize our cases are decided individually are only one drink from a drunk, bership in AA i s disclosed. After ego – to forget self. Isn’t anony- there i s no rule governing all. It i s and that i s not just a saying, but a all, it is certain that our group and mity a great step toward this hum- good, however, not to tell people cold, hard fact. If our affiliation purposes are not entirely clear in ble attitude? Doesn’t this forsaking merely to make conversation. I with A A i s kept anonymous, then the general public opinion. When of self greatly aid in our trying to think that if close friends are vinone of the public will realize any- “alcoholic” i s mentioned to some aid others? When we can try to do tally interested in us, as real

friends – not curiosity seekers, close the fallacy of it. it might be proper to tell them Fitst of all, I too, a m proud of something about it. being in AA, but I try not to make It i s a quite common occurrence it “false-pride.” After all, being among members, that after first proud of belonging i s no reason to coming into Ah, a period of elation forget the name which was pointed and joy with this new way of life out a s 50% “Alcoholic”, 50% takes place. Some are so overjoyed t * Anonymous.” I think that the inwith this new life, with seeing the dividual who feels that way about light after so many years of dark- it is trying to fool himself, and ness, that they want to “shout it may be succeeding. If he will from the house-tops,” a s we say. search himself honestly, I think Quite often during this period there that actually he i s trying to trade also comes an urge to “dry up the on the good name of AA for perworld.” Too much cannot be said sonal gain, Possibly material gain, about the necessity of keeping a or possibly only a gain in personal tight rein on our tongues during reputation. Why, if he i s not selfthis period. Many of us know from conscious, why not just say “I am experience the damage that can be an alcoholic!” If he is being how done by over-zealous “carriers of est and humble, that i s all he need the message” while in this stage say. There i s no logical reason of pighly elated emotions. We have why any A A .need disclose his alreaQy covered the possibilities anonymity, except a s noted before; created by indiscriminate disclo- to family, real friends, and possibly sure of anonymity. It might be re- to persons whose cooperation i s peated, though, that there i s a real needed for proper growth of the danger of causing other alcoholics group. In view of this, that fellow to shy away. Remember – this who i s not “self-conscious” but may actually mean a man’s life. “proud of it” might well do a little It has happened! honest 4th Step inventory in regard Before concluding, we should toanonymity and see if he i s being consider the one most common ar- honest and humble, or seeking pergument against anonymity. How sonal gain and false building of often we hear “Well, I’m not self his ego. conscious about it – I’m proud of being in Ah, and I don’t care who Finally, anonymity i s covered in knows it.” I believe that is by far The Big Rook, and in the Twelve the excuse given most frequently Traditions, And if you’re not anon- for not observing anonymity. I al- ymous, you’re not an Ah rememso believe that a little serious ber anonymous is half of the title. thought on this statement will dis- 4.A. F., Pickstown, South Dakof a

JULY

failure. e s t e d in getting back into the Pro- T h o s e of u s who reason that way gram and making a s u c c e s s of i t I … if it c a n b e called “reasoning” t h i s time. at all.. .simply make things tough- It follows strict AA principles e r for ourselves by prolonging our i n every respect. I t s membership i s suffering; and it w a s to cope with composed exclusively of men and t h e problem that these people pre- women who have had trouble with sent t h a t t h e Rebound Group of the Program, and a l l of the speak- New York w a s formed last February. e r s a t i t s meetings a r e members of ‘ T h e Group, meets weekly a t New the group or a r e eligible for mem- York’s Alanon House at 353 West s h i p by virtue of their own diffi- 46th Street under the leadership of culties. Although it h a s no meeting Tom of t h e Manhattan Group, Meet- place of i t s own, it is growing so ings, which are attended by 30 t o rapidly by word-of-mouth that it i s 35 members, follow t h e general not unlikely that i t soon will have, plan of t h e regular open-discussion or that sectional branches will meetings of AA. A single speaker have t o b e formed to provide for i s selected t o lead, and after he all of the n e e d s of AA members i n h a s told h i s story the meeting i s the Metropolitan area. thrown open t o the discussion of J u s t a s i n AA itself, it i s posspecific individual problems. s i b l e t o form a Rebound Group in In t h e few short weeks that the any area where two or more AAs

GROUP group h a s been operating in New York, it is estimated that more a r e having difficulty with the Program. T h e s u c c e s s of t h e first Rethan 300 alcoholics have been bound venture in t h e Midwest and

I M … OST of u s come into AA with the b e s t intentions in t h e world with a d e e p loathing for the “processed” through it. “Processed” i s used here advisedly.. for . of other groups in widely scattered s e c t i o n s of the country, seems t o the Rebound Group i s not a per- point t o the fact that there i s a kind of life we have been leading- manent organization in t h e ordi- need for t h i s organizatibn that i s and with the quiet determination t o second only t o t h e need for AA d o something about it … and to k e e p o n doing it,one day a t a time, nary sense. I t s primary purpose i s t o attract faltering AAs and, after itself. straightening out the difficulties If you a r e interested in forming for the rest of our lives if that i s they are having with the Program, a Rebound Group of your own and possible. to return them t o their own groups feel that you need any more infor- Some of u s are able t o s t a y with with a clearer understanding of mation, Tom will b e glad t o answer that program indefinitely. Others where their difficulty l i e s and what your letters. Address: have occasional trouble. And when they c a n d o t o overcome it. we do, many of u s think that t h e T h e Rebound Group i s not inter- Tom S, only thing t o d o i s to cut off a l l ested in how often you have “slip- L Rebound Group association with AA and avoid a ed”. .or how badly. It i s interested 353 West 46th Street. deepening s e n s e of shame a t ow only in t h e fact that you are inter- New York City, N.Y.

October 1951

T HANKSGIVING Week, has again been designated as Tradition in the development of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement. week. Xlany groups have, for the In “hfilestone of AA,” for expast two years, arranged special ample, Rill summarizes highlights meetings during this time ,for the of many critical periods in AA. observance of the Twelve Tradi- “AA Traditions” records one of tions of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the key meetings of the Internationorder to ease the work of your pro- al Conference at Cleveland in 1950 gram chairman, may we suggest where Bill and other AAs discussthat the following recordinp might ed the importance of the Twelve be helpful and interesting to a11 Traditions to the future of our AA members. society. “The Rig Meeting” records the A talk by Rill on “The Third final session of the Cleveland Con- Legacy of AA” is the latest in the ference and is unique a s the only series of recordings prepared by recording on which both Rill and the General Service Office for dis- Dr. Bob may be heard. tribution to the groups. This re- “Dr. Bob’s Last Major Talk,” cording i s in effect a condensation recorded in 1947, four years before of Bill’s remarks opening the his- his death, outlines the early days toric first meeting of the General of AA, with special reference to service Conference in New York the growth of the first “group” last April. in Akron. The two long-playing (33 1/3 rpm) An earlier recording known simrecords which reproduce the talk ply a s “A Talk by Bill’ has beare available to the groups for come a “collector’s item.” It i s $9.00. For shipment by Air Express no longer possible to make copies add $1.00. For Railway Express, from the master record and the add 50 cents. existing supply has been exhausted. Through other recordings the Detailed information on all regroups today (and tomorrow) can cordings handled by the General get an intimate and eye-witness Service Office i s available through panorama of many crucial phases group secretaries.

AA Grapevine, November 1951

By which we live. . .

THE TWELVE TRADITIONS

T HIS i s t h e third year we have devoted the November i s s u e of rabbits from anything that s a y s , ‘Ya gotta!’ t h e Grapevine t o ‘Traditions Week’ We drunks are life’s rebels, nonwherein e a c h group i s a s k e d t o conformists who have miraculously s c h e d u l e , around Thanksgiving found sanctuary outside t h e contime, a s p e c i a l meeting t o study ventions of normal society. We and d i s c u s s ourTwelve Traditions. cherish our individuality, and mean From a l l reports t h i s idea, while a t o k e e p it. Anything written which noble one, h a s not been a n unqual- wasn’t in the original version of ified s u c c e s s in actual practice. the Big Book i s viewed with s u s –

S MALL customs sometimes grow up to picion.. . a t l e a s t until i t proves b e g r e a t T r a d i t i o n s . A s a s y m b o l of A A ‘ s Maybe it’s because we AAs have itself. So i t h a s been with the been a little self-conscious about Twelve Traditions, e v e n though h u m b l e b e g i n n i n g t h e coffee pot i s a p t , a n d having anything a s high-sounding Bill himself wrote them. 1 ‘ a s Traditions. It’s a word usually Correction please! Rill h a s s a i d historically correct. AA services” began a s s o c i a t e d with ivyed w a l l s and many times that h e didn’t write t h e w i t h coffee . . . A n n e d o i n g t h e p o u r i n g , Dr. B o b great antiquity.. .but here we a r e , Traditions; that h e merely held t h e a n d Bill t h e t a l k i n g . In t h i s i s s u e w e h a v e only 16 y e a r s old and a bit on t h e pen while the group c o n s c i e n c e b r a s h side. Or maybe it’s b e c a u s e , dictated. And that’s true, literally tried t o s h o w t h e far-flung c o n s e q u e n c e s t h a t being written down and a l l , the true. F o r on every one of t h e 12 Traditions may s e e m like ‘rules’ points AA a s a whole had ,made u p have flowed from that first simple service. .. .and we s h y away like frightened i t s collective mind long before 1946 139

when they were put into print. And ranks pretty f a s t when anything Bill, who foresaw t h e need, merely threatens or s e e m s to threaten AA not only gave unanimous endorse- ‘The Foundation’ but a s real flesh felt t h e pulse, l i s t e n e d t o t h e h e a r t anywhere. We’ve been through the ment t o the Traditions but tried t o and blood people, volunteer AAs beat, and put h i s findings down wringer on anonymity, clubhouses, d e v i s e means of ‘selling’ them t o and a few paid workers, doing a concerning t h o s e things which ~ o k e rgames, s l o t machines, hos- a l l AAs. T h e word selling, even in daily job which went far beyond might someday affect t h e entire pitals, and a d o z e n other t r i a l s quotes, isn’t right either. Nobody their ability t o v i s u a l i z e it. ,, movement. which, sooner or later, pop up in ‘ s e l l s ‘ anything in AA. It w a s ra- Through the e y e s of f a t f i l e s Meanwhile we’ve gradually been AA life. T h e Traditions a r e merely ther that the d e l e g a t e s sought ways they s a w the ‘Loners’ not merely getting o v e r our indifference t o the the d i s t i l l a t i o n of t h i s experience t o make a l l of AA aware of the val- a s a few scattered individuals in idea of having traditions. F o r one s e t forth for t h e guidance of all. ue a n d significance of the Tra- isolated p l a c e s . . .but i n terms of thing, we’ve looked around and find They a r e not, never have been, ditions. trying t o h e l p a great many humans we’ve b e e n spawning traditions a l l never will b e ‘musts.’ They’re be- One of their suggestions w a s c u t oB from the luxury of a group over t h e p l a c e , local traditions, ing flouted every day. t h a t t h i s i s s u e of the Grapevine b e in every neighborhood. They read group traditions, individual tradi- In fact, the Traditions a r e a p t t o dedicated not only to the Traditions letters, representing hours a t a tions.. .and heaven h e l p him who remain in t h e background.. . t o gain a s s u c h . . .but t o go behind t h e typewriter, a d d r e s s e d to e x o t i c d e f i l e s o n e of them. prominence and whole hefirted sup- s c e n e s and show the Traditions in places and dog-eared from being As w e read in the September port only a f t e r repeating t h e very action. They themselves had s e e n forwarded and reforwarded, c h a i n the s c o o e of the s e r v i c e s rendered letter s t y l e , around t h e world from Grapevine, a l l C h i c a g o meetings open with a moment of s i l e n c e . It’s m i s t a k e s the Traditions try t o prevent. After a l l , in our rapid growth, to AA on a world-wide b a s i s . Even though they were old-timers they one e a g e r ‘loner’ to another.. on . t h e high s e a s , in some far-off juna tradition. In C l e v e l a n d , they AA i s a c o n s t a n t l y changing body. s a y a n opening prayer. T h a t ‘ s a New people, like t h o s e of u s who had not Seen a b l e t o v i s u a l i z e t h e gle. Romantic, but s t i l l hard work tradition a l s o . In L i t t l e Rock, no enormity of t h e job; the recurrence that had to b e done with a loving one i s a full fledged AA member were before, a r e Doubting Thomases … It’s t h e nature of the beast. of t h e same situations, major and . dedication.. t o overcome not only unti I he’s undergone a gruelling T h e y have t o be shown.. .and in- petty, fromKansas City t o Karachi. d i s t a n c e but, quite often, the added three months’ training course. A variably are. T h e y s a w their l o c a l problems barrier of language. tradition. I n New York, though h e So, far from being a s e t of r u l e s , of publicity and anonymity multi- Here a t t h e vortex of AA activimay s t i l l h a v e t h e s h a k e s when h e the Traditions a r e gradually coming plied and magnified t o a national ty they had s e e n the need of Tras a y s it, a man is a member t h e in- t o be recognized for what they a r e and international b a s i s . . .where ditions above and beyond their IP s t a n t h e s a y s h e is. Likewise, a tradition. … a record of experience, a guide t h e i n t e r e s t s of novelists, magazine writers, movie producers, doctors, cal headaches. They had s e e n the Traditions a s a precious storehouse Not only d o we h a v e local trawaiting patiently for u s t o r e a l i z e that we need guidance. If they a r e clergymen and students could e a s i – of AA experience … a Bill of d i t i o n s which may s e e m t o contra- laws of Nature and h a v e been in ly l e t loose a flood of misconcep- Rights for a l l AAs everywhere!! d i c t e a c h other … but in our force s i n c e t h e day Dr. Rob and tions and misrepresentations about AA u n l e s s somebody w a s in charge. T h e y wanted t o s h a r e their experience with a l l AAs and a s k e d Twelve T r a d i t i o n s w e h a v e one Rill first met, we can’t repeal them, which s a y s t h a t a n y a r e a , a n y group any more than w e c a n repeal alco- T h e y s a w the same problems that t h i s i s s u e be dedicated t o t h e any individual can have i t s , their, h i s o r h e r own s p e c i a l traditions.. holism. They’re merely c a u s e and effect. It’s just t h a t , like our … their own groups had long s i n c e outgrown cropping up with painful s e r v i c e s behind the Traditions. It’s been a job that we of the Grapee x c e p t only in matters affecting regularity a l l over the U.S. and now vine staff have approached timidly other groups o r AA itself. surrender t o alcoholism itself, we s t i l l i n s i s t on learning t h e hard way. in thirty eight other countries. T h e y . ..and tried t o d o without frills or Actually, d e s p i t e s e c t i o n a l dif- T h e d e l e g a t e s t o t h e F i r s t Gen- s a w t h e General Service Office fluff. We hope t h e following p a g e s f e r e n c e s i n operation, w e c l o s e e r a l Service Conference l a s t April come a l i v e , not a s something va- give, if not a complete story, a t guely referred to a s ‘New York’ or l e a s t a n accurate picture.

November, 1951 –

a matter for personal decision. AA s e l f off from t h e spiritual o n e n e s s tradition e n t e r s t h e picture only which h a s given u s a n almost unwhen t h e anonymity ‘break’ g o e s believable unity. beyond the personal level. T h i s is T h e thoroughness of that u n h y confusing to some AAs who might, often confounds our critics. We with understandable logic, s a y ; know one interested outsider who ‘If I t e l l a hundred people I’m a described AA, quite aptfy we think, drunk and a member of AA, what difference d o e s i t make if I tell a a s a ‘good natured anarchy’ … with thousands of rugged individuthousand more, or a million more?’ a l i s t s , e a c h seemingly going h i s T h i s difference, of course, i s in or her own merry way, but closing t h e circumstances, and the intent. ranks f a s t when anything threatens T h e a n s w e r i s t o be found in t h e or s e e m s t o threaten AA itself. very wording of Tradition Twelve. ‘That,’ s a y s our observer, ‘has Note that i t d o e s not s a y that anon- a spiritual quality. Behind it there ymity i s the /actual foundation of must b e a common belief, and a a l l our Traditions. It s a y s the very d e e p one, in a central power spiritual foundation. And that’s t h e or a central something above and ANONYMITY key. For it i s t h e spirit of anonymity that i s all-important … the beyond human opinion. I c a n think of no s e t u p better calculated for honest willingness to put our com- riots, disorder and argument, a c – Twelve.. . Anonymity i s the spiritual foundation o / mon welfare first. We’ve had only a few ‘breaks’ a t cording to a l l t h e a c c e p t e d ‘rules’ of organization. Yet AA a t t a i n s the public level.u’hen t h e y occurred and e a s i l y maintains a n indivisall our Traditions, ever reminding us to there w a s a clamoring. ‘Off with ibility which democracies only place principles above personalities. t h e i r heads!’ shouted some AAs. dream of.’ ‘What if t h e s e show-offs now get Maybe we have a one word exdrunk? What will that d o t o AA?’ T HIS is unquestionably t h e o n e great tradition of AA. I t i s t h e s i l e n t guardian of our quality of tions. T o t a l anonymity, for instance, is impossible. If e a c h of u s , individuall y, were t o achieve a b s o l u t e Nothing, probably. There never w a s a c h a n c e that planation for our friend ‘Anonymity.’ Flut w e doubt if he’d a c c e p t it a s a whole answer. In fact, w e purpose.. .and t h e true measure of anonymity there could b e no com- AA could ‘police’ anonymity or in AA a r e o u r s e l v e s only now beour dedication t o service. It per- effectively reprimand t h o s e who ginning to understand the strength m e a t e s everything AA d o e s , everything AA is. Future h i s t o r i a n s may munication e v e n between ourselves; AA could h a v e neither life nor per- flout it. In fact, to d o s o would be t o destroy the very purpose of . o f mass anonymity. .and i t s importance t o u s individual] y … and sonality; AA, indeed, could not judge u s not by t h e number of exist! the tradition. B e s i d e s , there a r e t o the drunks who a r e s t i l l to come. drunks sobered up but a s people automatic penalties. T h e anony- It i s not, a s we may have f i r s t who e a r n e s t l y tried t o make s e l f – None of u s is completely anony- mity-breaker may have’ a c t e d in in- thought, merely a ‘spite’ fence t o l e s s n e s s a part of everyday living mous in our private lives. Our fam- nocence, and may consider himself s h i e l d u s from t h e moral stigma in a material and c y n i c a l world. i l i e s know, our friends, our b o s s e s . s t i l l to be a perfectly good AA. of alcoholism. O n c e t h e pangs of Anonymity, w e a r e finding, h a s \Ve’ve long a g o come t o t h e con- But, beyond our power to judge, guilt and remorse s u b s i d e , we no many facets. And many contradic- clusion that personal anonymity is h e probably isn’t. H e h a s c u t him- longer want t o hide from life. We’re

more a p t t o g o t o t h e other extreme. outside function, s a y a t a Kiwanis T h e ‘reformer’ i n u s c o m e s t o t h e luncheon, t h e name i s jealously s u r f a c e and our f i r s t impulse i s t o withheld e v e n though everybody i n rush out and ‘ s a v e t h e world.’ Rut t h e room may know him personally. we don’t. What r e s t r a i n s u s ? In other s e c t i o n s names a r e freely It’s probably something w e s e n s e used … e x c e p t only where t h e rather t h a n fully understand. We p r e s s is concerned. look a t t h e miracle of our own s o – It is not the purpose of t h i s isbriety and a s k ‘how d i d I g e t i t ? ‘ s u e of t h e Grapevine or of AA a t We a d d up a l l t h e a d v i c e we’ve had anytime t o define what c o n s t i t u t e s i n AA, a l l t h e kind treatment, a l l or what doesn’t constitute practical t h e understanding and t h e friend- anonymity. T h a t is purely a matter . s h i p . . and w e s t i l l can’t make t h e total explain t h e miracle. Instinct of group conscience. Individual opinion may argue a s to where t o t e l l s u s w e a r e d e a l i n g with a draw t h e line. Actually there will force, not a formula. U’e feel hum- probably never be any line. .. ble, g r a t e f u l . a n infinitesimally You’ll find the spirit of anonymity in every Tradition, behind small, However much w e may prosper every slogan, in every 12th S t e p materially w e c a n never a g a i n a c – c a l l , in a l l t h e things that make quire the self-made-man complex. AA tick. Anonymity i s woven into However s o p h i s t i c a t e d our minds, the very fabric of AA. I t c a n b e w e will a l w a y s s t a n d in a w e of flicked here and there, and i t s what happened t o us. Ye a t l a s t pattern minutely disturbed. But the know t h e difference between being e s s e n t i a l strength of t h e fabric re- ‘humiliated’ and being humble. mains. We can’t put it away in moth Humility i s no longer a ‘door mat’ b a l l s for safekeeping. It must b e word but a power for ~ o o d . We worn, subjected t o t h e wear and somehow understand it without un- t e a r , t h e r i p s and runs, of life. d e r s t a n d i n g it. And we understand In s o living we may be making a l s o t h a t our g r e a t e s t contribution our g r e a t e s t contribution t o a d i s is humility, forsaking a l l rewards, t r e s s e d world of simple things …. . . proving the truth the Golden a l l credit. Thrown into the common pool, w e c a l l it … unonymity! Rule . .. t h e u s e l e s s n e s s of per- I n our o b s e r v a n c e of anonymity, we AAs vary a s w e d o with every- . s o n a l power and greed.. the pricel e s s compensations from serving t h i n g e l s e . In some s e c t i o n s full for t h e s a k e of service.. . t h e inn a m e s a r e never used, e v e n in AA credible possibility that t h e meek meetings. E l s e w h e r e t h e r e is no s h a l l , indeed, inherit the earth. anonymity within A.4 w a l l s but Such may be t h e magnitude of AA whenever a s p e a k e r a p p e a r s a t a n anonymity !

AA Grapevine, November 1951

ECAUSE the world i s dedicat- The way a group is born and stay sober and believe in it s o B ed to what has been called “The tyranny of words,” it has moves slowly into a situation where it must associate with other firmly they want to pass the good word along to alcoholics a s yet in become the course of very least groups i s in itself ample reason darkness. But, willy-nilly and beresistance toreduce all human per- for existence of the ills. A group cause staying sober i s jus’t a s plexities to phrases. One such begins with an individual or two mixed up a s anything else in this phrase, in AA, i s “group rela- whose experience has led to a par- business of living, complications tions,” which would seem to ex- tial understanding of a new and arise. The necessity for an organ- LIVING plain itself without possibility of confusion. Rut while the two words better way of living. One of the strongest forces in this awakening ization, in a sense stricter than that of a mere herding together, are of simple, everyday usage, the is the sincere desire to find others cannot be ignored. There i s gen-

WITH fact itself is at once s o elementary and s o complicated a s to defy less fortunate, and share it with them. The only machinery practical enough to accomplish this tremeneral agreement on that fact. But elsewhere there may be no meeting of the minds at all. Those who complete definition. And so, our only hope of being dous aim i s the group. have become part of a group, hav- RELATIONS sensible about group relations in this space is to take you to Gen- Now the group is a modest thing, at first. A few alcoholics meet in ing set out long years before to be devoted individualists, remain so. eral Service Headquarters for a kitchens or in living rooms. They Suddenly snakes slither into the cuick tour of the files. There you study and discuss and find drunks Garden: obligations to meet, pre- General Service Headquarters, will see those ills towhich groups in whose cause the Twelfth Step cedents to establish, controversies through i t s group relations ac- are more or less universally heir can have solid meaning. The group to resolve, resentments to regret. tivities, tries to live a paradox: and get a glimpse of the proved grows; it has to grow. Presently it Soon or late there i s a crisis; al- To give advice in a paternal way without turning into P a p a . . . techniques which have been found i s big enough to hire its meeting place. It names a secretary and most always, Heaven be praised, a level thinker takes pen in hand and to be of help in the majority of possibly even committees. It be- writes a letter to the General Sergins exchanging speakers with vice Headquarters, posing the other groups, that the message not puzzler or stating the grievance always come from the same set of and, in effect, asking what Papa lips. It passes along Twelfth Step proposes to do about it. cases which move to other juris- Everyone knows, or should, dictions and in turn accepts such know, that the Alcoholic Foundacases from distant groups. A11 at tion is no Papa and can neither once – and, surprisingly often, police or play tutor to individual without the awareness of the mem- groups. But it can and it does bers that the condition has arrived to the tune of thousands of letters – the group finds itself become an a year – pass along that which, an organization. from the distillation of still other It has not wanted to be an or- thousands of letters, has come to ganization, in the proper sense. It be accepted a s truth. These letters has wanted merely to consist of treating with a specific case are people who have found a way to valuable; more s o is a routine

function of the headquarters, which has, whether the word “member- quarters to say they have some- tion sends, but will not necessarily might be called a continual utter- ship” be used or not – i s a sin- times been made to feel ‘left-out’ be convinced; and will in turn have ing of the nearest thing to inter- cere desire to stay sober. The by the seniors who (wrongly, if the to shed i t s own blood, sweat and national policy AA p o s s e s s e s , the Foundation has encountered in- Program i s to b e given the respect tears before it comes up with the Traditions. Between November, ’47 stance after instance where forget- i t deserves) appear to misinterpret answer. c and October 1, ‘ 5 1, the Foundation fulness of this truth h a s led to dis- their years of sobriety a s a hall- One of the toughies involves distributed 217,700 copies of the pute. Further, i t has been demon- mark or a s the mantle of elder money. Shall a group solicit funds Traditions pamphlet, wherein may strated that whenever “require- statesmanship. for a clubhouse? hold raffles? sell be found the answer t o practically ments” are set up, on any sort of Now it will be seen that in deal- anything? The question i s asked every question raised by the let- this-is-the-book-of-rules standard, ing with that first question about repeatedly, even though the Sevters from the groups. the red flag goes up – there’s requirements the Foundation finds enth Tradition i s suGciently clear But the letters are still a vital trouble ahead. itself immediately in the center of on that point. But no Tradition i s element. And in even a cursory Take the problem children a s an most of the ills – the clubhouse, a prohibition, and groups still have glance a t them i s t o be found com- example, the ones who cannot or the AA bull-of-the-woods, the in- money woes. It i s rule-of-thumb, prehension of group relations a s a will not get into the Program. They sincere trifler who, if encouraged, and a pretty good one if the files fact rather than a s a label. A list- get drunk repeatedly. They disrupt may cause an earnest seeker after at the Foundation are to be being of the commonest of group ail- meetings. They demand Twelfth sobriety to fail. In a sense, the lieved, that whenever a group gets ments can be made virtually arbi- Step attention a t the oddest hours, very necessity of asking “What are money conscious it becomes slighttrarily, because the same situa- with the Twelfth Stepper painfully the requirements?” points out the ly l e s s conscious of itself a s a tions keep repeating themselves. conscious of the fact that he i s great compromise that everyone in practitioner of the AA Program. Such a listing, however, cannot be wasting h i s sleep to bother. Some AA must make, whether it be the One excellent example of the made in terms of importance, be- of these unfortunates – and they individual’s or that of group t o manner in which the Foundation c a u s e groups develop their own are that for all i t s social-worker group. In the specifics of the trou- conducts i t s share of group relaindividuality just a s individual sound – a t last become nuisances bles touched upon in attempting to tions i s to be found in the c a s e alcoholics do, and what may be and can no longer be tolerated. answer the requirements question of a proposed raffle. AA had grown important to A i s trivial to B. In comes a letter from a group, will be found the greatest of all to such a point in an Eastern s t a t e If there i s a theme in this sym- hoping for authority from on high challenges in AA: How to have a n that a central service committee phony of letters (or should it be to “throw the bum out.” Of course, orderly society without law, how was indicated. T o establish offices cacaphony?) that streams into the there i s no such authority, and the to have a pure democracy capable on what some members thought Foundation offices, it i s embodied group i s referred back to t h e prin- of leading itself without leaders. would be a properly presentable in a question most often asked: ciple and their own judgment of The Foundation finds itself con- basis, a considerable sum of mon- “Who i s a ‘member’ of AA and what constitutes a sincere desire fronted, time after time, with iden- ey was needed. The Foundation what are the qualifications for t o stay sober. tical problems. Walla Walla, let us was asked whether a raffle would membership?”Over and over again, Or there i s the clubhouse prob- say, gets into a hassle over some- be considered in violation of the confusion about that point becomes lem – so-called members, let us thing which Winston-Salem solved traditions, and this i s what the intense because it has led to mis- s a y , have abused i t s hospitality only a year ago. The Foundation, answer said: understanding or dispute over and privileges by using it to s l e e p asked for advice, can do no more t’ About three or four years ago, some a s p e c t of the group’s life. off drunks or a s a gambling hail than p a s s on what Winston-Salem some eager beavers.. .decided to Philosophically, the only re- or whatever. learned via the blood-sweat-and- run a raffle to raise money for a quirement for participation in the Or the younger members of a tears method. Nearly always, Walla central service office. It ran for AA Program – which i s all anyone group write General Service Head- Walla will read what the Founda- one month – a t the end of that

time it had caused s o much dis- ymous name to be used in any ven- ment will swell and spread until ic extent of creating external pubsension and controversy among the ture other than the accomplishment it’s a full-scale Donnybrook. Some- licity of the “those AA drunks are various groups that it was decided and retention of sobriety by indi- body decides upon schism, and a fighting among themselves again” to drop it. It just wasn’t worth it. vidual men and women. race may ensue a s to which group variety. That- was one experience, and I The matter of hospitalization i s can lay claim to the original In one such case, the Foundathink you will find a similar situa- an important one and, like almost group name. Here the Foundation tion’s advice to a group became tion if such a thing started in P–.” everything else in the practical has had to advise against such ex- simple wisdom in its final sum- The clubhouse vs. “straight AA” operation of the AA Program, dif- treme and ridiculous steps a s a ming-up paragraph: is one of those pull-devil-pull-bak- ficult. The consensus of AA opin- move by either the “ins” or the “Again, let me say that I know er things that turn up continually ion, a s reflected in communications tt outs” to obtain full title to some if you can all consider the situain the Foundation correspondence. to the Foundation, is that providing such name a s “Main Street Alco- tion objectively and maturely you And the gals who write the letters funds for hospitalization of drunks holics Anonymous,” and thus re- will surely see that the important in answer to the queries can only may be an occasional necessity duce the other side to anonymity. thing to remember i s our primary follow their noses and pray that but i s far from a good regular prac- The absurdity of such conflicts, purpose in having groups at all, the sorry experiences of other tice. The best work that has been of course, is to be seen in the and not what particular names they groups, which their letters are done in this direction has been the ending of that sentence: when the ace called. No matter what may be able to relay, will be heeded. Of enlistment of community coopera- fight has become a knock-down-and- said in a heated ‘family’ argument, club life, a s distinguished from tion for the provision of hospital drag-out affair, anonymity for the the vast majority of AA members AA association at meetings, there beds for alcoholics who are seri- losers may falsely seem to be a really want to keep the channel can be no rule other than to sepa- ously ill, a s a policy of public victory for the ones who have held open for those who may be seeking rate their management from AA it- health rather than as an endeavor onto the name. The true value and us, even a t the sacrifice of perself. The best that can be done i s under the sponsorship of AA or of meaning of anonymity has been sonal desires and convictions.The to say that some clubhouses are an AA group. overlooked, sometimes to the trag- common good comes above that of good (the very simple ones, generally) and some are bad (those Where AA enters the hospital individuals – ‘For our Group purpicture, the mechanics is impor- pose there i s but one ultimate auwhere pretention and the domination by a given clique muddy the tant. Again quoting from the con- thority – a loving God, a s he may sensus, it has been found that a express himself in our Group one big reason for AA association.) hospital committee within the group Conscience.” Now and again someone in AA, i s the nearest thing to a working In this limited space it has been more often than not a misguided compromise possible. To give every possible to do no more than hint at zealot, will decide to go beyond member free rein to put in, take the puzzles the General Service the Traditions and “improve” the out or visit an alcoholic patient, Headquarters is called upon to program on his own. He may decide and virtually to act a s a member of discuss. to s e t up a new kind of hospital of a hospital staff, results in chaos. But that i s one of its more vital for alcoholics, “devised by AAs, run by AAs, dedicated to potential The victims of the “dry bender,” functions – to listen, to report (of whom, a s someone said about what others have learned and to AAs.” The Foundation has wres- the Chinese, there must be dozens) offer as sole counsel a dedication tled with a few of these situations, seem to fall into the family squab- – or a rededication if that be necand has had toadvise the sponsors of the project that it i s against all ble category more often than not. essary – to the Program a s it is, One faction in a group will disagree a s it has been and as, God willing, tradition for the Alcoholics Anon- with another faction. The disagree- it will remain.

AA Grapevine, November 1951

– “H ERE y’are read all about it! AA claims 200 drunks saved incity; names on page three! prove it!” “We need always maintain personal anonymity a t the level of

PUBLIC RELATIONS Get ya paper!”

.. .. . F a n t a s t i c ? . .yes. Public relations? .well, certainly public. press, radio and films,” s a y s the Eleventh Tradition (and television would seem to need to be added!) Attraction? .definitely no. And and the part-too-true and p a r t – a t

… Eleventh Tradition: Our puldic relations pol- in 15 years nothing like such pub- most-true examples given are gross icy i s Lased on attraction rather than pro- licity has yet had to be measured – violations. But not a single motion; we need always maintain personal and met, Notice that word “yet”. newspaper printed the very per- Because it could happen – and sonal holiday profession of AA anonymity at the Ievelo/press, radio and films. to such nice, normal people a s we salvation … the movie company AAs are trying to be. Some strange spent vast sums and precious time things did happen, and some strange to change a shallow script into an things alm ast happened, and some strange things will almost happen.. adult and honest picture … radio broadcaster has never rethe

A sober, grateful AA wrote some peated the unintentional “name of h i s own New Year’s morality slip.” The single drunk .. . well, under h i s own well-known name he went to jail and those names he and submitted the literary gem to knew fell on a sudden epidemic of the nation’s top two newspaper courtroom deafness. wire services s o that the nation’s Now these happy accidents of readers might share his joy in AA. fortunate result were planned out A report was rumored e a s t from of a mass experience that funnels Hollymod.. . a super movie i s be- daily across a single desk a t AA’s ing made and will be called “Love General Service Headquarters. Inside AA” … bottle fugitives build Love’s bonfire while saving “Public Relations” would be the sign on the desk if i t were ever souls … hear thrilling true con- idle enough and cool enough for fessions a s drunks tell all. paint to s t i c k on i t s busy surface. A nationally-known radio emcee For here a cropof crises i s in conintroduced ringside guests a t a stant transit. And here chaos has night club broadcast and told the a way of simmering down to just air waves … tt and here i s our friend Right Name, that fighting ordinary problems to be met and mastered.. .usually by the ordinary member of Alcoholics Anonymous!” miracle of courteous mail. “ALWAYS ALERT” TO STAY A drunk faced a small town magistrate and s a i d “You can’t send What happened in these colossal crises that were beyond the daily me to jail – I belong t o Alcoholics crop? Well, the newspaper syndi- “ALWAYS ANONYMOUS” Anonymous and here are the names of five men you know who can c a t e s had long before known the spirit and meaning of ourEleventh

Tradition through a form letter of ed promptly and with individual at- AA offers his stubborn patient, Mr. of him in the fifteen years of AA. explanation mailed to principal tention to its particular query. X, A high school science teacher Ry this year of 1951, there are no press and radio outlets. They mere- There are no standard form letters wants twenty pamphlets for his more than six. Six chronic spotlightly acted in its meaning. The movie for the all too often desperate peo- senior social class. Two student ers out of 120,000 one-time bottle company answered a note that ex- ple at the other end of the postage nurses need material for their term prima donnas. How many other pressed the hope that their AA in- stamp. papers. .A minister needs guidance brands can make this claim? formation was authentic, and a se- Time-consuming answers.. .but in helping a group start within his And here’s a pleasant letter to ries of g a c i o u s conferences result- each letter is perhaps someone’s parish. write. The Puckering Valley Coued in alterations they were grateful first reaching out, someone’s first A man way out there i s mad this rier has a front page editorial on to volunteer. The broadcaster open- hope of help. Each answer is to a morning, and his letter says “don’t the first meeting of the new AA ed an envelope containing a copy . person.. and its studied wording bother answering this, because AA group. “Welcome To Our Town!” of AA’s Twelve Traditions. i s a s personal a s the handclasp doesn’t work!” says the headline, and in quiet Technique of a sort of printed that precedes the first cup of coffee Now to the day’s newspaper clips. dignity there are words of undertwelfth stepping.. .a practicing of that will yet be poured in some far This small daily paper has a list standing and encouragement for the principles in public affairs. distant meeting room. of speakers for next week’s AA local fledglings. Here’s a Big City Basically, the PR desk at Head- Often a second letter comes from paper from out midwest.. , i t s ediquarters handles general relations with press, radio and films; rela- . out there. .a more confident letter that s a y s “Please send us (a promeeting.. .names and initials a s neat a s you please. But we don’t torial captioned “A Case Where please; and a letter of suggestion Names Do Not Make News;” Betions with an inquiring general gressive pronoun, us!) your book” fore we write a warm thank vou public; and gentle counseling to individual anonymity breakers. … and the worn and crumpled bills tumble out a story of their own. and reminder goes out to the Group Secretary. Perhaps its a young note to the editor, let’s read on a group, perhaps an erring old-timer bit. “We have all become accus- An AA General Secretary (serving in rotation of the Headquarters And other letters. Some sadly . impossible.. “I am in jail and if .. .but the public relations step i s one of attraction again.. ra-. tomed to the quiet good work of .. Alcoholics Anonymous .We have assignments) with a small non-al- you will send me exactly $982.61 ther than admonition. grown accustomed, too, to the anoncoholic stenographic force, reads to cover some checks I will get out and immediately sign up with your Here’s a fine howdy-do.. a news – ymous nature of these activities.. and answers mail, studies all paper picture of Brother Z again. newspaper clippings mentioning AA, and writes and edits AA pamorganization.” Indignant letters.. “We called AA for our daughter . Z means well in his way. After all ;he organization sticks to two tried principles: membership i s never he’s moulding public opinion to- publicly revealed, except by choice phlets and general literature. and the woman who answered the ward us, sacrificing himself to get of the individual ;and the emphasis Of some 4,000 letters from phone did not speak very educated the AA message to the mostest the is always on group activity for the I* strangersH this year, most will English. Can you send us someone fastest, He hasn’t the slightest be appeals from relatives or friends of presumed alcoholics. “I heard … of our level?”Tattle-tale letters “I thought you ought to know that idea that he i s busting the best benefit of all, thus providing a release from the horrible loneliness protective measure our fellowship which is one of the cruellest sympof your organization and my hus- J.J. of this city i s drinking on has yet had. Principles through toms of alcoholism.” band surely needs what you’ve got the side!” personalities, is the way Z sees it. And the dav of Public Relations .. , ” i s a familiar opening. Another almost standard letter begins “Our And patient, studied answers go . back.. promotion, no. Attraction, And it will take ingenuity of ex- drones to the night no, spins … – on. Far inand far from Headpression and charity of heart to newspaper had a piece about the to what the 120,000 already know. write a letter to him after s o many, quarters and the bulging mail bags fine work you are doing and I won- And today, and every today there many times. and the alert clipping shears. Way der if you could help someone very is still more mail to answer. A How many Mr. Z’s? Vell, all told out there, the Eleventh Tradition dear to me.”Each letter is answer- doctor in Ohio wants to know what there have been about an even 100 is at work.. .at 8 3 0 p.m. at the

corner of Main a n d Elm. that might h e l p Papa. Where you, Way out there where “attraction and you, the Old Timer a r e this rather than promotion” is going t o fellowship’s public relations in make t h e first meeting e a s i e r t o t h e flesh. t a k e for someone with faltering s t e p and feverish brow. Where a And by your deeds, not by your wondering non-alcoholic drops in names, t h o s e who d o not know for a timid look-see a t t h i s thing shall learn …

Typical Misconceptions About AA Due to frequent misconceptions, the following is a list of things that AA IS NOT :

IS NOT a religious movement DOES NOT accept outside funds IS NOT a temperance movement DOES NOT nor will it ever conduct any IS NOT a social service organization campaign to raise funds (several sizable bequests have been refused not (it has no paid social workers or only by the Alcoholic Foundation, professional field workers) but by various local groups) IS NOT a cure DOES NOT run hospitals . IS NOT a “cure-all” DOES NOT prescribe treatment for alcoholics IS NOT an employment agency DOES NOT pay for hospitalization of alcoholics

The sole purpose o f AA i s to help the alcoholic who wants to stop drinking.

AA Grapevine, November 1951

ther a n d suggesting that AA a s a But a.few of u s who were i n fairly movement b e self-supprting.’ so!vent financial position, guaran- George laughed a t the e x p r e s s i o n teed t h e first month’s expenses. THE CHAIRMAN of confusion on Paul’s face. ‘I d o n ‘ t blame you, fellow, for being Most of you know t h e s t o r y fr6m that point on to where now we have confused. B e c a u s e obvious1 y how a hall that s e a t s chree t o four hlinc a n AA b e self-supporting without dred persons, who come :very Sat-

… contributions from the AA mem- urday night and hear :he miracle of bership? Alcoholics Anonymous and most ,

‘The next question naturally i s , of them s t a y to enjoy t h e refresh- No fees, ‘Why d o e s AA need money a t all. ‘ George glanced around t h e group ments! Multiply *.his procedure by thousands of larger and small,or

no dues, and continued: ‘I s e e several here tonight who used t o meet in my groups a ~ dyou’ll realize t h a t if AA i s t o continue t o be self-supporting, Group contributions colliving room when AA first s t a r t e d

BUT.. . . . in our town. My wife used to furnish the coffee and s a n d w i c h e s , and lected from m e m k r s will b e necessary.’ George paused to ligh: a then a s the group grew other w i v e s cigarette. ‘Very early we learned used t o send over c a k e s acd stuff, our l e s s o n about money. Frankly pianation of this paradox – no d u e s , T h’E regular Mid-Week group c l o s e d meeting w a s being prec e d e d tonight with o n e of t h o s e no f e e s , but! We’re expected t o put something in the hat e a c h meeting, s o the s t r a i n wculdn’t be too hard on our modest larder. Then Tony w e feared organizatioc. That, and involvement in money matters could got h i s b o s s t o l e t u s have a n un- destroy u s a s a movement. And, b u s i n e s s meetings. and a n t e in toward our Inter-Group u s e d office i n the back of h i s ware- we were resolved that neither mon- ‘Seeing t h i s i s ‘Tradition Week,’ and twice a year send a b u c k t o t h e house, for free. We began buying e y nor management of our n e c e s it is fitting w e d i s c u s s t h e value General Service Office. Don’t g e t Big Rooks and literature from the s a r y operations would submerge of our 12 Traditions,and w h ~ they me wrong, now. I’m grateful for my General Service Office, and a s more our spiritual aims. mean t o the future of AA, for to- short s e s s i o n of sobriety, but why and more of u s got b a c k o n payrolls, ‘However, w e a r e faced with morrow’s drunks and for t h o s e w a s t h i s no d u e s , no f e e s pitch our weekly kitty blossomed into t h e moral and humane obligation of drunks yet unborn,’ s a i d t h e chair- included in the preamble?’ a bank account. making our AA Program instantly man a s h e opened t h e meeting. ‘I’d like t o answer P a u l , Mr. ba hen we decided to try and hold available t o anyone who a s k s for ‘But before our c l o s e d meeting, Chairman,’spoke up George, a ten- open meetings where the public help. And a s w e a l l know now, the where we will refresh our thinking o n t h e Traditions, t h e r e ‘ s a l i t t l e year man and t h e founder of the l o c a l group. T h e Chairman nodded could learn about our movement. T h i s n e c e ~ s i t a t e da public hall, or c a l l s for h e l p a r e ever increasing.. ‘How a r e t h e s e c a l l s answered? . matterrelating to t h e r e a l i s t i c s i d e a s s e n t and George s a i d : ‘ F i r s t let small auditorium. After w e e k s of Through AA Services.. .On local, of AA that i s b e s t d i s c u s s e d out- me explain, Paul, that t h e words d i s c u s s i o n , and interviews with national and international levels. s i d e of our regular group meeting’ d u e s and f e e s imply a compulsory .. ,T h e Chairman smiled. ‘AA h a s action. In t h e usage of t h e words, b u s i n e s s and industrial e x e c u t i v e s , we c a m e up with the rental of the Let’s b e r e a l i s t i c , s e r v i c e c o s t s dough. And just a s our local group no d u e s or f e e s , but – who’s going ‘no d u e s or fees,’ AA’s F o u n d e r s s m a l l auditorium in the public li- moved out of my living room into t o pay t h e r e n t ? ‘ P a u l , two months dry, s t a r t e d were correct, b e c a u s e a n y contributions t o AA .are voluntary. But brary, Saturday nights. We were u p our present hall – which i s simply a g a i n s t a financial nut that we an expansion of our local AA serthings off. ‘I’d l i k e t o h a v e a n ex- t h i s n e c e s s i t a t e d going a s t e p fur- were not too s u r e we could crack. v i c e s – s o h a v e the s e r v i c e de-

enough, Johnny, to r e a l i z e that you ‘ ‘Johnny, there’s a lot of truth mands upon the General S e r v i c e Of- c r e a s e t o Inter-Group?” don’t have t o give a damn c e n t , if in what you say. But w e must rei c e i n New York b e e n i n c r e a s e d Following brief parlimentary oper- you don’t want to. And if you be- member that we a r e i n a most with t h e growth of AA from a local a t i o n s the Inter-Group matter w a s lieve t h a t doling out bucks t o unique position a s anorganization. t o a n international level.. .It’s al- s e t t l e d t o the s a t i s f a c t i o n of a l l every needy AA in your community Ve d o not depend upon public subright t o rationalize and s a y ‘Let’s members.. .except Johnny. conforms to your philosophy of gra- scription for funds. We a r e selt: k e e p i t simple.’ But without a t Now Johnny h a s done very well titude t o AA, far b e it from u s t o supporting. As we become bigger l e a s t a minimum of organization, s i n c e h e sobered up over three discourage you. But actually, over and stronger we should become ins u c h a philosophy could r e d u c e AA y e a r s ago. He’s deeply grateful for to chaos …” George smiled a t what AA h a s given him. And in h i s a period of years i t h a s b e e n proved that our bucks d o more good when creasingly more willing t o h e l p carry the added burden of increas- P a u l a n d inquired: “You’re prob- way, h e wants to d o h i s part. He they a r e spread out for t h e good – ing service. a b l e thinking right now ‘Why don’t never h e s i t a t e s t o s l i p a couple and s e r v i c e t o – t h e g r e a t e s t num- “Actually t h e work of AA, a s we eliminate t h e s t a t e m e n t – No bucks t o a s t r a y AA, or buy a bot- bers, when they a r e channeled you pointed out, could go o n with d u e s , no f e e s ? B e c a u s e t h i s i s one tle for a prospect he’s taking t o the through our Service organizations. o n e alcoholic helping another. But of AA’s most precious principles. hospita1,He’s l o s t track of t h e Big In fact, it b o i l s down t o a matter of without our voluntary a s s i s t a n c e It must b e preserved.” George Rooks he’s bought for guys and first things first.” to cur movement where would our turned t o t h e Chairman. “I know g a l s who couldn’t afford $3.50. He 81 Isn’t our primary purpose t o literature and Big Books come t h e r e a r e s o m e o t h e r s who want t o s u b s c r i b e s t o The A. A. Grapevine. s t a y sober and h e l p other alcohol- from, that a r e s u c h a h e l p t o t h e e x p r e s s their opinions. S o I’ll join Rut a s h i s sponsor pointed out once, i c s t o achieve sobriety?” ques- shaking new member? How would P a u l and l i s t e n for a while.” “johnny operates e x c l u s i v e l y on tioned Johnny. “If I want t o s t a r t we maintain AA’s good name i n “Thanks, George, for your con- the local level. He forgets h i s ob- a group in a n y givencommunity, a l l public relations, and build u p t h e c i s e explanation of t h i s most im- ligation t o Tradition Number One – I’ve got t o d o i s help other alco- confidence of medical men and the portant Tradition. Now to get down Our common welfare c o m e s first; h o l i c s help themselves. I don’t re- clergy without t h e proper kind of t o the point a t i s s u e , our contribut i o n s t o t h e Inter-Group Office – in personal recovery depends upon AA unity.” quire a n y organization, nor Gen- guidance? … F e ‘ v e reached the eral Service Office t o contribute point now Johnny, where with a our c a s e it’s a Cou-ty office, and T h e Chairman recognized Johnny’s to, i n order t o carry on t h e princi- minimum of s e r v i c e organization, the General Service Office in New up-raised hand. “Okay, Johnny. p l e s of Alcoholics Anonymous. we c a n h e l p all drunks around t h e York, a r e due. An opinion h a s been Have you changed your opinion re- How could I s a y to t h e s e busted world, who want t o be helped. Not e x p r e s s e d t h a t w e i n c r e a s e our garding our contributions t o t h e guys coming in for h e l p that w e only the s c a r e d guy you’ve just monthly a n t e t o Inter-Group. T h i s General Service Office a d Foun- have no d u e s or f e e s , and then t e l l bought a pint for, in order to get amount a s you know, i s t a k e n from d a t i o n ?” them t h a t we’ve gotta kick in a him into a hospital.” Tom ~ a u s e d , our bank account which s t e m s from ”No, sir! I s t i l l contend that t h e couple bucks a y e a r t o maintain a n then added, “Do you know, i t s weekly c o l l e c t i o n s a t t h e meetings!’ dollar-a-member-a-year plan i s noth- office w e never saw.. .Sure, it’s possible that b e c a u s e we’ve put s o T h e Chairman stopped t o light h i s ing short of a head tax. T h a t i t s only a buck. But its t h e principle much s t r e s s on our tradition of ‘no pipe, blew a cloud of s m o k e ceil- contrary t o t h e tradition of no d u e s , of t h e head t a x idea t h a t g e t s me.” dues, no fees,’ that we’ve overing-ward and smiled. “htost of u s no fees. I prefer t o spend my dol- Several v o i c e s and hands were looked the just a s important tramust b e back i n t h e b u c k s s i n c e l a r s in AA according t o my own r a i s e d t o answer Johnny, but t h e dition of voluntary self-supprt.” we’ve sobered up, ’cause right now idea of where they d o t h e most Chairman s e l e c t e d Tom, who had “I think that’s a most important our Mid-Week group bank b a l a n c e good. .. ” “Wait a minute,” George interbeen a d e l e g a t e t o t h e General Ser- point, Tom” s a i d t h e Chairman. i s embarrassing, according to AA v i c e Conference i n New York T h e n h e nodded t o one of t h e older standards. Soberly, though, w e a r e rupted. “These contributions a r e l a s t spring. women members. “Okay, Ruth, grateful. Shall we vote o n a n in- voluntary. You.’ve been around long

would you like to add something t o should remember our voluntary conthis discussion?” tributions are absolutely vital, be- (I It seems t o me after listening cause our tradition for refusing outto the conversation tonight, that side aid throws a greater burden one very important angle has been of responsibility on each one of us.” missed. Personally, I feel that I “Very well put, Ruth, and for owe something individually to the my money that really boils this AA movement. Something aside discussion down to a few evident from my desire and capacity t o help facts. One, our tradition of no other alcoholics. In return for the f r c s , no dues, should be preservwonderful privilege of learning how ed, but qualified by the fact that it to live a sober life, I believe that requires contributions from AA I am obligated t o assume a per- members to make AA self-supportsonal responsibility to help main- ing. Two, that any contributions tain the overall services of AA, are voluntary and three, that our with financial aid, to the fullest primary purpose i s to stay sober extent of my earning ability. Cer- and help other alcoholics achieve tainly my sobriety doesn’t cost me sobriety; but a s our Eighth Tradiwhat my drinking did. And now that dition points out, our service cen- I am able to make a decent living ters may employ special workers again, I truly feel that the least I and these services cost money. can do in return for AA’s help, i s Therefore our contributions d o more

… in my modest way to perpetuate good when they are spread out to . this movement.. I know that the serve the greatest number So earning power of recovered AA this discussion i s concluded on men and women i s tremendous; and the familiar AA maxim – “The it certainly seems to me that we opinions expressed are our own.”

November 1 9 5 1 – — – I ‘ , S one of the “little people” A in this great AA movement, THE TRADITIONS.,. I would like to put in my two cents worth. In the first place let me state that I have no desire to run any- I like them,ae ie ! I thing, steer anything, assert any personal authority–all I want to I I do, is serve a s best I can in my I small way. I can twist this around any d a y I I am happy to note The Twelve care to but I always come up with 1

Tradi~ionswere confirmed at the the same answer, namely “there First International meeting held are no bosseb, or brass hats, in i in Cleveland in July. AA.”Maybe I’ve got a simple hind, I literally cut m y eye teeth on but I’ve an idea there are mdny The Ttoelve Traditions. You see it AAs whogo along with my thinking. I was this way: When I came into Frankly I am most ltolerant of A A five years ago–each week we any member’s method of livinglthe alternated discussions of the Program, a s long a s it has no di- Twelve Steps and The Twelve Tra- rect bearing on me. By this I mereditions. Believe me! it was very ly mean, if he willfully violates confusing at first, but I won! I fi- one of The Traditions which affects nally managed to sort them out me directly, I believe that I a s a properly. Since that time I have member in good standing have a steadfastly maintained that The right to question his motives. ,Here Twelve Traditions are a s vitally is where I believe ow A A prayer 1 important as the Twelve Steps in is necessary–“Cowage to change our Program of Recovery. the things I can .” While Bill definitely states these Rill was s-0-0 right whe” he Traditions are merely suggestions predicted (page 35 Book h , ~ r a d i for our future–I choose to accept tions) that a member who tries to them just a s they are written. I have “boss” will find himself passed no desire to twist them around to by at election time. I’ve just seen suit my own particular convenience. it happen. l I In all fairness to myself I could It i s my ownper!sonal opinion that not honestly bring myself to do if we, as members of AA, attempt such a thing. to practice the Twelve Traditions For example: The Second Tradi- in conjunction with the iptuelve tion says “For group purpose % e p s , there will be far less ‘feuthere i s but one ultimate authority- din’ and lussin’ among o d ,various a loving Cod as he may express groups. Thanks for listening! , himself in our croup conscienc~.” –H.S., Olathe, Khnsas

January 1 9 5 2

we did cooperate w i t h sollie therapy b.~setl on the kinship of HAPPY NEW YEAR! and wcre ~ratefulfor all. conmon suffering, one having vast A cliniax of public interest was potential for the myriad other ill.;

THE VISION OF TOMORROW reached in the very special February 1951, issue of the magazine /:ortune, Right in the middle of of mankind.” So reads the dram:itic record for 1951 – one of the finest yesterthis number appeared thousands of days in A A history. good words about AA. This piede Every A A who ponders these was significantly titled “A Uniqued astonishing events will be almost l y American Phenomenon.” Its pol;- sure humbly to exclaim “What, indeed, hath God wrought.” Should C 1-EAR vision for tomorrow comes only after a real look at yesterday. That’s why we A A s First General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous which met ularity has continued s o great that our Foundation has shipped out any be tempted by the dream that AA is becoming great, powerful, April last at New York. tens of thousands of reprints. take personal inventory; that’s why But great events also bore down The year 1951 finished in still or may be destined to save the this issue of The Grpevine di- upon us from without. Never before another great blaze. The world of world, they could well re-read the rects us to meditate upon the great did so many theologues, philoso- science, a s represented by the foreword of AA’s Tradition where happenings of 1751. It is our year- phers, sociologists, employers and American Public Health Associa- these words are to be seen: ly inventory. political scientists approach A.4 tion, placed upon Alcoholics Anon- “If, a s AA members, we can Every A A will agree that we to see how its principles and ymous its resounding stamp of each refuse public prestige have just lived through an awesome, structure might fit into tbeir fields complete approval. Last October and renounce any desire for destiny-shaping twelve months. of meditation and work. Never be- 30th, the stage of San Francisco’s personal power; if, a s a move- The greatest event was, I think, fore did s o many notable clergy- historic opera house was filled AAs assumption of its Third Legacy of Service. Our grown-up society men proclaim how the A A Twelve Steps could be used for almost any with leaders in medicine and notables of public life. Then and there … ment, we insist on remaining poor if we steadfastly decline all political, sectarian or could for the first time know its human problem. AA was presented with the prized own mind, assume the guidance of World assault upon the total al- Lasker Award which, in the estiother alliances, we shall avoid, . internal division and adverse its principal affairs and the guard- coholic problem intensified; the mate of many, rates with a Nobel public notoriety; if, a s a moveianship of its Tradition. The Third noted World Health Organization Prize. Not only were we recommendment we remain a spiritual en- Legacy did mark, too, our definite became vigorous. In America, states ed for our success with alcoholism, tity concerned only with carryabandonment of the petty squabbles and provinces granted large sums the Lasker citation actually vening our message to fellow sufof childhood for a far more mature statesmanship. Upon our cathedral to hospitals, clinics and education. New drugs were offered a s palliatured into prophecy. Its closing words declared – “Historians may ferers … then only can we most effectively complete our of spirit the spire of service was tives for everything that can ail an one day point to Alcoholics Anonmission.” firmly anchored aloft. tligh above alcoholic from his shakes to his ymous a s a society which did far its great floor symbolizingrecovery, neurosis. In all these ventures, AA more than achieve a considerable Which, in effect, is to pray: high above those protecting walls invariably received high commen- measure of success with alcoholism “Lead us not into temptation” denoting our unity, A A ‘ s spire of service rose to beckon the tnillions dation. A great life insurance company, the Metropolitan, gave us and its stigma; they may recognize Alcoholics Anonymous to have … let us not be spoiled. For so long a s we shall humbly who do not yet knotu. The last wholesale approval in its adver- been a great venture in social pi- meditate in this spirit upon our structural job was done. Such, we tising. While we could not in the oneering which forged a new in- great yesterdays, just s o long will think, was the inner meaninc of the least endorse any of these eflons, strument for social action, a new God grant us our vision of tomorrow.

MARCH 1 9 5 2 The speaker stood up unsteadily and advancing our sobriety,” said but with a warning, Tony promply Slim. ‘*If we have to conduct our pushed him back into his chair, meeting around the actions id “Shut up or we’ll toss you out.” incoherency of one a m a e drunks, The Chairman lighted a cigarette I don’t k l i e v e we are practicing and said: “I’m glad that this ques- the principle of ‘the greatest good tion came up at this particular f a the greatest number., ” time. ‘Cause I think it would be Scraping of chairs on the floor A “LOADED” TOPIC well to establish some s o n of procedure regarding this imponant and a n undertone of whispering warned the Chairman that his initial . IS DISCUSSED -pardon the expression, problem!” topic was “loaded.’* The drunk in Tony’s neighba mumbled inco- the rear of the room emphasized herently and the Chairman contin- this by blurting: “Jus* ’cause a AT THE MID-WEEK ucd: “Tony, if you can keep your guy gets a li’l stiff, ya donet want friend quiet, okay. Otherwise I GROUP. . . nuthin’ t’ d o wit him, huh?” He

… think you’d better take him f a a walk Now I’d like to hear some discussion on drunks being waved his arms in the a u a d …. sneered: “yer jesa b u n c h 4 Tony cut the man’s wards down to *’ admitted to both open and closed a mumble a s he half pulled and meetings.” He nodded t o Slim. pushed him out the d o a of the “What’s your idea about this meeting roan. A s the sound of tk matter, Slim? You’ve been around men’s f o a s t e p scflrng down the AA a long, long time and have par- stairs diminished, the Chairnun ticipated actively in the group’s rapped the cable for attention, growing pains.” “There’s nothing like a n actual “My opinion is that any action demonstration t o prove a point,” can be reduced t o a matter of do- he said. “But ler’s try to arrive a t ing the greatest good f a the great- some standard practice to prevent e s t number. The First Tradition similar incidents occurring.” He

… points out a pretty damn straightforward path t o follow Our common welfare should come first; nodded t o Ruth. “Go ahead, Ruthie, what’s your idea?” a *I know this question arises let this gang of exdrunks get you ‘3Di months rolls around in a hurry, even 24 hours at a stretch,” laughed the Chairman a s down.” The two men shook hands and the installation ceremonies of … personal recwery depeods upon AA unity every s o dten. But I feel that allowing h u n k s into the meeting dethe Mid-Week Group settled down the new Chairman were ended. “If we allow drunks t o upset pends upon the type of meeting f a the regular closed meeting. “So The Cha irman had hardly settled the meetings by letting them attend we’re holding. For instance, a t a tonight I have the pleasure of hand- himself in his chair when a voice and interrupt our discussions, I closed meeting like this one toing over the Mid-Week e v e 1 to o w from the back of the room hurled a can’t see where we’re helping them night, I don’t think we should bar a old pal Freddie, who will take on challenge: “Whatcha goin’ t’do or those of us who are sincerely person who’s been drinking, proridinterested in the common welfare, .. the duties of Chairman for the next six months. Good luck and don’t ’bout lettin’ drunks c’me into yer meetin’? How ’bout that, huh?” maintaining the unity of the group ing he behaves himself. But a t tbe open m u t i n g where the public

i s invited, it i s my opinion that. object to mooching and panhandl- signs of taking the program serious- and taken seats. He explained we’ve got t o admit anyone who ing drunks. They may even drive ly, act a s his new sponsor, and go briefly what had transpired while comes t o the d o a , because after people away from the open meet- to work with the guy t o help him Tony was away frm the meeting. a11 ow purpose in holding these ings. In fact, I know of groups get the program.” Then Tony spoke up: “I just had a public meetings is to make it pos- that have had their attendance cut “That sounds sensible, Pete,” little talk with Duke here, and sible for anyone t o learn what Al- in half because of the winos and said the Chairman. “and I’d bc quieted his nerves with a couple coholics Anonymous is about. Of c o u s e if a drunk shows signs of … perpetual lushes who hung around the coffee table But at our closed meetings where there are willing to go along with that idea and try it out. As far a s disturbing the new members, they obviously shots. Then he really let his hair down and told me he’d never honestly accepted the fact that he i s an breaking up the meeting, then I …” c h i d be should be a k e n out “I was pretty tight the first serious minded newcomers, I do believe something should be done are s o close to the drunk’s status t b t it might act a s a lesson. Also, alcoholic. Still hoped k could drink. He tells me now he’s ready meuiog I attended,” said Frank. about letting drunks attend. I am the person who is just off a drunk to listen. But I warned him that we “They told me later that I heckled afraid it might have an effect on a himself can certainly talk the lang- don’t run a rest room f a drunks up tbe s p k e r s . But even though guy or gal who i s struggling to get uage of uyin~o-get-sober mote here. If he rnas to sober up, we tbey t o r w d w out, I kept on corn- the program.” ‘ effectively than the M who is can help him. If be insists on geting, a d e v e m u l l y I made the “Thanks, Tommy,” said the several years removed from the ting drunk, t h t * s his business too. ripple.” Chairman. “There’s no doubt that t h o e s of a binge.” But he needn’t come b c k here, a* “‘I’ve heard of g r o u p t h t bar a d insult us.” You .bored a siacere desire drunks at an open meeting distract to quit dtinkin~,Frank,” mid the from the speakers and make some anyone with l i q u a on his breath,” C b a h n . “The c h c t e r s we’re members of the audience nervous. said Marjorie. “Frankly, I don’t “Wondrous u e the ways of AA,” concerned with uc those who per But there’s no law against eject- enjoy sitting alongside someone laughed the Cbirman. “And web s i n io ctnnirg t o meetings, week ing anyone who becomes obnoxious:’ reekingwith booze.And if it affects come, Duke. If you stick t o your me after three ears’ sobriety, what after week, half in the bag a d stick u o d t o mooch cdfee and food. A c m a i n percentage of these The Chairman paused t o light a cigarette. “What’s your idea, Pete”? *a It seems to me that we’re not must it d o t o the person dry a few &ys?” . .. sponsor Tony, you’ll get along okay So my first meeting has ended, but a new responsibility never r i l l get tbe program. But r h o u e rr t o screen them a s they come in t o tbe meeting? G o r e say actually helping the drunk who’s been around a long time, and still drinking, by. tolerating his appear- “That of course, is your own entitled opinion, Marjaie,” smiled the Chairman, who motioned to the … rests on your C h a i r a n ‘ s shoulders we’ll try to make this ticklish problem resolve itself into the –

tbey will a will nat make the ance at closed meetings. However, back of tk roan, where Tony and greatest good for the greatest num- . g r d e ? I.this in keeping with our if sucha person arrives at the meet- his friend had quietly reentered kt.” u d i t i o o d tolerrroce d live and ing, wouldn’t it be possible for the Ite b e ? ” Tbe Cbairrmrn nodded Chairman t o select someone to t o another member sigarrlling far sponsor the drinking visitor during attentiom. “Okay, Tommy.” the meeting. Talk t o him quietly “I’ll go a l o a ~with the deal f a b e f a e the meeting opens, and warn aukiou the open meetings a free him if he gets out of order, he’ll f a all. We certainly a o ‘ t sir io have t o leave. If he stays awake the ocancr’s *at a d bwl tk c y w be might conceivably get someices ban. We inrite amyoat that m ar anyone- – a d r b o has an thing out of the discussion. This meetinkspensor could then take alcoholic problem, P u b p we do over, .ad if t k guy shows any

APRIL 1 9 5 2 The first of a new series of articles explaining The Twelve Traditions. .. We were about t o enter the church hall EDITORIAL where our local group h o ~ s one night not long ago. Ahead of ‘us on the walk that runs back t o the its meetings BY BILL

d o a were casual groups of our fellow AAs, our comrades. Watching the little procession were two local citizens, and we heard one of them say: “Who, them? Why that’s the town exdrunks going t o their town meeting!” N w , come the 23rd of this April, 1312, there will be a somewhat similru scene a s seventy-seven AA Delegates walk down a New York h e 1 c a r i d o r t o attend the Second Annual G c n a a l Service Conference of TRADITION ONE . ,

Alcoholics Anmymow. “Who, them? Why that’s U S . and Canadian AAs # o h 8 to a n ioternatioosll t w n meeting.” Our common welfare should come first; personal You see, we like tbat term “town muting,” for the 1st Conference recovery depends upon AA unity. I a a year was that in spirit, in friendship, and in the joining of many earth which lavishes more devoted … voices t o discuss the common good. It was the Third Legacy of AA in The magnificent unity of Alcoaction and it was folks meeting in this fellowship with other folks holics Anonymous i s the most cher- care upon its individual members; ished quality our society has. Our surely there is none which more from far places, and sitting together t o give serious thought and counsel jealously guards the individual’s lives, the lives of a l l t o come, dein guardianship of AA’s traditions and world services. pend squarely upon it. We stay right to think, talk, and act a s he This April of 1952, will bring last year’s delegates back t o s i t with whole, or AA dies. Without unity, wishes. No AA can compel another new delegates from the states and provinces not represented in the the great heart of AA would cease to do anything; nobody can be punfirst peael. In flture’years AAs from beyond the oceans may well s i t in to beat, our world arteries would ished or expelled. Our Twelve tbis a d v i s a y assembly which i s the “collective conscience” of AA no longer carry the life-giving grace Steps t o recovery are suggestions; a d in which each delegate sits a s servant, not a s senator. of God, his gift t o us would be spent the Twelve Traditions which guar- Between that first meeting of two who joined hands over a n Akron aimlessly. Back again in their antee AA’s unity contain not a kitchen table in a n honest desire t o stop drinking … and the seventy- caves, alcoholics would reproach us and say,”What a great thing AA single “Don’t.” s a y “We ought … They repeatedly ‘8 but never … u v e n from faty-eight states and beyond who will meet in the mature rtrtermrnrhip of elected delegates eventful years. there now stretch seventeen , might have been!” * # Does this mean,” some will “You must!”

anxiously ask, “that in AA the in- T o many minds a l l this liberty J u a a s the first weekly home group “town meeting” existed t o help dividual doesn’t count for much? IS for the individual spells sheer aneventually the individual alcoholic named “You,” s o now i s the Second he t o be dominated by his group archy. Every newcomer, every friend

…. . General Service Conference a town meeting for the unity and common n l f u e d us a11 and a hope fa the millions who d o not yet know … and swallowed up in ‘it?” We may certainly answer this who looks a t AA’ for the first time i s vastly puzzled. They see liberty question with a loud “No!” We be- verging on license, yet they recoglieve there isn’t a fellowship on nize a t once that AA has a n im-

sistible strength of purpose and destroying whole peoples. The action. “tlow,”they ask, “can such struggle for wealth, power, and a crowd of anarchists function at prestige was tearing humanity apart a l l ? How can they possibly place a s never before. If strong people their common welfare first? What, were stalemated in the search for in Heaven’s name, holds them to. peace and harmony, what was to gether?” become of our erratic band of al- Those who look well soon hbve coholics? As we had once struggled the key t o this strange paradox. and prayed for individual recovery, The AA member has t o confati t o just s o earnestly did we commence the principles of recovery. His life t o quest for the principles through actually depends upon obedience which AA itself might survive. On to spiritrel principles. If he devi- thousands of anvils of heartbreakates too far, the penalty i s sure ing experience, the structure of our and swift; he sickens and dies. At society was hammered out. first he goes along because he Countless times, in a s many must, but later he discovers a way cities and hamlets, we re-enacted of life he really wants t o live. the s t a y of Eddie Rickenbacker Moreover, he finds he cannot keep and h i s courageous company. Like this priceless gift unless he gives us, they had suddenly found themit away. Neither h e nor anybody selves saved from death, but still e l s e can survive unless he carries floating upon a perilous sea. How the AA message. Realization dawns well they saw that their common that he i s but a small p r t of a welfare came first. None might begreat whole; that no personal sac- come selfish of water or bread. rifice is too great for preservation Each needed t o consider the others d the fellowship, He learns that and in abiding faith they knew that the clamor of desires and ambitions they must find their real strength. within him must be silenced when- And this they did find, in measure ever these could damage the group. t o transcend a l l thedefects of their The moment this Twelfth Step work frail craft, every test of uncertainty, forms a group, another discovery pain, fear, and despair, and even is made – that most individuals the death of one. cannot recover unless there is a Thus has it been with AA. By group. It becomes plain that the faith and by works we have been group must survive a the individ- able t o build upon the lessons of ual will nor. a n incredible experience. These So a t the outset, how best to live today in the Twelve Traditions live and work together a s groups became the p i m e question. In the of Alcoholics Anonymous, which God willing – shall sustain us in w a l d about uswe saw personalities unity for s o long a s he may need us.

MAY 1952 The second o/ a new s e r i e s need him. He visits preachers, portant, murmurs are heard in the doctors, editors, policemen and bar- body politic, which swell into a o/ mticles explaining The Twelve Traditions … tenders … with the result that Middletown now h a s a group, and loud cry, “Do these old-timers think they can run this group for- BY he i s the founder. ever? Let’s have a n election!” Being the founder he is, a t first, T h e founder and his friends are BILL the boss. Who e l s e could b e ? Very hurt and depressed. They rush from soon, though, h i s assumed authority c r i s i s t o crisis and from member t o t o run everything begins t o be member, pleading. But it’s no use; shared with the first alcoholics he the revolution i s on. The group

TRADITION TWO h a s helped. At this moment, the benign dictator becomes the chairman of a committee composed of h i s friends. T h e s e are the growing conscience i s about t o take over. Now comes the election. If the founder and h i s friends have served well, they may t o their surprise – For our group purpose there is but one ulfimate authority – – a group’s hierarchy of service self– be reinstated far a time. If, howappointed, of course, because ever, they have heavily resisted loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our there i s no other way. In a matter the rising tide of democracy, they leaders m e but trusted servants – they d o not govern. of months, AA booms in Middle- may be summarily beached. In eitown. ther c a s e , the group now has a so- WHERE does AA get i t s direction? Who runs it? T h i s too i s a puzzler for every friend and newdefinitely does.” The friends mutter that t h i s looks vague, nebulous, pretty naive t o them. Then they The founder and his friends channel spirituality t o newcomers, hire called rotating committee, very sharply limited in its authority. In halls, make hospital arrangements, no s e n s e whatever can i t s members comer. When told that our society commence t o watch us with specu- and entreat their good wives t o govern or direct the group. They h a s no president having authority lative eyes, pick up a fragment of brew gallons of coffee. Being on the are servant;. Theirs i s the somet o run it, no treasurer who can com- AA history, and soon have the human side, the founder and his times thankless privilege of doing pel the payment of any dues, no solid facts and are convinced. friends may bask a little in glory. the group’s chores. Headed by the b w d of directors who can c a s t a n And what are the facts of AA They s a y t o each other, “Perhaps chairman, they look after public reerring member into outer darkness, life that brought us t o t h i s seem- it would be a good idea if we con- lations and arrange meetings; their when indeed no AA can give another ingly impractical principle? a directive and enforce obedience, our friends gasp and exclaim, “This John Doe, a good AA, moves – ,

let us s a y t o Middletown, U S A . – tinue t o keep a firm hand on AA in t h i s town. After all, we are extreasurer, strictly accountable, takes money from the hat that i s perienced. Besides, look a t a l l the passed, banks it, pays the rent and simply can’t be. There must be an Alone now, he reflects that he may good we’ve done these drunks. other bills, and makes a regular reangle somewhere.”These practical not be able t o s t a y sober, a even They should be grateful!” True, port a t business meetings. T h e folk then read Tradition Two, and alive, unless he passes on t o other founders and their friends are some- secretary s e e s that literature i s on learn that the sole authority in AA alcoholics what was s o freely given times wiser and more humble. But the table, looks after the phoneis a loving God a s he may express him. He feels a spiritual and ethi- more often a t t h i s stage they are not. answering service, answers the himself in the AA group conscience. c a l compulsion, because hundreds Growing pains now beset the mail, and s e n d s out notices of meet- They dubiously a s k an a p c r i e n c e d like him may be suffering within group. Panhandlers panhandle. Lit- ings. Such are the simple services AA member if t h i s rea1:y works. walking distance. Then, too, he tle Red Riding Hoods and Big Bad that enable the group t o function. The member,sane t o a l l appearanc- misses h i s home group. He needs Wolves cavort. Problems descend T h e committee gives no spiritual es, immediately answers, **Yest It other alcoholics a s much a s they like a n avalanche. Still more im- advice, judges no one’s conduct,

i s s u e s noorders. Every one of them t imer in our society h a s gone through of money my hospital used t o make ance. It w a s only a single sentence, may be promptly eliminated a t the t h i s process in some degree. Hap- back in t h e 1920’s. Thousands of but most convincing. In fact, it very next election if they try this. pily, most of them survive and live dollars a month. It should b e doina seemed t o come right out of t h e And s o they make t h e belated d i s – t o become elder statesmen. They become the real and permanent leadjust a s well now, and it would if – – Bible a voice kept saying t o me, ‘The laborer i s worthy of h i s hue.’ covery that they a r e really servants, you’d help me. S o why don’t you not senators. Except in new groups. e r s h i p of AA. T h e i r s i s t h e quiet move your work in here? 1’11 give Arriving home, I found L o i s cooking t h e s e a r e universal experiences. opinion, t h e s u r e knowledge and you a n office, a decent drawing ac- a s usual, while three drunks looked T h u s throughout AA d o e s t h e group humble example that r e s o l v e s a count, and a very healthy s l i c e of hungrily on from t h e kitchen d o a . conscience decree t h e terms upon crisis. When sorely perplexed, t h e t h e profits. T h r e e years ago, when I drew her a s i d e and excitedly told which i t s leaders s h a l l serve. group inevitably turns t o them for my head doctor, Silkworth, began t o the glorious news. She looked re- T h i s brings u s straiqht t o the advice. They become t h e voice of t e l l me of your idea t o cure drunks lieved, but didn’t s e e m a bit exquestion, “Does AA have a n y real the group conscience; in fact, t h e s e by spirituality, I thought it w a s cited, and finally remarked nonleadership?” Most emphatically a r e t h e s u r e voice of Alcoholics crackpot stuff, but I’ve changed my committally, “Wouldn’t that b e the answer i s “Yes, notwithstand- Anonymous. They d o not .drive by mind. Someday t h i s bunch of ex- wonderful?’ 8 ‘

ing the apparent lack of it.” Let’s mandate, they lead by example.Such drunks of yours will fill Madison It w a s meeting night. Although turn again t o t h e deposed founder i s t h e experience which h a s led u s Square Garden, and I don’t s e e why none of t h e alcoholics w e boarded and h i s friends. What becomes of t o t h e conclusion that our group you should s t a r v e while we wait. seemed t o get sober, a score or so them? As their grief and anxiety conscience, well-advised by i t s What I propose is perfectly ethical. of others had.With their w i v e s they wear away, a subtle change begins. e l d e r s , will be in t h e long run wiser You c a n become a lay therapist, crowded into our downstairs p e r l a . Ultimately they divide into t w o than a n y s i n g l e leader. and more s u c c e s s f u l than anybody At o n c e I butst into t h e story of my c l a s s e s known in AA s l a n g a s “el- When AA w a s only three years in t h e business.’ glowing opportunity. Never s h a l l I der statesmen” and “bleeding dea- old, a n event occurred that w a s “I w a s bowled over. T h e r e were forget their impassive faces, and cons.” T h e elder statesman i s the destined to be historic, demonstrat- a few f e e b l e twinges of c o n s c i e n c e t h e s t e a d y g a z e t h e y focused upon one who. sees t h e wisdom of t h e ing t h i s principle. One of the until I s a w how really e t h i c a l Char- me. With waning enthusiasm, my group’s decision, who holds no re- originators of AA, entirely contrary lie’s proposal was. There w a s noth- t a l e trailed dt: to t h e ed. T h e r e sentment over h i s reduced s t a t u s , t o h i s own d e s i r e s , w a s obliged t o ing wrong whatever with becoming w a s a long silence. whose judgment, fortified by con- conform t o group opinion. Here i s a lay therapist. I thought of L o i s “Almost timidly, o n e of my siderable experience, is sound, and the story in h i s words. corninn., home exhausted from t h e friends began to speak. ‘We know who is willing t o s i t quietly on t h e “One d a y I w a s doing a Twelfth department s t o r e e a c h day, only t o how hard u p you are, Bill. It bothsidelines patiently waiting d e v e l o p S t e p job a t a hospital in New York. cook supper for a houseful of drunks t h e r s u s a lor. We’ve often wondered ments. T h e bleeding deacon i s one T h e proprietor, Charlie, summoned who weren’t paying a n y board. I what we might d o about it. But I just as surely convinced that t h e me t o h i s office. ‘Bill,’ he said, ‘I thought of the $60,000 s t i l l owing think I s p e a k f a everyone here group cannot get along without him, think it’s a shame that you a r e fi- t o Wall Street creditors. I thought of when I s a y that what you now prowho constantly connives for re- nancially s o hard up. All around a few of my alcoholic friends, who pose bothers us a n awful lot mae.’ election t o dice, and who continues you t h e s e drunks are getting well were making a s much money a s ever. T h e speaker’s voice grew more cont o be consumed with self-pity.Some and making money. But y o u t e giving Why shouldn’t I d o a s well a s they? fident. ‘Don’t you realize,’ h e said, hemharage so badly that drained – t h i s work full time, and you’re “Although I a s k e d Charlie fa a ‘that you c a n never become a paof a l l AA spirit and principle -they broke. It isn’t fair,’ Charlie fished little time t o consider it, my own f c s s i o n a l ? A s decent as Charlie get drunk. At times t h e AA land- in h i s d e s k and came upwith a n old mind w a s about made up. Racing h a s k e n t o us, don’t you see that s c a p e s e e m s to be littered with financial statement. Handing it t o back t o Brooklyn on t h e subway, I w e can’t tie t h i s thing u p with h i s bleeding forms. Nearly every old- me he s a i d , ‘This s h o w s t h e kind had a seeming flash of divine guid- hospital or a n y other? You t e l l US

that Charlie’s proposal i s e t h i c a l – that s o m e t i m e s t h e good is t h e s u r e , it’s r t h i c a l , hut what we’ve enemy of t h e b e s t ? Well, t h i s i s a got won’t run on c t h i r s only; it hias p l a i n c a s e of it. Bill, you can’t d o to h e better. Sure, C h a r l i e ‘ s idea t h i s thing to us!’ ” i s good, but it isn’t ~ o o de r ~ o u g h . So s p o k e t h e group c o n s c i e n c e , T h i s i s a matter of life a n d d e a t h , a s A A history w a s made. T h e group Rill, and nothing hut t h e very b e s t w a s right a n d I w a s wrong; t h e v o i c e w i l l do!’ Challengingly, my f r i e n d s on t h e s u b w a y w a s not t h e v o i c e of s t a r e d hard i n t o my e y e s . ‘Rill,’ God. Here w a s t h e t r u e v o i c e , wells a i d t h e i r s p o k e s m a n , ‘havcn’t you i n g u p out of my friends. I l i s t e n e d , often s a i d right h e r e in t h i s meeting and – thank God – I obeyed.”

The third o/ u new series JULY 1952 were definitely out. Yes sir, we’d we leave each newcomer t o decide cater only t o pure and respectable if he were an alcoholic and whether The Twelve Traditions … alcoholics! Any others would surely destroy us. Besides, if we took he would join us? Why did we dare say, contrary to the experience of in those odd ones, what would de- society and government everywhere, cent people say about us? We built that we would not punish nor dea fine-mesh fence right around AA. prive any AA of membership, that “Maybe this sounds comical w e must never compel anyone to

TRADITION THREE now. Maybe you think we old-timers were pretty intolerant. But I can tell you there was nothing funny pay anything, believe anything, or conform t o anything? The answer, now seen in Tradi- The only requiremerrt /or AA membership i s a desire lo slop drinking. about the situation then. We were grim because we felt our lives and . tion Three, was simplicity itself. At last experience taught us that t o homes were threatened, and that take away any alcoholic’s full T HIS tradition i s packed with meaning. For AA i s really after time the’ir uncertain flames blew out and couldn’t be relighted. was no laughing matter. Intolerant, you say? Well, we were frightened. chance was sometimes t o pronounce his death sentence, and often to saying to every serious drinker, Our unspoken, constant thought Naturally we began t o act like most condemn him to endless misery. “You are anAA member if you s a y was, “Which of us may be the next ?” everybody docs when afraid. After Who dared to be judge, jury, and so. You can declare yourself in; A member gives US a vivid all, isn’t fear the true basis of in- executioner of his own sick brother? nobody can keep you out. No mat- glimpse of those days. “At one tolerance? Yes, we were intolerant:’ As group after group saw these ter who you ate, no matter how low time,” he says, “every AA group How could we then guess that possibilities, they finally abandonyou’ve gone, no matter how grave had many membership rules. Everyyour emotional complications even yourcrimes. .. … we s t i l l can’t body was scared witless that someall those fears were toprove groundl e s s ? How could we know that ed a l l membership regulations. One dramatic experience after another thing or somebody would capsize thousands of these sometimes clinched this determination until deny you AA. We don’t want t o the boat and dump us a l l back into frightening people were t o make it became our universal tradition. keep you out. We aren’t a bit afraid the drink. Our Foundation office astonishing recoveries and become Here ate two examples: you’ll harm us, never mind how asked each group to send in i t s our greatest workers and intimate On the AA calendar it was Year twisted a violent you may be. We list of ‘protective’ regulations. friends? Was it credible that AA Two. In that time nothing could be just want to be sure that you get The total list was a mile long. If was t o have a divorce rate of prob- seen but two struggling, nameless the same great chance for sobriety a l l those rules had been in effect ably no more than one percent? groups of alcoholics trying t o hold that we’ve had. So you’re an AA everywhere, nobody could have Could we then foresee that trouble- their faces up t o the light. member the minute you declare possibly joined AA a t all. So great some people were t o become our A newcomer appeared at one of yourself.” was the sum of our anxiety and tear. principal teachers of patience and these groups, knocked on the door T o establish this principle of “We were resolved t o admit no- tolerance? Could any then imagine and asked t o be let in. He talked membership took years of harrow- body to AA but that hypothetical a society which would include every frankly with that group’s oldest ing experience. In our early time c l a s s of people we termed ‘putc conceivable kiod of character, and member. He soon proved that his nothing seemed s o fragile, s o eas- alcoholics.’ Except for their guzz- cut across every barrier, of race, was a desperate case, and that ily breakable a s a n AA group. ling, and the unfortunate results creed, politics and language with above a l l he wanted t o get well. Hardly an alcoholic we approached thereof, they could have no other ease ? “But,” he asked, “will you let me p i d any attention; most of those complications. S o beggars, tramps, Why did AA finally drop all its join your group? Since I am the who did join us were like flicker- asylum inmates, prisoners, merely membership regulations, why did victim of another addiction even ing candles in a windstorm. Time piain crackpots and fallen women

worse stigmat izcd than alcohol ism, AA had taken i t s first s t e p in the ing every member t o a single re- lesson!” you may not want me among you. formation of Tradition Threc. solve: “Out he goes!” About two weeks later, Ed stole Or will you?” Not long after the man with the The elders led Ed aside. They by night into a n AA member’s house There was the dilemma. What double stigma knocked for admis- said firmly, “You can’t talk like and, unknown t o the family, went t o should the group ,do? The oldest sion, AA’s other group rece ived in- this around here. You’ll have t o bed. Daylight found the master of member summoned two others, and t o i t s membership a salesman w e quit it a get out.” With great sar- the house and a friend drinking in confidence laid the explosive shall c a l l Ed. A power driver, t h i s casm Ed came back a t them. “Now their morning coffee. A noise was facts in their laps. Said he, “Well, one, and brash a s any salesman d o tell! I s that so?” He reached heard on the stairs. T o their conwhat about it? If we turn this man could possibly be. He had a t least over t o a bookshelf and took up a sternation, Ed appeared. A quizaway, he’ll soon die. If we allow a n idea a minute on how t o improve sheaf of papers. On top of them zical smile on his lips, he said, him in, only God knows what trou- AA. T h e s e ideas he sold t o fellow lay the foreword t o the book Alco- “Have you fellows had your morn-

. .. ble he’ll brew. What shall the answer be y e s or no?” At first the elders could look members with the same burning enthusiasm with which he distributholics Anonymous, then under p r e p , ing meditation?” They quickly aration. He read aloud, “the only sensed that he was quite in earned automobile polish. But he had requirement for AA membership i s est. In fragments, h i s story came only at the objections. “We deal,” one idea that wasn’t s o saleable. a desire t o stop drinking.” Relent- out. they said, “with alcoholics only. Ed was a n atheist. His pet obses- lessly, Ed went on, “When you In a neighboring state, Ed had Shouldn’t we sacrifice t h i s one for sion was that AA could get along guys wrote that sentence, did you holed up in a cheap hotel. After the sake of the many?”So went the better without i t s “God nonsense.” mean it, a didn’t you?” a l l h i s pleas for help had been rediscussion while the newcomer’s He browbeat everybody, and every- Dismayed, the elders looked a t buffed, these words rang in his fate hung in the balance. Then one body expected that he’d soon get each other, for they knew he had fevered mind: “They have deserted of the three spoke in a very dif- … ferent voice. “What we are really afraid of,” he said, “is our reputadrunk for a t the time, you see, AA was on the pious side. There must b e a heavy penalty, it was them cold. S o Ed stayed.

. .. Ed not only stayed, he stayed sober month after month. The me. I have been deserted by my own kind. T h i s i s the end … nothing i s left.” As he tossed on tion. W e are much more afraid of thought, for blasphemy. Distress- longer he kept dry, the louder he his bed, his hand brushed the what people m i ~ h t s a y than the trouble t h i s strange alcoholic might ingly enough, Ed proceeded t o stay sober. talked … against God. The group was in anguish s o deep that a l l bureau nearby, touching a book. Opening the book, he read. It was bring. As we’ve been talking, five At length the time came for him charity had vanished. “When, oh a Gideon Bible. Ed never confided short words h a w been running t o speak in a meeting. We shivered, when,” groaned members t o each any more of what he saw and felt through my mind. Something keeps for we knew what was coming. He other, “will that guy get drunk?” in that hotel room. It was the year repeating t o me ‘What would the paid a fine tribute t o the fellow- Quite a while later, Ed got a 1938. He hasn’t had a drink since. Master do?’ ” Not another word ship, he told how his family had s a l e s job which took him out of Nowadays, when old timers who was said. What more indeed could been reunited, he extolled the vir- town. At the end of a few days, know Ed foregather they exclaim, be said. tue of honesty, he recalled the the news came in. He’d sent a tele- “What if we had actually succeed- Overjoyed, the newcomer plunged joys of Twelfth Step work, and gram for money, and everybody ed in throwing Ed out fa blaspheimo Twelfth S t e p work. Tirelessly then he lowered the boom. Cried knew what that meant! Then he got my? What would have happened t o he laid AA’s message before scores Ed, “I can’t stand t h i s God stuff! on the phone. In those days, we’d him and a l l the others he later of people. Since this was a very It’s a l a of malarkey for weak go anywhere on a Twelfth Step helped ?” early group, those scores have folks. T h i s group doesn’t need it, job, no matter how unpromising. So the hand of Providence early since multiplied themselves into and I won’t have it! T o hell with it!” But this time nobody stirred. “Leave gave us a sign that any alcoholic thousands. Never did he trouble A great wave of outraged resent- him alone! Let him try it by himself i s a member of our society when anyone with h i s other ditliculty. ment engulfed the meeting, sweep* for once; maybe he’ll learn a he s a y s so. –. –

JULY 1952

GROUP INVENTORY How Are We Doing ?

I . Growth To fulfill its responsibility and (c) The 1lth Tradition states Tway HE Twelve Steps point the to an ever richer personal achieve success commensurate with that “out public relations policy sobriety. They are intended to be practised principally by individuals, the sum total of its members’ talents, a group should practise those Steps and apply those Traditions .. . is based on attraction rather than promotion 8, . Do we construe that to mean that we are relieved of each in his own way, but they should also have a bearing on which are obvious guides to group all active effort? That, therefore, group thought and action. Should we endeavor. F a example, just a s pe- there is no meaning in the 5th Tranot “practise these principles in riodic inventory i s essential to dition which declares without qualall our (group) affairs?” The Twelve Traditions, while personal growth, s o also is group inventory vital to maximal group success. . .. ification, “Each group has but one primary purpose to carry the message to the alcoholic who still 2. Sponsorship they have certain implications for the individual, apply with special Periodically a group should ask suffers.” Have we ever reflected on emphasis to the group and to AA itself, perhaps in a closed meeting, the meaning of the w a d s “to cart t How are we doing?”The question a s a whole. Five of them make ry?” Do they mean merely to s i t specific reference to the group. can be rephrased in many ways. back and wait fa the telephone to They constitute a charter that enp- Here are a few variations. Each ring? Is that the way Bill and Dr. merates objectives, powers, and group can doubtless add to the list. Bob got the first hundred? restrictions. Their proper applica- 1. (a) Are we experiencing a (d) Do we have the best tion is essential to the success normal growth for a group our size meeting place available, taking in and growth of A A and indirectly of and for the population density of t o account all relevant factas. Or 3* Service the alcoholic who still suffers. our area? i s it the same a s when om group Like an individual, a group has (b) Are we getting a cross- was started, a bit on the crummy abilities and limitations; an overall section of ow population, male and side with little appeal fa new attitude that may or may not be female, or are we getting men only? prospects? Do we continue it b e healthy; and a drive that may be Does our membership consist sole- cause of necessity, deliberate strong or wavering. A group can ly of the upper crust to the com- choice, a through. sheer inertia become smug and lazy or can in- plete neglect of those on the other with no one undertaking the task of crease in vigor and spirit. It can side of the tracks? Or, are we fail- finding something h e r ? succeed, do a so-so job, or fail, a s ing to reach a fair share of those in (e) Do we maintain an ade- 4 . 0f f i c e r s some have. the higher income brackets? quate supply of literatwe a d do

we keep it on a table near the door propation to our means to our the group and the alcoholics who which can be asked by any group where members and visitors can Intergroup office and t o the Foun- still suffer? Should not a nominat- that wishes to take a n inventory see it both on arriving and leaving? dation? ing committee of responsible and that is both searching and fearless. Or d o we keep it on a table in the Intergroup and the Foundation d o experienced members give serious It would be interesting t o devote a front of the room even though we our 12th Step work on a regional thought t o the selection of the best closed meeting to a review of the know that only a minority will come and international basis,respective- possible slate of officers and pe- Steps and the Traditions t o see faward t o browse through it? ly. Do we expect them to d o this sent it t o the group for i t s consid- how each of them applied t o the Just what have we done about broader type of 12th Step work f a eration? (Grapevine, Oct. ‘ 5 I , p. 32.) group. carrying the message? us but withhold our enthusiastic Do we regard a n officership a s a Groups in different stages of de- 2. (a) How effective i s our cooperation and support? chore t o unload on some unfortunate velopment will, of course, a s k difsponsorship system? Do our spon- (b) Have we made a sustain- member not present at the election, ferent questions. Perhaps in rare s a s have a real sense of responsi- ed effort t o interest everyone in or a s an honor, challenge, and a instances a group of long standing, bility and wending perseverence? Do r e see that each new member subscribing t o the Grapevine? Our international journal i s the clearunique opportunity to do 12th Step work of a high order? . .. like some individuals, may have t o start a t the beginning .. First S t e p . with the admit that our group has a sponsor, or a t least some one ing house f a ideas. Thoughts arisresponsible for getting him t o meet- ing in Los Angeles, Dallas a Lon- Here are four questions (with life h a s become unmanageable. ings d u i n g that early period when don, are channeled t o every group subdivisjons, perhaps) but should Then what? Naturally, the second he s o easily may have a change of and ultimately t o every member. It not each group raise them from time Step. heart? Or d o we say, “He knows would be interesting to compare t o time? There are numerous others — Anonymous, Scarsdale. N. Y. where we are. If he wants it, he the success of various groups with can come and get it?” Grapevine circulation, not that the Do we ever analyze the reason Grapevine produced the success, fa f a i l u e in our s p o a s a s h i p e f f m s ? but that subscriptions may be evi- Or d o we always excuse ourselves dence of v i g a and activity which by saying, “He isn’t ready f a it?” result in success. H w can we be s o sure he was (c) DO we have men or womnot ready f a it? Can we be certain e n in the group who by education that some other sponsor might not and experience are capable of writhave succeeded? If that be the ing Grapevine articles of high qualcase, who i s really responsible ity, and if s o d o we encourage them f a the failure? Did we really d o t o produce such articles s o that our best? the group can make some creative (b) Without our knowing it, contribution t o AA a s a whole? Or could a scared newcomer h o p into d o we just let G e a g e d o it? one of our open meetings and s l i p 4. Do we select our officers with out again, p e r b p s never t o return? care? Or d o we haphazardly bring 90 we make a point of visiting with the matter up in a meeting and if newer members and strangers a t some one nominates Joe Doakes the meetings a d o we tend to hang the nominations are closed and Joe, together io impenetrable cliques? regardless of his lack of qualifica- 3. (a) Do we lend sup- in tions, becomes the goat, a does

AA GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1952

1 The fourth of a new series conscience a s a guide to action. In charting this enormous expanse of … other people’s money. Believe it or not, wealthy townsfolk bought of articles explaining freedom we found it necessary to the idea. The Twelve Traditions … post only two storm signals. A There were, though, a few congroup ought not do anything which servative dissenters among the alwould greatly injure AA a s a whole, coholics. They wrote the Foundaby nor ought it affiliate itself with tion, AA’s headquarters in New Bill anything or anybody else. There York, wanting t o know about this would be real danger should we s o n of streamlining. They under commence to call some groups stood that the elders, just to nail tt wet,” others “dry,” still others things down good, were about to TRADITION FOUR “RepubliEan” or “Communist,” and yet others “Catholic” or “Protapply to the Foundation for a c h a r ter. These few were disturbed and estant.” The AA group would have – skeptical.

Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting other to stick to its course or be hope- … Of course there was a promates lessly lost. Sobriety had to be its in the deal sole objective? In all other rea super-promoter. By his eloquence he allayed all groups or AA as a whole. spects there was perfect freedom fears, despite advice from the of will and action. Every group Foundation that it could issue no had the right to be wrong. charter, and that ventures which When AA was still young, lots of mixed an AA gioup up with medica- A UTONOMY i s a tendollar word. But in relation to us, it means When AA’s Traditions were first published in 1945, we had become eager groups were forming. In a tion and education had come t o town we’ll call Middleton, a real sticky ends elsewhere. T o make very simply that every AA group sure that a n AA group could stand can mahage its affairs exactly a s it almost any amount of battering. W e crackerjack had started up. The things safer, the promoter orgapleases, except when AA a s a saw that the group, exactly like the townspeople were hot a s firecrack- nized three corporations and bewhole is threatened. Comes now individual, must eventually con- ers about it.Star-gazing, the elders came president of them all. Freshly the same question raised in Tra- form t o whatever tested principles dreamed of innovations. They fig- painted, the new center shone. The dition One. Isn’t such liberty fool- would guarantee survival. W e had ured the town needed a great big warmth of it all spread through the ishly dangerous? discovered that there was perfect alcoholic center, a kind of pilot town. Soon things began t o hum. Over the years every conceivable safety in the process of trial and plant AA groups could duplicate T o insure foolproof, continuous , deviation from our Twelve Steps error. So confident of this’had we everywhere. Beginning on the ground operation, 61 rules and regulations and Traditions has been tried. That become that the original statement floor there would be a club; in the were adopted. was sure to be, since we are s o of AA tradition carried this sig second story they would sober up But alas, this bright scene was largely a band of egodriven indi- nificant sentence: “Any two or drunks and hand them currency for not long in darkening, Confusion ‘

vidualists. Children of chaos, we three alcoholics gathered together their back debts; the third deck replaced serenity. It was found have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unfor sobriety may call themselves an AA group provided that a s a … would house an educational project that some drunks yearned for eduquite noncontroversial, of cation, but doubted if they were course. In imagination the gleaming alcoholics. The personality defects harmed and, we think, wiser. These group they have no other affiliation.” very deviations created a vast pro- This meant, of course, that we center was to go up several stories of others could be cured maybe c e s s of trial and error which, under had been given the courage t o de- more, but three would do for a start. with a loan. Some were club-mindthe grace of God, has brought us to clare each AA group an individual This would a l l take a lot of money ed, but it was just a question of where we stand today. entity, strictly reliant on its own

taking care of the lonely heart. attention to AA experience. Then Sometimes the swarming applicants he did something else that was to would go for a l l three floors. Some become an AA classic., It all went would start at the top and come on a little card about golf-score through to the bottom, becoming size. The cover read: “Middleton club members, others started in the Group No. One. Rule No. 62.” Once club, fitched a binge, were hos- the card was unfolded, a single pitalized, then graduated to educa- pungent sentence leaped to the tion on the third floor. It was a eye: “Don’t take yourself too damn beehive of activity, all right, but seriously.” unlike a beehive, it was confusion compounded, An AA group, a s such, Thus it was that under Tradition simply couldn’t handle this sort of Four an AA group had exercised a project. All too late that was its right to be wrong. Moreover, it

.. discovered. Then came the inevitable explosion , something like that day the boiler burst in Womhad performed a great service for Alcoholics Anonymous, because it had been humbly willing to apply bley’s Clapboard Factory. A chill the lessons it learned. It had pickchokedamp of fear and frustration ed itself up with a laugh and gone fell over the group. on to better things. Even the chief When that lifted, a wonderful architect, standing in the ruins of thing had happened. The head pro- his dream, could laugh at himself … , moter wrote the Foundation office. and that i s the very acme of He said he wished he’d paid some humility.

* ” SEPTEMBER 1952 Tho fifth d o now s r i o s

Tho Twmlve Traditions …

Each group has but one primary purpose. .. to carry the message TRADITION FIVE to the alcoholic who still suffers.

recovery are easily passed among Ct S .. HOEMAKER, stick t o thy last”. better do one thing by their united effort could this be accomplished, then all of them alcoholics, one to the other. This .. . our society has concluded that it has but one high mission is our gift from God, and its be- carry the AA message t o tbose to supremely well than many bedly. would feel bound to devote themstowal upon others like us i s the who don’t h o w there’s a way out. That i s the c e n t d theme of this selves solely to the relief of canone aim that today animates AAs Highlighting the wisdom of AA’s tradition. Around it our society cer. In the radiance of such a miall around the globe. single purpose, a member tells gathers in unity. The very life of raculous discovery, any d o c t a There is another reason for this this s t a y : our fellowship requires the pres- would set his other ambitions singleness of purpose. We know “Restless one day, I felt I’d ervation of this principle. aside, at whatever personal cost. that we can seldom keep the pre- better do some Twelfth Step work. Alcoholics Anonymous can be Just a s firmly bound by obligacious gift of sobriety unless we Maybe I should take out some inlikened t o a group of physicians tion are the members of Alcoholics give it away. If a group of doctors surance against a slip. But first who might find a cure f a cancer, Anonymous, who hare demonsnat- possessed a cancer cure they I’d have t o find a drunk to work on. and upon whose concerted work ed that they can help problem might be conscience-stricken if **So I hopped the subway to would depend the answer for suf- drinkers a s others seldom can. they failed their mission through The unique ability of each AA t o Town’s Hospital where I asked ferers of this disease. True, each self-seeking. Yet such a failure Dr. Silkwonh if he had a prospea. physician in such a group might identify himself with and bring recovery to the newcomer in no way wouldn’t jeopardite their personal ‘Nothing too promising ,’ the little have his own specialty. Every survival. F a us, if we neglect doc said. ‘There’s just o m chap d o c t a concerned would a t times depends upon his learning, elothose who are still sick, there i s on the thud floor who m i ~ h tbe a wish he could devote himself t o quence, a on any special indiunremitting danger to our own lives ‘ possibility. But he’s an awfully his chosen field rather than work vidual skills. The only thing that and sanity. Under these compul- tough Irishman. I never saw a man oaly with the group. But once matters is that he i s an alcoholic sions of self-pesemation, duty, s o obstinate. He shouts that if his these men had hit upon a cure, who has found a key to sobriety. a’nd love, it is not strange that partner would treat him better, and once it became apparent that only These legacies of suffering and of

, aid his recwery. From there his wife would leave him alone, “Then, hesitantly, I ventured to suggested that 1.d mke a h n d in talk about the spiritual side of our on we got along fine, his domestic and business affairs? he’d soon solve his alcohol problem. He’s had a bad c a s e of d.t.’s, program. What a freeze that drunk “Now.” concludes the old timer. Where would we have up? he’s pretty foggy, and he’s very gave me! I’d no sooner got the ” S u ~ ~ o sI’d e been obliged to talk N~ pbce, of cnnse.** suspicious of everybody. Doesn’t word ‘spiritual’ out of my mouth man On religious pounds. Years h m this tough bish cus. Suppose my answer had to be that tomer liked to say, **uyspmsm sound too good, does it? But work- than he pounced. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Now I get it! You’re proselyting needed a l a of moay: that * A sold me one idea, and that was ing with him may do something for for some damn religious sect or went in for education, hospitals. briery. At the time, I couldn’t bre you, s o why don’t you have a go at it?’ other. Where do you get that ‘no and rehabilitation? Suppose I’d bought anything else.*’ “I was soon sitting beside a angle’ stuff? I belong to a great big hulk of a men. Decidedly un- church that means everything to friendly, he stared at me out of me. You’ve got a nerve to come in. eyes which were slits in his red here talking religion!’ * “Thank heaven I came ‘up with … and swollen face. I had t o a g e e with the doctor he certainly the right answer for that one. It didn’t look good. But I told him was based foursquare onthe single my own s t a y , I explained what a purpose of AA. ‘You have faith,’ I wonderful fellows hip we had, how said. ‘Perhaps far deeper faith than mine. No doubt you’re better Yea, a man may say, Thou hast well we understood each other. I bore down hard on the hopeless- taught in religious matters than I. laith, and I havc works: shew me ness of the drunk’s dilemma. 1 in- SO I can’t tell you anything about religion. I don’t even want to q – thy faith without thy works, atrd I sisted that few drunks could ever get well on their own steam, but 1’11 bet, too, that you could give willshew thee my faith by my works. that in our groups we could do to- me a letter-perfect d,efinition of gether what we could not d o sep- humility. But from what you’ve — James: 2:18 arately. He interrupted t o scoff a t told me about yourself and y o u this and asserted he’d fix his wife, problems and how YOU propose t o his penner, and his alcoholism by lick them, I think I know what’s himself. Sarcastically he asked, wrong.’ ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Give me ‘How much does your scheme cost?’ the business.’ ‘Well,” said’ 1. ‘I I was thankful 1 could tell him think you’re just a conceited Irish- ‘Nothing a t a l l 2 His next question: man who thinks he can run the I

‘What are you getting out of it?’ whole show.’ Of course my answer was, ‘My own “This really rocked him. But a s sobriety and a mighty happy life.’ he calmed down he began t o listen Still dubious, he demanded, ‘Do while I tried t o show him that huyou really mean the only reason mility was the main key t~ sobrieyou are here is to a y and help m e ty. Finally he saw that I wasn’t and to help yourself?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, attempting to change his religious ‘That’s absolutely all there i s to views, that I wanted him to find it. There’s no angle.’ the grace in his own religion that

OCTOBER 1952

The sixth of a new series of articles exphining The Twelve Troditions . .. by Bill

An AA group ought never endorse, finance a lend the AA name to any related facility a outside enterprise lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim.

HE moment we saw that we textbooks, We’d gather up derelicts T had an answer for alcoholism, it was reasonable for us to feel we from Skid Rows, sort out those who could get well and make- it possible might have an answer for a lot of for the rest to earn their livelihood other things. The AA groups, many in a kind of quarantined confinethought, could go into business, ment. Maybe these places would might finance any enterprise what- make large sums of money to carry ever in the total held of alcoholism. on our other good works. We setious- In fact, we felt duty-bound t o throw ly thought of rewriting the laws of the whole weight of the A A name the land, and have it declared that behind any meritorious cause. alcoholics arc sick people. No more Here are some of the things we would they be jailed; judges would dreamed. Hospitals didn’t like al- parole them in our custody. We’d coholics, s o we thought we’d build spill AA into the dark regions of a hospital chain of our own. People dope addiction and criminality. needed t o be told what alcoholism We’d form groups of depressive and was, s o we’d educate the public, paranoid folks, the deeper the new even rewrite school and medical rosis the b c t m weed like it. It

stood t o reason that if alcoholism people became confused. Did AA t h e question a r o s e of just how t h i s break h i s anonymity a t a public could bc licked, s o could any campaign should b e handled. Of level, h e w a s t o link t h e Mme Alfix drunks or w a s it a n educational problcm. project? Was AA spiritual or w a s c o u r s e they would u s e t h e resources c o h o l i c s Anonymous t o t h i s par- It occurred t o u s that we could it medical? Was it a reform move- of radio, press, and films t o make ticular educational project in t h e take what w c had into the factories ment? In consternation, we s a w their point. Rut what kind of a minds of millions. It would be person should head t h e job? T h e y and c a u s c laborers and c a p i t a l i s t s t o love e a c h other. Our uncomproourselves getting married t o a l l kinds of enterprise, some good and immediately thought of Alcoholics Anonymous. If they could find a … bound t o appear that AA w a s now backing education a s s o c i a t i o n style. liquor trade mising honesty might soon c l e a n some not s o good. Watching alcoup politics. U’ith one arm around holics committed willy-nilly t o good public relations man in our T h e minute we s a w t h i s comprot h e shoulder of r c l i ~ i o nand the prisons or asylums, we bcgan t o ranks, why wouldn’t h e b e ideal? mising fact for what it was, w e other around t h e shouldcr of medi- cry, “Thcrc oughtta b e a law!” He’d certainly know t h e problem. a s k e d t h e prospective publicity cine, we’d resolve theirdifierences. AAs cornmcnced t o thump t a b l e s His connection with AA would b e director how h e felt about it. “Great Having learned t o livc s o happily, in legislative committce-rooms and valuable, b e c a u s e t h e fellowship Guns!” he said. “Of course I can’t we’d show everybody e l s e how. agitated for lcgal reform. T h a t made stood high in public favor and take t h e job. T h e ink wouldn’t be Why, we thought, our s o c i e t y of good newspaper copy, but little hadn’t a n enemy in t h e world. dry on t h e first a d before a n awful Alcoholics Anonymous might provc else. We s a w we’d soon b e mired Soon they’d spotted their man, shriek would g o up from t h e dry to be thcspcarhead of a new spirit- in politics. Even inside AA w c a n AA with t h e n e c e s s a r y exper- camp. They’d b e out with lanterns ual advance! We might transform found it imperative to remove t h e ience. Straightway he appeared a t looking for a n honest AA t o plump t h e world. AA name from c l u b s and Twelfth New York’s AA headquarters, ask- for their brand of education. AA 88 Yes, we of AA did dream t h o s e S t e p Houses. ing, Is there anything in our u a – would land exactly in t h e middle dreams. How natural that was, s i n c e Thes? adventures implanted a dition that s u g g e s t s I shouldn’t of t h e wet-dry controversy. Half most alcoholics a r e bankrupt idcal- deep-rooted conviction that in no t a k e a job like t h i s o n e ? T h e kind t h e people in t h i s country would ists. Ncarly cvery one of u s had circumstances could we endorse of education s e e m s good t o me, think we’d signed up with t h e drys, wished t o d o great ~ o d ,perform any related enterprise, no matter and i s not t o o controversial. Do t h e other half would think we’d p a t .deeds, and embody great how good. We of Alcoholics Anony- you headquarters folks see a n y joined t h e wets. What a mess!” ideals. We a r e a l l perfectionists mous could not b e a l l things t o a l l bugs in it?” t “Nevertheless,” w e pointed out, who, failing perfcction, havc gone men, nor should we try. A t first glance, it did look like “You s t i l l have a legal right t o t o t h e a h c r extreme and s e t t l e d Years a g o t h i s principle of “no a good thing. T h e n doubt crept in. take t h i s job.” for t h e bottle a n d t h e blackout. endorsement” w a s put t o a vital T h e a s s o c i a t i o n wanted t o use our (‘1 know that,” h e said. “But Providence, t h r o u ~ hAA, had brought test. Some of t h e great distilling member’s full name in a l l i t s ad- t h i s i s no time for legalities. Alu s within reach of our highcst ex- companies proposed t o go into t h e vertising; h e w a s t o b e described coholics Anonymous s a v e d my life, pectations. S o why shouldn’t wc field of alcohol education. It would both a s i t s director of publicity and it c o m e s first. I certainly won’t s h a r e o u r w a y of l i f e with everyonc! be a good thing, they believed, for and a s a member of Alcoholics be the guy t o land AA in t h e big- Anonymous. Of course there could time trouble, and t h i s would real- … Whereupon we tried AA h o s p i t a l s they a l l bogged down b e c a u s e you cannot put a n AA group into t h e liquor tradc t o show a s e n s e of public responsibility. T h e y wanted t o s a y that liquor should b e not b e t h e slightest objection if s u c h a n a s s o c i a t i o n hired a n AA ly d o it!”

business; t o o many busybody c o o k s enjoyed, not misused; hard drinkers member solely b e c a u s e of h i s pub- Concerning endorsements, our ought t o slow down, and problem lic relations’ability and h i s knowl- friend had s a i d it all. We saw a s spoil’ t h e broth. AA groups had their fling a t education, and when drinkers .. . .alcoholics. .should e d g e of alcoholism. Rut that wasn’t t h e whole story, for in t h i s c a s e never before that w e could not lend t h e AA name t o a n y c a u s e other they began t o publicly whoop up not drink a t all. t h e merits of t h i s or that brand, In one of their tradc associations, not only w a s a n AA member t o than o w own.

NOVEMBER 1952

goupa, one with the other, and with Full maturity, a sort of official A Grapevine the world outside AA. Acting on the coming of age, came to the Twelve urging o l early members, Bill (with Traditions in the memorable Cleveland Milestone Doctor Bob’s close counsel) ventured First International Coaference of AA. to place in words suggestions to be Seven thousand jammed into Cleve- Report called “An Alcoholics Anonymoue land Auditoriwn’and heard six A h , Tradition of Relations-Twelve Points representing six geographic sections, to Assure Our Future.” each explain two of the Traditions. M e first Tradition appeared on the Bill, himeelf, summarized and said: editorial page of The Grapevine. The “The Twelve Tradi~ionaare the dis- THE twelve “Points” ran serially on through 1948. with supporting articles. tillate of our experience of living and working together; the platform upon It was recommended that they be con- which we expect to stand in unity for

TWELVE sidered a s warranting application to group life in the same fashion that the Twelve’ Steps were applied to indivs o long a s God may need us.’* Illuetrating each Tradition with an actual group experience, Bill caatinogd: “I

TRADITIONS idual lives. Comment from Cropcvinc readers (there were 6,000 in 1946) was good, held the pen’that wrote the words, but the words are youm because they are but a mirror that reflects the experiand in 1947 Works Publisbing, lnc., ences we have bad over the yeam.” published the booklet “AA Tradition” By general acclamation the 7,000 with the subtitle: ‘LOur experience has rose to confirm the adoption of the taught us…” This was the .ao-called Twelve Traditions…*’not aa an ollong form, and while few A h found ficialact.for this movement will never AA’s Platform For U n i t y fault with the meaning, many found have an official act.” Marks Sixth November Birthday the presentation clumsy and difficult In April, 1952, the Crqevine c u t o remember. ried on in its own tradition of the In 1949, group conecience spoke Traditions. puhliebing the firat of 12 ow shall we A h bent preserve the stuff that wide-eyed AA travelers H our unity? So begim the foreword of the first formal collection of came telling. Strange tribal cu$toms were springing u p – r u l e e and regulathrough the voice of Earl T..a pioneer Chicago AA. Visiting with Bill, he new articles by Bill in forther expienation of the short lonn. voiced the general complaint over the Today’s roster of more than 4,000 the ‘ h e l v e Traditioas of Alcoholics tions, entrance requiremeam, dublong form, and within an afternoon had g r o u p of M in 42 countries me- Aaoaymous. The y e u was 1946, and house thou shall’s and thou shalt helped work out the present short form. proof positive that the lesnom of the &4 w u growing at a rate that aston- not’s; a veritable juogle of geogaph- They soon took an honored position first trial-and-enor days have been ished even the enthusiasts of the orig- ical styles and patterns in AA sininside the back cover of The Crape- wisely transmitted Awn through the inal Akron goup. “More than 25,000 cerely practiced. Perhaps this lusty vine, with the Twelve S t e p moved years, fimt a s p l i c y and m w a s the a d still comingr* some claimed, and adolescent who showed numerical up to the inside front cover. Twelve Traditiolrsl from t b t first lone kitchen group signs of approaching maturity needed there were now over 900 groups. some signposts and some guidance. Growth? Plenty of it, and tbere By late 1946, there seemed to be w e even different kinds of AA grow- enough group problems t o require ing up, if one could believe some of s o m suggested code of relations for

NOVEMBER 1 9 5 2

ping money into a meeting-place hat pliehed. We s a w tbat if they waenet, T h e s e v e n t h of a new s e r i e s fa group purposes. We were astounded the man coming in the d o a couldn’t of a r t i c l e s e x p l a i n i n g t o find that we were as tight as the get a ,he&. T k e aimple aervices The T w e l v e T r a d i t i o n s . .. bark on a tree. S o AA, the movement, started and stayed broke, while i t s inwould require small sunm of m-y which we could and wolrld pay wby dividual members waxed prosperous. selves. k I m t the pendulum stopped Bill Alcoholics m e certainly a l l – a – swinging and pointed s t r a i a u nothing people. Our reactions t o money Tradition Seven an it r e d s today. prove this. A s AA emerged from i t s In this connection, Bill like. t o t e l l infancy into adolescence, we swung the following pointed story. Be erfrom the idea we needed vast sums of plains tbat wheq Jack Alexamder’s money t o the notion that AA shouldn’t SATEVEPOST piece broke i n 1941, have any. On every lip were the w a d e , thousands of frantic letters from dim- “You can’t mix M and money. We traught alcoholics and their families TRADITION SEVEN s h a l l have t o separate the spiritual hit the Foun&tiwea letterbox ia New from the materiel.’* We took this vio- Y a k . *Y)w office staff,’* he says, lent new tack because here and there *’consisted of two people; one devoted members had tried t o make money out secretary and myself. How could t h i s of their M connections, and we feared landslide d appeals be met? We’d we’d be exploited. Now and then, have t o have some m a e full-time belp, grateful benefactors had endowed that w a s sure. So w e mked the M “EVERY AA G R O U P OUCIlT TO BE F U L L Y S h ‘ L F – S U P P O R T I N G , clubhouses, and a s a result there w a s g r o u p f a voluntary c o n t r i b u t i w . DECLINING OUTSIDE CON TRIHU I’IONS.” sometimes outside interference in our Would they send u s a dollar a member affairs. We had been presented with a a year? Otherwise this beartbreaking add t o this the habitual supposition hospital, and almost immediately the mail would have t o g o unanswered. S elf-suppating alcoholics? Who ever hewd of such a thing?l Yet that people ought t o give money t o alcoholics trying t o stay sober. it can donor’s s o n became i t s principal patient and would-be manager. One M ‘To my s w p i s e , the response d the g r o u p WM slow. I got mighty s a e we find that’s what we have t o be. be understood why we thought we de- group w a s given $5,000 t o do with about it. Looking a t this avalanche d T h i s principle i s telling evidence of served a pile of folding money.’ What what it would. T h e hassle over tbat mail one m a n i n g at the office, I paced the profound change that AA h a s great things AA would be able t o do chunk of money played havoc f a years. up and down ranting how ineapomible wrought in d l of us. Everybody knows with it1 Rut oddly enough, people who Frightened by these complications, and tightwad my fellow-membea were. that active d c o h o l i c s scream that had .money thought otherwise. They some groups refused to have a cent in Juat then an old acquaintance s t o c k a they have no troubles money can’t cue. Always, we’ve had o w hands figured that — sober — it w a s high t h e u treasuries. Despite these misgivings, we had tousled and aching b e d in the d o a . He wan our prize slippee. I could pee out. T i m out of mind we’ve been time we now aid our own way. So our fellowship stayed pow because it had t o recognize the f a c t that M had to be h d an awful hangover. Rememberdependent upon somebody, usually to. function. Meeting places. cost some- ing some of my o m , my heart filled moneywhe. When a society composed There was another reason for our thing. T o s a v e whole a r e a s from t u – with pity. I motioned him t o my i m i d e e n t i e l y d alcoholics s a y s it’s going collective poverty. It w a s soon ap- moil, small offices had t o be s e t up, cubicle m d produced a five-dollr t o pay its. bills. that’s really news. psrent that while alcoholics would telephones installed. and a few full- bill. As my total income w r $30 a Probably no AA tradition had the l a h a pains this one did. In early spend lavishly on Twelfth Step cases. time secretaries hired. Over many week at the time, thin was a fairly times we were all broke. When you they had a terrific aversion t o d r o p protests, these things were accorn- large donation. L o i s really needed

the money for groceries. but that t h e hat!” n~uch. but like the alcoholic’s first page of M history. T h e y declared for didn’t s t o p me. T h e intense relief on T h e r e i s a n d h e r s t a y about money. drink it would, if taken, inevitably s e t the principle that AA must a l w a y s my friend’s face warmed my heart. I One night in 1948, t h e t r u s t e e s of t h e up a d i s a s t r o u s chain reaction. Where s t a y poor. Hare running e x p e n s e s plus f e l t e s p e c i a l l y virtuous a s I thought Foundation were having their quarterly would that land u s ? Whoever pays t h e a prudent reserve would hencefort11 be of a l l the e x d r u n k s who wouldn’t e v e n meeting. T h e agenda discussion in- piper i s apt t o c a l l the tune, and if the I’oundati&’s financial policy. Dif- .end t h e Foundation a dollar apiece, cluded a very important question. A the AA Foundation obtained money ficult as it & a s , they officially deand b a e I w a s g l d l y making a five- certain lady had died. When her will from outside sources. i t s t r u s t e e s clined that $10,000. and adopted a d o l l u investment t o fix a hangover. w a s read, it w a s discovered s h e had might be tempted t o run things without f a m a l , airtight resolution that a l l s u c h ‘ T h e meeting that night w a s a t New left Alcoholics Anonymous in trust reference t o the w i s h e s of M as a future g i f t s would be similarly d e c l i n e d York’n old 24th Street Clubhouse. Dur- with t h e Alcoholic Foundation a s u m whole. Relieved of r e s p o n e i b i l i ~ ~ , At that moment, we believe. the prini o g t h e intermission th treasurer gave of $10,000. T h e question was. should every alcoholic would s h r u g and say. c i p l e of corporate poverty w a s firmly a timid talk o n bow broke t h e C l u b M take t h e gift? “Oh, the Foundation i s wealthy — and finally embedded in AA tradition. wan. (That WM in t b e period when you What a debate we had o n that onel why should I h a h e r ? ” T h e pressure When t h e s e f a c t s were printed, there couldn’t mix money and M).But fi- T h e Foundation w a s really hard up of that fat treasury would surely tempt w a s a profound reaction. To people nally h e s a i d it — t h e landlord would just then; the g o u p s weren’t s e n d i n g i n enough for t h e support of the office, the board t o invent a l l kinds of s c h e m e s t o d o good with s u c h funds, and s o familiar with e n d l e s s drives for chnrit a b l e funds. AA presented a strange put u s out if w e didn’t pay 9 :Re ‘ concluded h i s remarks by saying, “Now we had been toesing in a l l t h e book divert AA from i t s primary purpose. and refreshing spectacle. Appoving b o p . p l e a s e g o heavier on t h e hpt income and e v e n that hadn’t been T h e moment that happened our fellow – editorials here a n d abroad generated a tooight, will you?” enough. T h e reserve w a s melting like ship’s confidence would be shaken. wave of confidence in the i n t e g i t y of I h e r d a l l t h i s quite plainly, an I s n o w in springtime. We needed that T h e board would be isolated, and Alcoholics Anonymous. T h e y p i n t e d w a s piously trying t o convert a new- $10,000. “Maybe,” some said. ‘ t h e would fall under heavy attack of criti- out t h a t the irresponsible had become c o n s r who s a t next t o me. T h e hat groups will never fully support the c i s m from both AA and t h e public. responsible, and that by making financmne i n my direction and I reached office. We can’t let it s h u t down. it’s T b e s e were t h e possibilities, pro and c i a l independence part of i t s tradition, i n t o my.pocket. Still working o n my far t o o vital.Yes. let’s t a k e the money. con. Alcoholics Anonymous had revived an pooped, I fumbled and came up with Let’s take a l l s u c h donations in t h e T h e n our t r u s t e e s wrote a bright ideal that i t s e r a had almost fagotten. a fifty-ced piece. Somehow it looked future. We’re going t o need them.” like a very big coin. Hastily I dropped i t back mod fished out a dime, which T h e n came t h e opposition. T h e y pointed out that t h e Foundation board FROM POLE 7 0 S HlNlNC POLE. .. clinked thinly a s I dropped i t in t h e already knew of a total of half e mil- Groups a r e now flourishing in South Latitude 45′ 53′ only 3,000 m i l t s hat. H a m never got folding money in t h o s e days. lion dollars s e t a s i d e fa AA in t h e w i l l s of people s t i l l alive. Heaven AA IromDunedin, New Zealand. and in North Latitude 76′ 33’ a l m o a exa c t l y 850 miles from Thule, Greenland. ‘ T h e n I woke up. I who bad boasted only knew how much there w a s we T o t h o s e of u s who knew t h e bitter failure of personal “geographic curese* my geaaomity that morning WM treat- hadn’t heard about. If outside dona- there i s a bonus of delight in recent letters from AA’s “low pole” group a t ing my own club worse than t h e dis- tions weren’t declined. absolutely c u t Dunedin. New Zealand, t h e world’s scruthernmoe~c i t y a n d h i s t a i c j u m p i n ~ o f l tant alcobolicn who had forgotten t o off, then the Foundation would one place for Antarctic explorers. T h e r e a r e now 2 0 members. a n d a regular e x c h n g a a e n d t h e Foundation their dollsrs. I day become rich. Maeover, a t the of programs with Christcherch, a mere 200 miles “up north:’ . realized that my f i v e d o l l s t gift t o t h e s l i g h t e s t intimation t o the general “High pole” group ie T h u l e (pronounced “Too-ley”), Greenlad..an historic n l i p p e w a s a n ego-feeding p o p o e i – public Com our t r u s t e e s that we need- jumpingoff place for explorers of the Arctic. Regular meetings now count 16 i n tion, b d f a him and bad for me. There ed money, we could become immensely attendance. YMI a p l r e in M where spirituality r i c h Compared t o t h i s prospect, t h e T h e s u c c e s s f u l therapy of t h e T w e l v e Steps, good fellowship and hot coffee… a d m-y would mix, and t h a t wan in $10,000 under consideration wasn’t and a l l t h o s e ice c u b e s for a thousand miles around1

4 d H O W TO IGNORE NOVEMBER 19 5,2, THE TWELVE TRADITIONS.. . . . 1. OR THE CASE OF O N E DOZEN “EMPTIES”

DECEMBER 1952

less true that few subjects have been cook. If a club is going to function, it The eighth of a new series the cause of more contention within has to be habitable and hospitable. W e our fellowship than professionalisnl. tried volunteers, who were quickly disof ar/icles explaining Caretakers who swept floors, cooks who enchanted with sweeping floors and The Twelve Traditions. . . fried hamburgers, secretaries in offices, brewing coffee seven days a week. They authors writing books; all these we just didn’t show up. Even more imporby have seen hotly assailed because they tant, an empty club couldn’t answer its Bill were, as their critics angrily remarked, telephone, but it was an open invita- “making money out of AA.” Ignoring tion to a drunk on a binge who posthc fact that these labors were not sessed a spare key. So somebody had l’welftli Step jobs at all, the critics at- to look after the place full time. If wc tacked as AA professionals these work- hired an alcoholic he’d only receive ers of ours who were often doing what we’d have to pay a non-alcoholic thankless tasks that no one else could for the same job. The job was not to or would do. Even greater furors were Jo Twelfth Step work, it was to make provoked when AA members began to Twelfth Step work possible. It was r run rest homes and farms for alco- service proposition, pure and simple. holics, when some hired out to corpo- Neither could AA itself function TRADITION EIGHT rations as personnel men in charge of the alcoholic problem in industry, when without full-time workers. At the Foundation and Intergroup offices we some became nurses on alcoholic wards. couldn’t employ non-alcoholics as secwhen others entered the field of alcohol retaries; we had to have people who c.clucation. In all these instances, and knew the AA pitch. But the minute we “ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS SHOULD REMAIN FOKEVEK NUN-I’ROF1.:SSIONAI., more, it was claimed that AA knowl- hired them, the ultra-conservative and BUT OUR SERVICE CENTERS MAY EMPLOY SPECIAL WORKERS.” edge i~ndexperience were being sold fearful ones shrilled “Professional- LCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS will single purpose has always bee11defeated. for money, hence these people too were ism!” At one period, the status of these A never have a profeui&~ class. Alcoholics simply will not listen to W e have gained some understanding a paid Twelfth Stepper. Almost from professionals. At last, however, a plain line of faithful servants was almost unbearable. They weren’t asked to speak at i lcavage coulcf bc seen between profes- AA meetings because they were “makof the ancient words, “Freely ye havc the beginning, we have been posit,ive received, freely give.” W e have dis- that face-to-face work with tlie alco- sionalism and non-professionalism. ing money out of AA.” At times they covered that at the point of profession- holic who suffers could be based only When we had agreed that the Twelfth were actually shunned by fellow memalism, money and spirituality do not on the desire to help and be helped. Step couldn’t be sold for money, we bers. Even the charitably disposed demix. Almost no recovery from alcohol- When an AA talks for money, whether had been wise. But when we had de- scribed them as “a necessary evil.” ism has ever been brought about by the at a meeting or to a single newcomer, it clarecl that our fellowship c.ouldn’t hire Committees took full advantage of this world’s best professionals, whether can have a very bad effect on him too. service workers nor could any AA attitude to depress their salaries. They medical or religious. W e do not decry The money motive compromises him member carry out our knowledge into could regain some measure of virtue, professionalism in other fields, but we and everything he says and does for his other fields, we were taking the coun- it was thought, if they worked for AA accept the sober fact that it does not prospect. This has always been so ob- sel of fear, fear which today has h e n real cheap. These notions persisted for work for us. Every time we have tried vious that only a very few AAs have Iugely dispelled in the light of expe- years. Then we saw that if a hardto professionalize our Twelfth Step, the ever worked the Twelfth Step for a fee. ~.icnce. working secretary answered the phone result has been exactly the same: our Despite this certainty, it is neverthe- ‘I’i~kethe case of the club janitor and tlozcns of times a day. listened to

twenty wailing wives, arranged hos- just. They are always unreason~blc. some very good causes and all con- in tliesc wider fields. It would be actupitalization and got sponsorship for No individuals l~avebeen more h i – nected with them suffered unjust criti- ally anti-social were we to forbid them. ten newcomers, and was gently diplo- feted by such emotional gusts than cism from AA groups. More often We cannot declare AA such a closed matic with the iratc drunk who com- those AAs bold enough to accept em- than not these onslaughts were spear- corporation that we keep our knowlplained about the job she was doing ployrnent with outside agencies dcding headed by tlle cry “Professionalism! edge and experience Top Secret. If an and how slie was overpaid, then such a with the alcohol problem. A university ‘rhat guy is making money out of AA !” AA member acting as a citizen can beperson could surely not be called a pro- wanted an AA rnember to educ~lctlic Yet not a single one of them had been come a better researcher, educator, perfessional AA. She was not profession- public on alcol~olism. A corporation hired to do AA’s Twelfth Step work. sonnel officer, then why not? Everyalizing the Twelfth Step, slie was just wanted a personnel man familiar with The violation in these instances was not body gains, and we have lost nothing. making it possible. She was helping to the subject. A state drunk farm wante~l professionalism at all, it was breaking True, some of the projects to which give the man coming in the door thc a manager who could really handle in- anonymity. AA’s sole purpose was be- A As have attached themselves have break he ought to have. Volunteer ebriates. A city wanted an experiencctl ing compromised and tlle name of been ill-conceived, but that makes not committeemen and assistants could be social worker who understood wli.it Alcoholics Anonymous was being mis- the slightest difference with the prinof great help, but they could not be ex- alcohol could do to a family. A state used. ciple involved. pected to carry this load day in and day alcohol commission wanted a paid re- It is significant, now that almost no This is the exciting welter of events out. searcher. These are only a few of the AA in our fellowship breaks anony- which has finally cast up AA’s tradi- At the Foundation, the same story jobs which AA members as individuals mity at the public level, that nearly all tion of non-professionalism. Our repeats itself. Eight tons of books and have been asked to fill. Now and then these fears have subsided. W e see that Twelfth Step is never to be paid for, literature per month do not package AA members have bought f a r m or we have no right or need to discourage but those who labor in service for us and channel themselves all over the rest homes where badly beat-up topers AAs who wish to work as individuals are worthy of their hire. world. Sacks of letters on every con- could find needed care. The question ceivable AA problem ranging from a was-and sometimes still is–are SIICII lonely-heart Eskimo to the National activities to be branded as professional- Broadcasting Company to the growing ism under AA tradition? p i n s of thousands of groups must be W e think the answer is “No. Memanswered by people who b o w . Right bers who select such full-time careers contacts with the world outside have to do not professionalize AA’s Twelfth be maintained. AA’s lifelines have to Step.” The ,road to this conclusion was be tended. So we hire AA executive long and rocky. At first, we couldn’t secretaries. W e pay them well, and see the real issue involved. In former they earn what they get. They are pro- days, the moment an AA hired out to fessional secretaries, but they certainly such enterprises he was immediately arc not professional AAs. tempted to use the name Alcoholics Perhaps the fear will always lurk in Anonymous for publicity or moneyevery AA heart that one day our name raising purposes. Drunk farms, educawill be exploited by somebody for real tional ventures, state legislatures and cash. Even the suggestion of such a commissions advertised the fact that NOone needs P smile so much as he who has none left to give. thing never fails to whip up a hurri- AA members served them. Unthinkcane, and we have discovered that hut- ingly, AAs so employed recklessly ricanes have a way of mauling with broke anonymity to thump the tub for q u a 1 severity both the just and the un- their pet enterprise. For this reason,

JANUARY 1953 The ninth of a new series bers and enforce obedience to neces- in New York would be an exception. of articles explaining sary rules and re~ulations? Doesn’t Surely the people there would have to every society on earth give authority have some authority. But long ago, The Twelve Traditions to some of its members to impose trustees and secretaries alike found obedience upon the rest and to punish they could do no more than make s u p by or expel offenders? Therefore every gestions, and very mild ones at that. Bill nation, in fact every form of society, They even had to coin a couple of senhas to be a government administered tences which still go into half the by human beings. Power to direct letters they write: “Of course you are or govern is the essence of organiza- at perfect liberty to handle this matter tion everywhere. any way you please. But the majority Yet Alcoholics Anonymous is an experience in AA does seem to sugexception. It does not conform to this gest . . .” Now, that attitude is far repattern. Neither its General Service moved from central government, isn’t Conference, its Foundation Board, nor it? W e recognize that alcoholics can’t the humblest group committee can be dictated to . . . individually or colissue a single directive to an AA mem- lectively.

Tradition Nine ber and make it stick, let alone mete out any punishment. We’ve tried it lots of times, but utter failure is always the result. Groups have tried to At this junction we can hear a churchman exclaim, “They are making disobedience a virtue!” He is joined by a psychiatrist who says, “Defiant expel members, but the banished come brats! They won’t grow up and conback to sit in the meeting place saying, form to social usage!” The man in the ‘”This is life for us; you can’t keep us street says, “I don’t understand it. “AA, AS SUCH, OUGHT NEVER BE ORGANIZED; BUT IVE MAY out.” Committees have instructed They must be nuts!” But all these CREATE SERVICE BOARDS OR COMMITTEES DIRECTLY RESPON- many an AA to stop working on a observers have overlooked something SIBLE T O THOSE THEY SERVE.” chronic backslider, only to be told: unique in Alcoholics Anonymous. Un- “How I do my Twelfth Step work is less each AA member follows to the my business. Who are you to judge?” best of his ability our suggested HEN Tradition Nine was first Wow, then, can we have an unorgan- W written, it said that “Alcoholics ized movement which can and does This doesn’t mean an AA won’t take advice or suggestion from more experi- Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. Anonymous needs the least possiblc create a service organization for itself? enced members, but he surely won’t His drunkenness and dissolution are org.inization.” In years since then, we Scanning this puzzler, people say, take orders. Who is more unpopular not penalties inflicted by people in have changed our minds about that. “What do they mean, no organizathan the old-time AA, full of wisdom, authority; they result from his per- Toclay we are able to say with assur- tion?!” who moves to another area and tries to sonal disobedience to spiritual prinance that Alcoholics Anonymous . .. Well, let’s see. Did anyone ever tell the group there how to run its ciples. AA as 3 whole .. . should never be hear of a nation, a church, a political business? He and all like him who The same stern threat applies to the orgmized at all. Then, in seeming party, wen a benevolent association contradiction, we proceed to create that had no membership rules? Did “view with alarm for the good of AA” group itself. Unless there is approxispecial service boards and committees anyone ever hear of a society which meet the most stubborn resistance or, mate conformity to AA’s Twelve Tnwhich in themselves are organized. couldn’t somehow discipline its mem- worse still, laughter. ditions, the group too can deteriorate You might think AA’s headquarters and die. So we of AA do obey spir-

itual principles, first because we must, caretakers and expediters of our world and ultimately because we love the services. kind of life such obedience brings. Just as the aim of each AA member Great suffering and great love are is personal sobriety, the aim of our AA’s disciplinarians; we need no services is to bring sobriety within others. reach of all who want it. If nobody It is clear now that we ought never does the group’s chores, if the area’s to name boards to govern us. but it is telephone rings unanswered, if we do qually clear that we shall always need not reply to our mail, then AA as to authorize workers to serve us. It is we know it would stop. Our cornmuthe difference between the spirit of , nications lines with those who need vested authority and the spirit of ser- our help would be broken. vice; two concepts which are poles AA has to function, but at the same apart. It is in this spirit of service time it must avoid those dangers of that we elect the AA’s group informal great wealth, prestige, and entrenched’ rotating committee, the Intergroup As- power which necessarily tempt other sociation for the area, and the General societies. Though Tradition Nine at Service Conferences of Alcoholics first sight seems to deal with a purely Anonymous for AA as a whole. Even practical matter, in its actual operation our Foundation, once an independent it discloses a society without organiza- Board. is today directly accountable to tion, animated only by the spirit of our fellowship. Its trustees are the service . . . a true fellowship.

“., , become as little children,”

S a small child I remember quite well that in prayer I learned that my soul A would be kept inviolate and that if the unforeseen happened I would have nothing to fear. As a chronic alcoholic it was quite the opposite. Actually I was frightened to death all the time that I was drinking. Perhaps most of us alcoholics are once again learning the same thing that we once learned as children, that we will have nothing to fear if we stay sober and live the best that we can by following the Twelve Suggested Steps of the program M.B., Roanoke, Va. 15

FEBRUARY 1953

The tenth ,of a new series political and economic wars often on the surface. A corporation director of articles explaining spurred by religious and racial differ- who had just voted a company expendi- The Twelve Traditions ence. W e live in the imminent possibil- ture of a hundred thousand d o l l m ity of a fresh holocaust to determine would appear at an AA business meetby how men shall be governed, and how ing and blow his top over an outlay of the products of nature and toil shall be twenty-five dollars’ worth of needed Bill divided among them. That is the spir- postage stamps. Disliking the attempt itual climate in which AA was born, of some to manage a group, half its and by God’s grace has nevertheless membership might angrily rush off to flourished. form another group more to their lik- Let us re-emphasize that this reluc- ing. Elders, temporarily turned Pharitance to fight each other or anybody see, have hurled rocks. Bitter attacks else is not counted as some special vir- have been directed against people sustue in which we feel superior to other pected of mixed motives. Dcspite their TRADITION TEN people. Nor does it mean that the mem- din, our puny rows never did AA bers of Alcoholics Anonymous, now particle of harm. They were just part restored as citizens of the world, are and parcel of learning to work and live going to back away from their indi- together. Let it be noted, too, that t h q vidual responsibilities to act as they were almost always concerned with how see the right upon issues of our time. to make AA more effective, how to do But when it comes to AA as a whole, the most good for the most alcoholics. that’s quite a different matter. In this The Washingtonian Society, a moverespect we do not enter into public ment among alcoholics of a century “ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS HAS N % )OPINION ON OUTSIDE ISSUES; HENCE THE AA N M E OUGHT NEVER BE DRAWN INTO PUBLIC CON’I?IOVERSY.” controversy, because we know that our ago, almost discovered the answer to society will perishaif it does. W e con- alcoholism. At first the society was ceive the survival and spread of Alco- composed entirely of alcoholics trying N E V E R since it began has Alcohol – As by some deep instinct, we AAs holics Anonymous to be something of to help each other. The early members ics Anonymous been divided by ;: have known from the very beginning far greater importance than the weight foresaw that they should dedicate themmajor controversial issue. Nor has our that we must never, no matter what the we could collectively throw back of any selves to this sole aim. In many refellowship ever publicly taken sides 011 provocation, publicly take sides in any other cause. Since recovery from alco- spects, the Washingtonians were akin any question in an embattled world. .fight, even a worthy one. All history af- holism is life itself to us, it is impera- to AA of today. Their membership This, however, has been no earned fords us the spectacle of striving na- tive that we preserve in full strength passed the hundred-thousand mark. virtue. It could almost be said that we tions and groups finally torn asunder our means of survival. Had they been left to themselves, and were born with it, for as one old-timcr because they were dcsigned for, or Maybe this sountls as thou& thc had thcy stuck to Ihcir one goal, they recently declared, “Practically never tempted into, controversy. Others fell alcoholics in AA had suddenly gonc might have found the rest of the anhave I heard a heated religious, politi- apart because of sheer self-righteous- peaceable, and become one great big swer. Rut this didn’t happen. Instead. cal or reform argument among AA ness while trying to enforce upon the happy family. Of course this isn’t so at the Washingtonians l>crrni~~etl politimembers. So long as we don’t argue rest of mankind some millennium of all. Human beings that we are, we cians ant1 reformers, both alcoholic these matters privately, it’s a cinch we their own specification. In our own squabble. Before we leveled off a bit, and non-alcoholic, to use the society for never shall publicly.” times we have seen millions die in AA looked more like one protligious their own purposes. Abolition of slavsquabble than anything else, at least ery, for example, was a stormy political

issue then. Soon Washingtonian speak- The lesson to be learned from the ers violently and publicly took sides on Washingtonians was not overlooked by this question. Maybe the society could Alcoholics Anonymous. As we surhave survived the Abolition $ontro- veyed the wreck of that movement, wny, but It didn’t bave a b c c early AA members resolved to keep from the moment it determined to re- our society out of public controversy. form America’s drinking habits. When Thus was laid the cornerstone for Trathe Washingtonians k a m e crusaders, dition Ten: “Alcoholics Anonyn~ous within a very few years they had corn-, has no opinion on outside issues; hence pletely lost their effectiveness in help- the AA name ought never be drawn alcoholics. j p ~ into public controversy.”

February Ahoy!

w E thought you might like to know about the cover of this month’s Gqmhe: 1. It is not our yacht! It is just an anonymous little old boat that looked nicer than the slightly soiled February snow that is outside our editorial window. 2. The palm trees and the sunswept waters are to test our tolerance. 3. The spot of green is what we are with envy (in a nice way, mind you) o v a the whole Florida-Cllifornia-or-an~here-Southfeeling of the cover picture. 4. W e could have w d a valentine, or a Washington-Lincoln motif, but we like to be confused about months once in a while!

FEBRUARY 1953

Anonymous principles; it could be checked by a more sincere application of our Twelth Tradition to our &airs. Means Still another aspect of this tradition is what I like to call “Anonymity of Service,’ as an important Mfunction. The benefit and satisfaction that we E all recognize the practical rea- derive from our Twelfth Step work .. W x m r for anonymity. TIX new. member, filled with a11 the fears of the practice of AA principles in our . daily &airs . . is enriched when this the alcoholic, may take heart that his practice becomes a habit. Service, as a veil of anonymity wiU be respected. . habit, expects no recognition ..de- But there is too, the spiritual signif- mands no praise. It would take an iancc of this tradition, the placing of enormous conceit indeed, to believe principles above personalities. We ate that we and we alone had the power dl anonymous individuals having as to go to, speak with, and bring to a our ultimate authority a loving God meeting, an alcoholic destined nwer to as each of us understands him. There drink again. We neither accomplish is d y little difference between us nor are we able to accomplish these when we consider that we are all things alone but there is a Power at alcoholics, dependent upon the same work both within and around us that power for our recovery. A member’s each may understand and name as he economic or social background is understands it. not important in AA as he becomes a We are known as Alcoholics fellow-member and a friend. Anonymous. For the newcomer, our We find in the Fifth Step that it tradition of anonymity may be a shield is suggested that are admit to God, against embarrassment, but to the older ounclves and to another human being, member it is a lesson in humility. It the exact nature of our wrongs. There- is a glorious anonymity coupled with fore we may expect in AA to share in a Divine Identity and the vehicle by the conhdences of many. A respect of which we may makc sacrifices without t h e confidences is obviously a respect expecting credit, by which we may of their anonymity. Should a member work without xtking gain, and give, teU us of a slip that he or she may without counting cost. have had, it may be that they are And what is our reward for this? seeking our assistance and advice. It Surely there must be some recompense; certainly isn’t becaw they want us There is, because our reward is the to ‘carry the message’ of their slip very thing we were seeking when first to every member within reaching we came here. Sobriety. distance. The gossip that we hear in Anon., St. Rose de h r J , AA is strangely inconsistent with our Q U ~ .Can.~

MARCH 1953

the opposite in many ways of usual doubters that they are, have gone dl The eleventh of a series promotional practice. W e found that out to carry AA’s message. T o than, of articles explaining we had to rely upon the principle of we are something more than .the source attraction rather than of promotion. of good stories. On almost evey news- The Twelve Traditions front, the men and women of the ptas Let’s see how these two contrasting by ideas-attraction and promotion- have attached thernselva to us as Bill work out. A political party wishes to friends. win an election, so it advertises the vir- In the beginnin& the press could tues of its leadership to draw votes. not understand our refusal of all per- A worthy charity wants to raise money ; sonal publicity. They were p u i n e l y forthwith its letterhead shows the name b d e d by our insistence upon anonymof every distinguished person whosc ity. Then they got the point. Here . was something r u e in the world . . a TRADITION ELEVEN support can be obtained. Much of the political, economic, and religious life of the world is dependent upon pub. society which said it wished to publicize its principles and its work, but not licized leadership. People who sym- its individual members. The press was bolize causes and ideas fill a deep delighted with this attitude. Ever since, human need. W e of AA do not que;- these friends have reported M with “OUR PUBLIC RELATIONS POLICY IS BASED ON AlTRACTION tion that. But we do have to soberly an enthusiasm which the most ardent RATHER THAN PROMOTION; WE NEED ALWAYS face the fad that being in the public members would find hard to match. MAINTAIN PERSONAL ANONYMITY AT THE eye is hazardous, especially for us. By LEVEL OF PRESS. RADIO AND FILMS.” There was actually a time when the temperament, nearly every one of us press of America thought the anonymhad* been an irrepressible promoter, ity of AA was better for us than and the prospect of a society com- some of our own members did. At ITHOUT its legiom of well- The inquiring voices are not all al- Wwishers, AA could never have coholics or their families. Doctors read medical papers about Alcoholics posed almost entirely of promoters was frightening. Considering this exone point, about a hundred of our society were breaking anonymity at grown as it has. Throughout the plosive factor, we knew we had to ex- the public level. With perfectly good world, immense and favorable pub- Anonymous and call for more informa- ercise self-restraint. intent, these folks declared that the licity of every description has been the tion. Clergymen see articles in’ their principle of anonymity was horse-and- The way this restraint paid off was principal means of bringing alcoholics church journals, and also make in- buggy stuff, something appropriate to startling. It resulted in more favorinto our fellowship. In AA offices. quiries. Employers learn that great AA’s pioneering days. They were sure able publicity of Alcoholics Anonyclubs, and homes telephones ring con- corporations have x t their approval that AA could go faster and farther if mous than could possibly have been stantly. One voice wys, ” I read a upon us. and wish to discover what it availed itself of modern publicity piece in the newspapers . . .”, another, can be done about a’ oholism in their obtained through all the arts and abilities of AA’s best press agents. methods. AA, they pointed out, in- ‘ W e heard a radio program . . .”, and own firms. Therefore a great responsibility fell Obviously, AA had to be. publicized cluded many persons of local, national, still another, “We saw a moving pic- . ture . .”, or, “We saw something upon us to develop the best possible somehow, so we resorted to the idea that it would be far better to let our or international fame. Provided they were willing-and many were-why h u t AA on television . . . .” It is no public relations policy for Alcoholics exaggeration to say that half of AA’s Anonymous. Through many painful friends do this for us. Precisely that shouldn’t their membership be publimembership has been led to or through membership has been led to us through has happened, to an unbelievable ex- cized, thereby encouraging others to channels like these. at what that policy ought to be. It is tent. Veteran newsmen, trained join us? These were plausible argu-

ments, but happily our friends of the of their cooperation has certainly writing profession disagreed. helped. Only a few AA members are The Alcoholic Foundation wrote left who deliberately break anonymity letters to practically every news outlet at the public level. in North America, setting forth our This in brief is the process by which public relations policy of attraction AA’s Tradition Eleven was conrather than promotion, and emphasiz- structed. To us, however, it represents ing personal anonymity as AA’s greatfar more than a sound public relations a t protection. Since that time, editors policy. It is more than a denial of selfand rewrite men have repeatedly deleted names and pictures from AA seeking. This tradition is a constant copy; frequently they have reminded and practical reminder that personal ambitious individuals of AKs anony- ambition has no place in AA. In it mity policy. They have even sacrificed each member becomes an active good stories to this end. The force guardian of our fellowship.

O A L L l N a THE YEAR 2 0 1 3 A.D.!

N my desk there is a calendar with a page for each day of the On year. O ca ch page I enter the **musta’dates, the things to be done, each in its own exact time. And until each task’s particular day arrives I forget it. At the back of the calendar pad there are a number of blank pages. At the beginning of 1953, I dated these pages for the year 2013 . . sixq . . years hence . . and when “worry matters” come up that do not belong in the twenty-four hours I am now living I enter them on the pages of 2013 A.D. It’s surprising how many things that used to get in the way of my living one day at a time really belong back on those future pages. In fact, come next December 31st. I can burn most of those back pages aad start some new pages on my 1954 calendar . . . things I can worry about just u fruitfully in 2014! H.C.,Cbadotte, N. C.

. – . –

APRIL 1953

few, at present, to handle the over- set us thinking. Squarely before us The last of a series whelming number of personal appeals was the queslion, “How anonymous of articles explaining which may result from this publica- should an A A member be?” Our tion. Being mostly business or profes- growth made it plain that we couldn’t The Twelve Traditions sional folk, we could not well carry on be a secret society, but it was equally by our occupations in such an event.” Be- plain that we couldn’t be a vaudeville Bill tween these lines it is easy to read our circuit either. The charting of a safe fear that large numbers of incoming path between these extremes took a people might break our anonymity long time. wide open. As a rule, the average newcomer As the AA groups multiplied, so wanted his family to know immediately did anonymity problems. Enthused what he was trying to do. H e also over the spectacular recovery of a wanted to tell others who had tried brother alcoholic, we’d sometimes dis- to help him-his doctor, his minister, cuss those intimate and harrowing as- and close friends. .As lie gained con- TRADITION pects of his case meant for his sponsor’s ear alone. The aggrieved victim fidence, he felt it right to explain his new way of life to his employer and would then rightly declare that his business associates. When opportuni- TWELVE trust had been broken. When such stories got into circulation outside of ties to be helpful came along, he found he could talk easily about AA to al- AA, the loss of confidence in our ano- most anyone. These quiet disclosures nymity promise was severe. It fre- helped him to lose his fear of the alcoquently turned people from us. Clearly, holic stigma, and spread the news of every AA member’s name-and story, AA’s existence in his community. too–had to be confidential, if he Many a new man and woman came to “Amnytrri/y is /he s p i r i d formdatiou o/ all o w Traditioizs, wished. This was our first lesson in A A because of such conversations. ever rewirrdirrg us to place prirzcip1e.r above personalities.” the practical application of anonymity. Though not in the strict letter of ano- With characteristic intemperance, nymity, such communications were well however, some of our newcomers cared within its spirit. THEity spiritual substance of anonym- less groups of alcoholics were’ secret is sacrifice. Because AA’s societies. New prospects could find us not at all for secrecy. They wanted to shout AA from the housetops, and But it became apparent that the word-of-mouth method was too lim, Twelve Traditions repeatedly ask us to only through a few trusted friends. give up personal desires for the com- The bare hint of publicity, even for did. Alcoholics barely dry rushed about ited. Our work, as such, needed to be mon good, we realize that the sacri- our work, shocked us. Though ex- bright-eyed, button-holing anyone who publicized. Thc AA groups would have ficial spirit-well symbolized by ano- drinkers, we still thought we had to would listen to their stories. Others to reach quickly as many despairing nymity-is the foundation of them all. hide from public distrust and con- hurried to place themselves before alcoholics as thcy could. Consequently It is AA’s proved willingness to make tempt. microphones and cameras. Sometimes many groups began to hold meetings these sacrifices that gives people their When the big book appeared in they got distressingly drunk and let which were open to interested friends high confidence in our future. 1939, we called it “Alcoholics Anony- their groups down with a bang. They and the public, so that the average citi- But in the beginning, anonymity was mous.” Its foreword made this reveal- had changed from AA members into zen could see for himself just what not born of confidence; it was the ing statement: “It is important that we AA show-offs. AA was all about. The response to child of our early fears. Our first nanie- remain anonymous because wc are too This phenomenon of contrast redly tllesc rncetin,~~ wits w;~rmly sympa-

thetic. Soon groups began to receive couldn’t afford to take the chance of requests for AA speakers to appear letting self-appointed members present before civic organizations, church themselves as messiahs representing groups, and medical societies. Provided AA before the whole public. The proanonymity was maintained on these moter instinct in us might be our unplatforms, and reporters present were doing. If even one publicly got drunk, cautiqned against the use of names or or was lured into using AA’s name for pictures, the result was fine. his own purposes, the damage might Then came our first few excursions be irreparable. At this altitude (press, into major publicity, which were radio, films, and television), anonymbreath-taking. Cleveland’s Plain Dealer ity-one-hundred-percent anonymityarticles about us ran that town’s mem- was the only possible answer. Here bership from a few into hundreds principles would have to cOme before overnight. The news stories of Mr. personalities, without exception. Rockefeller’s dinner for Alcoholics These experiences taught us that Anonymous helped double our total anonymity is real humility at work. It membership in a year’s time. Jack is an all-pervading spiritual quality Alexander’s famous Saturday Evening which today keynotes AA life every- Post piece made AA a national institu- where. Moved by the spirit of anotion. Such tributes as these brought nymity, we try to give up our natural opportunities for still more recogni- desires for personal distinction as AA tion. Other newspapers and maga- members both among fellow alcoholics zines wanted AA stories. Film com- and before the general public. As we panies wanted to photograph us. lay aside these very human aspirations, Radio, and finally television, besieged we believe that each of us takes part us with requests for appearances. What in the weaving of a protective mantle should we do? which covers our whole society and As this tide offering top public ap- under which we may grow and work proval swept in, we realized that it in unity. could do us incalculable good or great W e are sure that humility, expressed harm. Everything would depend upon by anonymity, is the greatest safeguard how it was channeled. W e simply that AA can ever have.

(Editor’s Note: This brings to a close “The Twelve Traditions,” a new series of explanation. Bill has also completed a new interpretation of the Twelve Steps. These will not appear in The Grapevine, but we will soon announce publication date and details of a new book containing both the series on the Traditions and the Steps. Authorized by the 1952 General Service Conference, the book will be published by Works Publishing, Inc.)

AA Grapevinr, May 1953

A Grapevine Milestone Report Within a year, by 1936, there was Or, from another western state a second group . .. the Akron few (Editor’s note: the forty-eight states and some folks from Cleveland. are completely represented on a nice,

Group Problemr n -. I Groups, two; world membership, fifteen persons. In the slow, early growth of AA, there was no count kept of the even, problem basis) : “We feel (fifteen of us) that our group has gotten too big and too impersonal. Can we number of groups. But the number start another group in this small city?” of group problems defied counting, Or, “A member is giving us some old-timers say. trouble. When he gets up to speak, Problems ? N o n um e r i c a l record he preaches …he does not talk AA, is kept of the l e t t e r s that come he talks sermons. What can we do?” into the AA General Service Head- The answers . . . by return mail, quarters in New York that begin . . . suggestions based on the Twelve Tra- “In our group we have a problem”; ditions and used by other groups or simply, “Would you please give us where each problem has been known a ruling for our group on an importand met. To the group with the talkant matter?” ing non-alcoholic . . . yes, any two To each letter, though, there is an persons can have a meeting, closed or immediate answer – and no ruling! open. Closed meetings are a regular The answers are prompt, friendly, and part of AA in many communities. offer the specific or composite experi- “Can we start another group?” . . . ence other groups have had in solving if someone hadn’t started another similar problems. But no rulings, for group, we would all be in the same the General Service Headquarters is in Akron kitchen . . . or would we all I no sense a governing office; it is a ser- be? T o the “preacher’s group,” “This vice office operating primarily as an sort of situation is not unusual. In information center. It is neither police- such matters, the group conscience is man nor judge. the best guide. That is, why not dis- Let’s take a “for instance”. Group cuss the affair with the group as a ITH publication of the 1953 AA World Group Directory it is announced . Problem . . as sent in by a woman whole . .. remembering that each of W that there are, in this eighteenth year of Alcoholics Anonymous, at least 5,243 separate groups of members of AA holding meetings on some regular alcoholic from a western state, “I am writing you for some advice . . we. us works the program in a different way.” basis and regarding themselves as local, autonomous gatherings of persons who are having a little trouble with a non- The group problems are mostly old want to stay sober. And regarding themselves as units of an international AA. alcoholic woman, the wife of our sec- . . . . mostly natural . . mostly in- A total of 5,243 groups-and all from the first group of three who sat over retary. She does not believe in keeping evitable growing . pains. Many are coffee cups in an Akron, Ohio kitchen and wondered if they could pass the im- anything to herself, and if she sees a simply the familiar stage known to mediate wondrousness of their own sobriety on to perhaps a fourth human member on the street she will talk loud old-timers as “viewing with alarm for being. all about AA. Could we have closed the good of the movement.” They are That was the first group problem: the simple necessity of finding one more meetings so that she would not know generally s y m p t o m s of local AA person who would listen, and believe, and try. everything that went on ?” weather . . . attendance has fallen off

at meetings, personality difficulties Stein’s “a rose is a rose is a rose.” A York could stop the well-meaning but . trial and error . . survival by test, bruising member. New York could not and often failure by evasion of the come up to the surface, or financial group is a group is a group when it stop him, but to the group it could sug- test. As AA reached across the land problems arise. is more than one “loner.” It becomes gest that some Twelfth Step work on there was the precedent of experience Most common problems are of the listed and counted in the annual the violent one might be in order. . . . “This is what happened in De- Who class, the What class or the Can World Directory (confidential hand- troit; Texas found this out.” With Can a group accept a contribution specie. book for secretaries) when it has vol- the widening of the life-giving pool untarily registered itself with AA’s of money collected by a community “Who is a legal and acceptable drive? The money was collected in of experience there came the Tradi- International General Service Head- tions . . . twelve suggested steps for member of our group?” A Texas group canisters passed around in barrooms. quarters in New York. group survival and group recovery. has had some election trouble, and the . . . Can our group run a raffle to raise letter comes in with a claim that “those “Can a group rent rooms from an funds for an intergroup office? Basic among the Traditions is the who met were not members in good Alano club for its meetings?” And the Can a group insist on a new mem- right of each group to be wrong . . . standing, and the meeting was at- answer goes back: “From this distance ber having some church affiliation? if it insists! “Each group shall be auwe can’t see that there is anything in What punitive action can a group take tonomous, except in matters affecting tended by picked members only.” In this case, an answer said: “We have what you are doing that is contrary to against a person who spoke in public other groups or AA as a whole” and an organization that really isn’t an our Traditions . . . you people know as a self-styled member of AA, when “for our group purpose there is but organization in the slightest legal what is best for your local situation, he had been drinking the same day? one ultimate authority-a loving God sense. . . . About the membership busi- ever bearing in mind our sole purpose as he may express himself in our group Less spectacular, far more common ness. There is no rule about it whatso- is that of helping the sick alcoholic conscience. Our leaders are but trusted are the group organizational problems servants-they do not govern.” to recover through the twelve sugever. Generally, a n d Traditionally gested steps of our program.” Another . . . How many do we need for a . This has proven safe enough . . to speaking, an alcoholic is a member of quorum to elect a group secretary? can question in the same mail relates the number of 5,243 groups, who in AA if he says so. H e doesn’t sign any- Can our group contribute to a local to an Alanon Club that has a neon sign perfect harmony . . . or in squabble thing or pledge anything. Nor is he fund drive for a hospital and sign the inducted, or given credentials. H e is at street level reading “Alanon.” “Can and strife . . . in a morass of rules merely regarded as a member if that’s you walk in under that sign and retain contribution, “From AA, this city”? How long does a member have to be . . . or in an utter simplicity of pawhat he says he is, and he acts that your anonymity?” An answer pointed tience, helpfulness, tolerance and huin the group before he can vote? mility . . . are carrying the message. way. Our guess is that he has no out that in the New York area alone, nearly every meeting place has a sign Problems? In a minor way, yes. In In the widely scattered and now im- ‘legal’ status at all.” the major and broader way they are a “AA” to direct members properly. mense family of AA, quarrels come “What size should a group be?” natural part of evolution. There are and go, problems emerge and vanish. Can non-alcoholics attend closed no growing pains except that there “What really constitutes a group, and In our groups, 128,361 of us are meetings? Particularly, could the hus- has been growth . . . and there are no when are a few people actually a strong, so long as within our groups band of an alcoholic woman accompany problems except where there has been group?” The size problem seems to de- we remember that “our common welher to closed sessions . . . some mem- the stirring of progress. pend not upon numerical size or count, fare should come first; personal rebers said ministers or doctors were perbut on the size of sincerity. Two memmissible, but not a mere husband. The For their answers there was first covery depends upon unit^.” bers have kept sober and have rebuilt lady’s case was that she needed his their lives into usefulness through eight years of precisely the two of presence for her reassurance. I A note from Heletz B., General Secretary for ‘ G Y O U ~ S themselves as a group; twenty, 200 A member had beaten up a slippee Please tell us your group problems and how they have been met . . . have sometimes failed. The query as . . . physical force would make the failures and successes. Help carry the group message by sharing your to when a few people are actually a errant remember his slip better, he experience with your General Service Headquarters. group is somewhat like Gertrude claimed. The group wondered if New

AA GRAPEVINE, clarify the matter. W e refer not to contacts with outside key members and the group which merely thinks it isn’t AA events, my mental fingers on the group’s Twelfth Step work, personal Real Rotation-Or doing so good, but to the many groups that have been traveling backwards for n yedr or. more. (From here we notes of group value, and writing to request the leaders of other groups to contact him directly instead of second- I will take turns in the first person

bks? ‘Back Sat”I n d i ~ e n ~ a singular.) Last year I found myself in the position of having to start a group or of hand through me. And then before long the group took on a second spurt of growth, better than the first. not having meetings to go to. When But here’s the catch. I have to adall my so-called experience did not mit not giving up my sense of posavail, I gave up, then God started the sessiveness toward the group. Our corgroup. It grew like wildfire for four respondence with the New York office Editor’s note: Fresh from the Group-vine comes a discussion and our area secretary had become a ; of a threat to group growth … the personal observations, months and then leveled off in a beau- ~ i f u lfellowship. At our half-year party steady flow, and I was on the inside and opinions, of two widely-traveled Old Timers. Incidentally, just when i s an Old Timer? somcone mentioned that there were no of any Twelfth Step work involving brand new men, in spite of the in- group mail, and all the other group creasing death rate from alcoholism in matters so dear to an AA heart. I the locality. Something reminded me notified the various secretaries and of a hotel room session long ago, event chairmen of our new leader’s T this soliloquy HEREmay be too much gristle in enced guidance. Almost all groups for many to chew we have known regularly change sec- when one of the “First Ten” stated that he did not believe that anyone name and address, but it didn’t take. And second notices didn’t change our through to the meat, but in spite of retaries and chairmen. Too often the could stay “in the saddle” over AAs file cards in most of those places. inept pens, two of us would like to newly chosen become only the nominal for more than six months, without the Then, to put it mildly, I found mydiscuss the underlying cause of that leaders of the group, without a single “governed” beginning to develop sad- self “judging”; not turning an occageneral feeling in many groups, as we member recognizing the underlying dle-sores. (We believe h e meant sional piece of mail over to him besee it, of lengthy frustration. cause. Of course it is suspected, but “guided” instead of “governed.”) cause I thought it time wasting, or not W e have been asked too often lately suspicion for us is always one of the At the next meeting I attempted to good for the group, or because I in too many places: “Why doesn’t this three little steps to degenerative hate. turn over the leadership to a lad whose wanted to handle that particular matgroup grow?” and we have only The situation usually begins when new serene cnthusiasm could be an ter myself. Of course I had the acshrugged our shoulders with a cheer- “the best secretary or chairman the extra asset to any group. He squawked, cepted experience to do it best! Best ing word to the leader, instead of giv- group ever had” steps down, and does and was a little frightened and for for whom? ? ing the answer that “something may not go through the difficult process of be wrong with your group, and you’re turning over everyihing to the new three weeks the group fought my step- There are three cases in my book ‘ the only man who can change it.” leaders, i n c l u d i n g his intangibles, ping down, even to the extent of an where the “unofficial chairman’s” per- This is an unaccusing attempt to pride in the job, and the group’s de- accusation about shirking my duty. manent slip caused the group to have spread out on the bar the increasingly pendence upon him. The tricks of in- But I stepped down. its first growing pains. And several common occurrence of one or two dispensability are instinctive to us The new leader was still a little lost related occurrences that can’t be menstable members of a group becoming “dips6enthusiacs” – rather than pur- at his second meeting, and on seeing tioned because they are individual its most dependable nucleus and never posefully thought out. why, I found it a real task to turn enough to point an accusing finger, letting go their leadership and experi- A couple of concrete examples may over to him everything that had been however humorous. useful in my chairmanship, including Every densely populated area has

its pair of mighty swell paternal- own r e a p p o i n t m e n t , and since have attended meetings during the past that it will grow. ists, trying to garner a larger group “younger representatives to local head- decade. Most of the private excuses Too often some members evanescunder their alternate chairmanships by quarters are not so cognizant of great for maintaining “background director- ently don’t make the grade in the moving their meeting place into a things in the past.” ships” are as valid as those we used splitting of a small group. more AA-populated region about once For one so-called intergroup, in- for taking the first drink. If your group has been consistently a year. But we give them a pat on the cluding several counties at that time, It has taken us several years to re- not holding new men for too long a back because they are out in the open two persons actually chose by invita- alize that background secretarism or time, and you are the “guiding light”, with their possessiveness. tion the more than fifty representa- chairmanship causes a state of affairs it might be time for someone to do T o quote an old Grapevitze: “The tives. For a long time in that district whereby the fledgling AA does not more praying, and less thinking, workbackground boss who never lets the the rank and file heard little about acquire quite as many close friends as ing and smooth directing, even though group forget about the two who be- outside AA, with exceptions of course. he may need. Can you fathom it? the latter seems impossible to avoid. came secretary and chairman and Interesting contingent matters formerly Maybe the yearlings need a freer op- and when being accused of shirking promptly slipped, or about the mem- discussed at regular meetings were portunity to make minor changes for or late disinterest, hurts to the core. ber who never had enough spare cash saved for special interest at the priv- the worse in your old small group so J.K. and J.B., U.S.A. to get drunk on until he was put in ileged little conclaves. The entire ascharge of the kitty.” sembly seemed to feel that its infor- The steering committee of one, who mation was something to be guarded says he prefers a small group. (It’s for the proper cliques. I was guilty easier to control by soft suggestion.) too. Anyone of us has the traits to This is not as common as we thought get that way. we first recognized, so be careful not On the other hand, one finds in to hurt a right guy who completely some groups at the closed meeting, on lets’ the group have its will in spite the literature table, a blank loose-leaf of his founded fears. notebook, up to date with Headquart- In several very real instances we ers bulletins and data for all members have found the control to be the non- . to refer to . . usually unecessary, but alcoholic wife of the seemingly back- just another thing to make the postground boss. She wants to maintain novice feel that he really belongs. the prestige of their position in a Both of us were once the lower major group, never understanding just power behind the scene for a period, how the new man is the most import- in adjacent groups by coincidence; we ant situation within any group func- need not tell our sins to active pation. These are the wives who answer ternalists if they are capable of avoidthe phone in the daytime and make ing a white inventory. it nicely difficult for the stranger to W e will not discuss the small “capfind a certain meeting place on the tive group” which through the uninright day. tentional instinctive defense mechan- And the rare area or intergroup isms (wow) in the minds of its secretary who almost forces groups to founders, prevents the formation of keep the oldest hands on the reins by other AA gatherings in counties where subtle intonations, to insure his or her actually hundreds of willing prospects ,

MAY 1953

(Edhor’s Nore: As prornised last t,rotith, we are pleased to bring you u special advartre notice jrom General Service Headquarters announcing pr/blica/ion of ‘Bill’s new book, “The Twelve S i p s md the Twelve Traditions.” The Traditions appeared serially in The Grapevine in the p d twelve issues.) After nearly eighteen months of writing, editing, and pre-publication detail, “The Twelve Steps anh the Twelve Traditions” is about to be released. In this new volume, regarded by those familiar with the project as the most important AA publication since the “Big Book” tirst appeared in 1939, Bill draws upon his long experience, and upon that of other early members, to set forth his profound yet spirited interpretation of the fundamental principles of AA. Step by Step, Tradition by Tradition-in nearly 200 deeply stirring pages-Bill otlers his unique insight into the full meaning of each of AA’s tested guideposts . . . the Twelve Steps through which individuals have achieved sobriety and the Twelve Traditions through which our group structure has been maintained and strengthened. Advance interest has been so great that arrangements have been made to issue the book in two e d i t i o n ~ n efor distribution by AA groups, and another for bookstore distribution to the general public by Harper and Brothers. AA retains full control and copyright ownership of both editions through Works Publishing, Inc. When the book is released for sale in late May or early June, the bookstore price will be 32.75, and our agreement with Harper’s is that no books will be retailed for less than that price. T o AA groups oaly, the book will be sold for $2.25, enabling the groups to realize fifty cents on each copy re-sold to individuals. (Although two-thirds of General Service Conference delegates in a recent poll felt that this book ought to be sold without profit to the groups, to help build an adequate Foundation reserve, neither Bill nor thox at Headquarters felt this to be sdiicient consent on a matter of such importance; hence the above discount.) Orders are now being accepted, by mail only, and all shipments will k made PS soon after May 10 as possible.

J U N E 1953 i ‘ I -you are a elf-identified alcoholic. COMMENTS, QUERIES, EXPERIENCES Anyone who labels himself as an alcoholic evidently sincerely believes that he is qualified, and in no case is his qualification to be questioned by a fellow member. In the name of mercy no member should be denied the oppor-

From the Grass Roots tunity of membership, for no member of AA that I know is known to be seated at the right-hand of God in judgment of another member in any particular. It is extremely presumptuous fot any AA member to question another’s legitimacy of qualification. WHO’S AN ALCOHOLIC? The fact that he has identified himself with the Society should satisfy the Have you met Mr. or Mrs. AA- self-ider~tified alcoholics. These are most intolerant. who wants to decide whether or not those persons who have the courage, I.C.S., Detroit, M i d . you are an alcoholic? (Don’t let it if you like, to face up to the obvious throw you!) fact; or those who are fearful that “I don’t believe you are an alcoholic they cannot go on trying to deceive THE ULTIMATE DICTATOR anyway,” she said. themselves any longer as to their in- “And who asked you?” I countercd. ability to control their compulsion sub- Imagine an alcoholic confronted by sequent to the first drink. THERE’S a cartoon by the New Yorker contributor, George Price, which shows a room in tion what once seemed infallible until at about eighteen parental another alcoholic who has the effront- Those fortunate enough to have the authority has fallen miserably by ery to question his qualifications? And fortitude to confront the fact that they which all hell has broken loose; the wayside, most teachers have yet there are those who do just that. utterly lack the ability to control their animals, people and things are become ordinary human beings, and Generally, but not always, they arc ;~lcollolicintake havc an advantage-a mixed together into a super-bedlam. there are left only the mysterious comparatively newcomers to the ranks self-asserted agreemerlt with a situation The caption, spoken by a man who They who run the machinery of of AA. “Eager beavers” I call ’em that provides a springboard for some i s trying to be efficient, goes, laws and politics. You go along but their burning spirit of militant kind of positive action. Those afraid “Who’s in charge here?” believing in powers that Run evangelistic fervor sometimes scares to go on drinking because they fear There is a note of pathos in his Things, faceless ones who are away people who really need the pro- thcy cannot l o n g r deceive even them- humapcry, an attempt t o find some- governments, or big men who are gram. Historically they are related to selves as to their ability to “take it or one who i s competent to bring or- the ones to pull wires and make the Crusaders who made the heathcn leave it alone” also have a starting der out ‘of chaos. There must he policies. accept Christianity at the point of a point for action because fear itself pro- somebody who can be appealed to broadsword whether they liked it or vides a springboard for them, too. who will set things in order again. One day you discover that the understood it or not. It doesn’t make much difference When you are a small child au- world is in what seems to be an One thing that should be kept which motive ac-tuated your identifica- thority i s everywhere; in parents, irretrievable mess. “Who’s in uppermost in mind of those in A A tinn with AA. The fact that you are teachers, older children and grown- charge here?” you. ask in despair. (and out of it) is that Alcollolics co~npcllcd to join the socicty volrrn- ups in general. Higher Authority If you are really adult you accept Anonymous is comprised entirely of ~ n r j l yrcmovcs any question of doubt resides in The President, The Gov- the answer, although it terrifies ernment, and People In Uniforms. you. Who’s in charge here? — As you grow up you begin to ques- You are.

November 1953

About Tradition Five Each y o u p has but one primary purpose . . . to carry its masagc 1 to h e dcoholic who still su6ers. un broad, wick-open requirement for membership brings us many with 0 just ‘honest.” m honest desire to stop drinking, and some who even delete

There are those who after severe birthpains come up with “I un an alcoholic,” but some are in danger of breaking their urn patting themselves on the back for their accomplisluntnts. Others latch on to only put of Step Twelve and join the eager beavers. So we have a11 kinds of munhrr to make up AA groups … good, bad or indifferent. 1 Forty per cent of AA groups do not contribute to our General Service Headquarters. Only twenty-five per cent of the groups contributed to the Third Gencnl Service Conference last April. I like the old story. A minister visiting a poor country church to conduct service one Sunday noticed on entering the church a small box with the urd: “Give what you un.” He put in a half-dollar. After services he was informed that there was no money to pay any part of his expenses but he could take the contents of the little box. He found it to be a half-dollar. On the way out his son u i 4 “See Daddy, if you’d put in more you’d taken out more.” Bill, I ~ n ~ r n Beacb, Pla.

i AA GRAPEVINE, ‘FEBRUARY 1954 none other than anonymity. One of AA who has shed his anonymity and our founders, Bill W., set down in suffers a relapse may keep others From the Groupvine writing some important thinking on away. D o as you will with your own this subject back in 1947 when the anonymity-but remember, others may . first booklet was published on AA cherish it. traditions. Many new members will Jack D. in “The Arid Pilgrim,” possibly be attracted to our fellowship Fort Worth, Texas because of publicity connected with the two events we have cited above. Let us, therefore, each take another A LETTER TO A A s WE D I V I D E . . . look at what Bill had to say of this important AA tradition: I feel so strongly upon the subject I am about to write that I may be “Any who would drop their ano- T O MULTIPLY nymity must reflect that they may set using strong language before I get through. I am one of those people a precedent which could eventually who get mad about things-bad trait. destroy a valuable principle. W e must But on the other hand somebody has never let any immediate advantage to get mad about things in order to shake us in our determination to keep bring them to light; or at least to members complain about HEN are over thirty. In Rochester, N. Y., W the failure of their group to six out of twenty-one are over thirty members.” intact such a really vital tradition. “Great modesty and humility are refresh the public mind. W e hear from all sides that this grow they should realize that the needed by every AA for his own pergrowth of the group is like the I think this is a good thought for or that group cannot “afford-or, manent recovery. If these virtues are flatly put, has not enough money in amoeba: it divides to multiply. There those complaining about the growth such vital needs to tlie individual, so are approximately 120,0oo members of the group. the treasury-to send in their yearly must they be to AA as a whole. This donations to headquarters. I am not in 5,000 groups or an average of R.R.T., R N I ~ C ~VNC&I ~ I O N ~ principle of anonymity before the gen- going to remind you that literature twenty-four, and when the group gets eral public can, if we take it seriously to over thirty there is only a chance has to be published, that there must’ ANONYMITY I S VITAL enough, guarantee the Alcoholics be some center to guide us shunblefor one chairman per month, or at Anonymous movement these sterling most fifty weekly chairmen, and the Two important events lie ahead for bums and a lot of other things, for attributes forever. Our public relations you know it as well as I do. But I old members and some new members, Fort Worth Group No. One-the policy should mainly rest upon the not having active duty, fail to con- opening of the new clubhouse on will remind you that without headprinciple of attraction and seldom, if quarters we would all soon be flountinue their interest; whereas, if a new West Fifth St. and the 1954 State ever, upon promotion.” group is formed these people can AA Convention. Doubtless, AA will dering around and a lot of us in sad keep active. be much in the public eyc of Fort As Bill went on to point out, the shape again. Note that even in New York City Worth during the twelve-month pe- general idea of anonymity encourages Nobody has the right to get up one-half of the groups are thirty or riod that lies ahead. Such being the alcoholics and the families of alco- and suggest any sum of money for under. In Florida with 110 groups, case, we felt it well to touch upon holics to approach us for help. W e members to contribute, but for the only twenty are over thirty and a subject that perhaps is greatly must keep their problems confidential, love of our sobriety and fairness let’s thirty are under ten. In Cleveland neglected in AA meetings and coffee and if they see us wearing our AA loosen up and drop a few more coins only twenty-eight of fifty-eight groups table discussions, the subject being membership on our sleeves, they most in the basket . . . even a dollar bill likely will turn from our doors. W e once in a while! Look at it this way: *The writefr figures based on 1913 Directory must continually remember that an all right, you’re too busy to attend

meetings regularly (though of course For any fairly sitahle and wellyou wouldn’t have any business were established group to be bankrupt is a it not for AA). Then when you can disgrace. A scandal. Something to find time to drop into a meeting in a hang our heads about. No one wants bored and patronizing way (smother- to create any hardship for those with ing ,yawns, quite forgetting what a limited means, but surely everybody bore you once were), why not put in who has gained sobriety through AA something to cover those meetings and has a job can contribute a little , missed? Then there are the old-timers generously. who have already “heard it all,” no We are spoiled because headquarters longer need (?) AA, who rarely go does not nag at us about money. Is too to meetings. Well, they are up on timid, in fact. In this material world their pedestal of good behavior and we have got to have money to run anyprosperity because of what-A A, thing at all. For those who are upon that’s what ! How did they get sober ? a plane too exalted to think of “filthy Where would they be today if not lucre,” then let them think of money sober? Let’s pause and think, folks. as a means of holding together the Surely these graduates might manage group, paying for the hall and literato sli@ a little money into the group ture and refreshments and the group’s basket now and then-in gratitude, if contribution toward the general good nothing else. of AA. Think also: what did we spend on alcohol in the “good old days” of our If we can’t overcome our stingimisery and disgrace? Couldn’t we ness in any other way, let’s do it in a pitch into the hat at least a tenth of purely selfish way, recalling the promthat?’ Or would it break us? ise of the Wisest of Men, that as With the exception of the very new one gives he receives. So instead of new-comers, all AAs, by the Grace of groaning when we drop a measly buck God, dint of sobriety, and the help in the hat, we can say, “Oh well, I’ll . of others, are earners, have jobs or get it back pressed down and running some sort of incomes (which we over!” would not have without the help of Which we have been getting right AA in our forlorn days) ; then surely along, of course. God is not indebted we can share a small portion of this to us. The shoe’s on the other foot! with our AA group and headquarters. Anon, Florida

AA GRAPEVINE, APRIL 1954 but only enough to encourage further Some of the questions discussed reading and interest by the individual were: From the “Groupvine” members of the group. 1. What is the difference between The response of the members was an alcoholic and a “drunk”? Which excellent, many suggesting that the is the worse? series be repeated over again. 2. Is there anything morally wrong Anon., Glendale-Burbank Group, with taking a drink? Glendale, California 3. Is it necessary for an M member to go to meetings and to associate with other AA members? Why? RACINE TRIES NEW VENTURE 4. Should an AA member go to Feeling that a new style of open church instead of attending AA meetmeeting would increase enthusiasm in ings ? T R A D I T I O N S ARE I M P O R T A N T our group and create new interest 5. Where and when was Alcoholics among non-alcoholics, we presented a Anonymous founded? What is its IN GLENDALE panel of six of our own members who story ? discussed various phases of the AA 6. My husband has returned to AA program in answer to questions which after one or two slips but has now were submitted. One member acted as been sober for ten months. He continmoderator. ually reads books by authors who try E members of the Glendale- presented to him in an interesting Two weeks before this open meet- to explain how these drinking habits W B u r b a n k Group are well aware light. ing, the forthcoming program was an- come about. Is it necessary for him to of the importance of our book Alco- Therefore at our committee meeting nounced to the group, and unsigned do all this reading? I am afraid of holics Anonymous, and the older the last October, it was decided that one written questions of a11 types were re- another slip as he still hasn’t found member the greater the interest. In of our older members, who had started quested. A few days before the meet- the answer to the “why” of all these fact, here in Southern California most his membership before the Traditions ing a newspaper article announced the things. of the groups read the preamble and were written and who had had the program and again anonymous ques- 7. Should I take AA home and e p the Twelve Suggested Steps, from opportunity of studying them from the tions were requested. The meeting, plain it to my family? Why or why Chapter Five on “How It Works,” beginning, should take the assignment which was held during the holiday not? at all their meetings. This reading of briefly commenting on one Tradi- season, was well attended and com- 8. Is it necessary for my husband from Chapter Five is usually done by tion at each of our regular Wednes- ments from members and friends were to spend so much time at this club? one of the newer members of the day night open meetings. This series most gratifying. What can possibly be the interest if group and is a start in that member’s was begun in November, continuing This type of activity stemmed from one little place? participation. through January. , the feeling that there are many ques- Many other questions were in the With the publishing of the new The older member’s brief comment tions which members hesitate to bring box. All of them were serious and book Twelve Sfepr and Twelve Tradi- on each Tradition ran from seven to before the group because of the alco- thoughtful. As a result we will plan tions last year, we took a similar stand ten minutes and did not interfere with holic’s natural tendency toward shyness more of these meetings in the future. on the importance of the Twelve Tra- the regularly scheduled meeting of and reluctance to identfy himself with Since we met with success we wanted ditions, but our older members could each leader. H e did not attempt, of some problems. Likewise, wives, hus- to pass the idea along to groups who see that the average member might not course, to cover each Tradition as com- bands, and friends are hesitant about haven’t tried it. realize their meaning unless it was pletely as is done in our new book, presenting their questions. M.M., Racine, Wisconsin

SEPTEMBER 1954

the weak; for those who are sound in ual, or sudden, or it may shade od mind and body to help those afflicted; between the two. A movie film in slow for those who live in the sunlight motion of the blooming of a flower in dispel shadows wherever they shows the slow swelling of the bloom, lengthen.” and then a sudden burst into flower. People I don’t think Markham and Morris had the alcoholic in mind when they wrote those words, but they certainly Glass Houses fit into the AA program, in my opinion. . . You and I . we’re both good and evil, self-sacrificing and selfish. W e enjoy free will to the extent that we can makc decisions in life, but we can’t change our chemistry or our relatives or our physical endowrnents-all It is both gradual and sudden. So it of which were determined for US at is with us alcoholics; but it may be a birth. Free will and determination arelittle slower for somc-the drinking ou and I-we’re sober today-wc Engraved on the base of the Statue Ymay be drinking members tomor- of Liberty in New York Harbor is this like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt us represents determinism. The members. What the drinking member so often row. Let’s rcmcmber that. And let’s way we play our hand represents free forgets is that, while every person rcmember, too, that we’re all striving Give me your tired, your poor, will. How we play the AA hand is for progress, not perfection. Your huddled masses yearning to should delight in making a couragebreathe free. the difference between continued so- ous and self-reliant effort to live up to My name is Joe F., and I’m just an- The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. briety and being a drinking member. his capabilities, there are well springs other lucky drunk who hasn’t had 3 drink today. But because I’vc slipped Send thew, the homeless, tempest-tossed, Nobody can be sure when disaster, of power outside himself that can be to me: disappointment, injustice or humilia- tapped, if he will avail himself of since coming into AA in March of 1 lift my lamp beside tl?e golden door. 1948, I’m here to plead for the fellow 1 like to think of the alcoholic as tion may come to him through no fault them. That power is God . . . as we membcr who’s having trouble. If the an amalgam of all these unfortunatc of his own. Nor can one be guaran- understand Him. day ever comes that I’ll be smug about traits, and I ask myself, “Is this fellow- teed against one’s own mistakes and The great tragedy of life is not to ship of AA going to extend a less failures. But the way we meet life isbe needed, and that feeling of not bemy sobriety, may the good Lord help me . . . I’ll need it. warm welcomc than the Statue of ours to choose; and when integrity, ing needed, not being wanted, plays a Liberty?” fortitude, dignity and compassion aremost important part in the drinking The drinking member’s desire for sobriety and a ncw way of life is just Edwin Markham, the poet wrote: member’s life. He forgets that as long our choice, the things that can happen as sincere to him as ours is to us, but There is a destiny that makes us brothers, to us lose their power over US. as he is able and willing to do things he seems to have a bottomless capacity None goes his way alone. That’s where the drinking member for people, he will always be needed, All that we send into the lives of others. always wanted. But it is up to us-you usually falls down: his spirit is willfor making mistakes, and for creating Comes back into our own. miscry and unhappincss, both within And Newbold Morris, a former and I t 0 make him feel needed and ing enough, but his flesh is weak, his himself and his fellowmen. I know president of the City Council of the wanted. thinking crooked, and his spiritual faith City of New York. has this to say: not yet strong enough completely to let Our own Marty M. writes: “I bewhat I’m talking about. I’ve been “ltis for those who are strong to help go-urd let God. lieve that trying to help my fellowman there. – – personality change can be g n d – is one of the straightest roads to spirit-

ual growth. It is a road everyone can fellowsi~ipof men and women who take. One doesn’t have to be beautiful share their experience, strength and or gifted, or rich or powerful, in order hope with each othcr-and that into offer a helping hand to one’s fellow cludes the drinking member, the guy sufferers. And I believe that one call or gal who’s having trouble. If we walk with God by doing just that.” believe in God as we understand Him, Surely we don’t considcr ourselves if we try to act towards others as we so much better that we can’t spare a think He wants us to act, then surely little help for the guy who’s still suf- we’re going to help that drinking menifering even though he’s trying. Can ber hold on to his hope; we’re go in^ we be truly happy while that guy is to help him to the best of our ability miserable, oppressed, sick in mind and to find that something he’s looking for. body, and unable to enjoy this new way And in his finding of that something, of life we call AA? I admit we’re not not only will he find his sobriety and our brother’s keeper, but I do think serenity, but we will have found anwe’re obligated to be his helper. other way to say “thanks” to our higher AA is a fellowship of men and power for our own sober and happy women who share their experience, life. strength and hope with each other, that Without AA the drinking member they may solve their common problem. hasn’t a chance. and help others to recover from Are we going to damn him to eternal alcoholism. Let me repeat that last hell, and at the same time jeopardize phrase, help others to recover from our own sobriety and happiness, bealcoholism. Isn’t that our drinking cause of resentment, impatience, lack brother whose only requirement for of understanding, and intolerance? AA membership is a desire to stop Let’s think it over carefully before we drinking? Let’s not kid ourselves into condemn that drinking member. Letis thinking that our job is over once we remember that there’s self-criticism as get the guy to a meeting. He needs a well as other-criticism. If we look at lot of training; he may break that others too much and not at ourselves, training, but as long as he keeps com- we’ll become dangerously smug and ing back our arms should be open sanctimonious reformers. But when wide, and our hearts always ready to we’re as good at telling what’s wrong encourage him. Maybe he’s looking for with ourselves as we are at telling something he hasn’t yet been able to what’s wrong with the other guy, find, but in the process of his search- then at long last we’ll really be ing, no experience will be wasted, un- “practicing these principles in all our less he runs out of-hope. affairs.” Let’s remember again that we’re a J. P., Ithara, N..Y.

4.’

OCTOBER this erroneous statement and it was Staff members handled over a hundprinted in a following edition as a re- red inquiries, largly from AA groups, traction. sent to Good Homekeeping magazine A visit to General Service Hcad- on Margaret Lee Runbeck’s article, quarters was made by a Venezuelan “A Letter to a Woman Alcoholic,” who was connected with that country’s which appeared in the March issue. coffee industry. As representing the These inquiries asked for reprints of Venezuelan Ministry of Justice, he had the article. Permission was subsebeen commissioned to inquire into the quently received for the article to be problem of alcoholism in this country, reprinted by AA Publishing, Inc. as a with a view to coping with it down pamphlet. there, Since AA was the first organi- We also received a visit from a Capzation he approached, it was immedi- tain in the New York City Police Com- Our Relations ately evident to him that the known missioner’s office. He’ was investigatalcoholics in his country could spear- ing every agency in the city which helps head a recovery program by starting alcoholics and planned to make a rewith the Public groups. W e got in touch with the port. He explained that his report Minister of Justice, sent him literature would place information in every preand put him in touch with the AA cinct as to where alcoholics might be group in Caracas. They are now referred, including AA. He was very working in close cooperation. enthusiastic about AA and expected to A series of four articles appeared visit the local Intergroup Ofice also. Third in a series by staff members at A A General Service Headquarters, reviewing the work done during 1953. These in the New York Daily News toward Throughout the year a number of reports were presented at the 4th General Service Conference the end of March. The author sub- manuxripts were sent to us for the in April. mitted these articles to us beforehand checking of vital statistics, a service in and incorporated all our suggestions in line with the functions of our public the final proof. The New York Inter- relations section. the past year 1,169in- ten by an AA member in which our group Office reported that inquiries A member of General Service Head- D uRlNG quiries came into General Service Tradition of anonymity was grossly lieadquarters, two-thirds of them from alcoholics doubled a peak day quarters staff attended a meetin at and tripled an average day the first the offices of the National Councrl of B I violated. The outcome was the refrom members of the clergy, medical writing of the last sixty pages, which week. The Intergroup received all the Protestant Episcopal Church. Repprofession, industry and students. The had to do with AA. All mention of these inquiries direct because we asked resentatives were present from other remaining third were from relatives AA as such was deleted with the grac- the author to give the local address for agencies on alcoholism and from the and friends of alcoholics and from in- referral. Church’s departments of promot’on, dividual alcoholics. Each inquiry was answered and with each letter from ious consent of both author and publisher. In February, an article appeared in Christian social relations, and t eir 1 TV Guide, a national television ma- a Mid-Western magazine which result- magazine, “Forth,” as well as two proone to three of our pamphlets were gazine, made a statement to the effect ed in hundred of inqkries coming to fessional public relations men who enclosed. that The Alcol~olic Foundation had Box 459 since that was the address volunteered their ~ ~ N ~ c c S . Work was A highlight in our public relations sanctioned a telecast which violated given in the article. Each i n q u i ~ rwas reviewed of the 1951, 1952 and 1953 occurred late in 1953. Staff members our Tradition of anonymity. A letter answered and referred to a group in his North Conway, New Hampshire Conmet with the publishers of a book writ- was written them calling attention to area. ferences on alcoholism and plans for I

the September 1954 Conference out- ally AA is always pleased to cooperate lined. The North Conway Conferenc- with any non-controversial program es are sponsored by the Ncw Hamp- but of course does not affiliate. W e shire State Department of Health Di- suggested that the slogan used to relate vision on Alcoholism for the clergy- AA to State and industrial programs nlcn of the New Hampshire State would also apply here: “AA always Council of Protestant Churchcs. When on tap, never on top.” asked how AA rclated to these church by M’rrian, formerly Public Reldionr programs, we explained that tradition- Serrefnry, now “rotated” ro a new job.

I * * * (There are eight requisites for contented living; health enough to make work a pleasure; wealth enough to support your needs; strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them; grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them; patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished; charity enough to see some good in your neighbor; faith enough to make real the things of God; hope enough to remove all anxious fear concerning the future. Goethe

A man walked out of an AA hall where a speaker was addressing a meeting. Someone in the corridor asked if the speaker had finished his speech. “Yes,” was the reply, “but he hasn’t stopped talking.” Bluenose Bulletin, Halifax, N o m S r o t h

– AA GRAPEVINE, NOVEMBER 1954 compelling. But in the early 1940’s friends, Bill presented the Traditions AA was too new, too widely scattered, and they were accorded unanimous to have a body of tradition that could approval. act as a guide to the solution of nu- Such is the sketchiest account of the merous problems that were arising. reasons for the Twelve Traditions and Moreover, the nature of AA practically their historical development. Today, precluded the possibility of tradition they are a very large part of AA, and, in unwritten form serving its purpose in the opinion of some, an inspired effectively. A group starting operations guide to action in the best intemt of at the South Pole or even at some less AA as a whole. Here is an unselfish remote outpost could not, so far from philosophy stressing our common welthe center of AA thought, be expected fare and the obligation to carry the to feel immediately the force of what- message to those who still suffer. Not ever tradition existed. intended for the professional do- There seemed to be a need therefore gooder or the scientific sociologist, for a written guide. A constitution the Traditions were written for and HOW AA TRADITIONS BEGAN doubtless seemed too formal, too in- by people who have suffered long and flexible for our type of fellowship. A deeply. They have a special applicawritten summary of the experience to bility to groups and to AA as an or- Fcderal constitution is a writtcn tions, clubhouses, public speeches, en- UR 0 document which describes the dorsements, outside issues, sanitaria, date, however, could be useful to al- ganization just as the Twelve Steps most everyone. Bill therefore epit- have a special applicability to the several branches of government and etc., etc. omized that experience in brief state- individual. enumerates their powers. Organizations Where were the answers to thtsc ments called Twelve Traditions and So long as the majority of members of many types, even some of the small- questions? AA had not grown accord- they appeared serially with accompany and groups preserve the spirit of the est, have seen the need, real or imag- ing to any preconceived human plan ing discussions in the 1946 issues of Traditions, AA will grow and prosper. ined, for a written constitution, a su- and so it had no written constitution. the then tabloid sized Grapevine. If the membership in any considerpreme law and guide to action. But a constitution need not in.fact be Throughout the next few years the able number ever deviates widely from When AA began, the founders did in written form. The rules and regula- Traditions were subjected to discussion that spirit, if outside distractions or not think in terms of creating a great tions defining the functions of govern- and testing. Then at the First Interworldwide organization. They were internal dissensions divert attention ment, according to one writer; “may national Conference of Alcoholics trying to stay sober and show a few exist in the no less binding form of Anonymous held in Cleveland, May from our spiritual objective, the inothers how to follow suit. Constitu- customs, traditions or conventions.” 28-30. – – ,1950 – and attended by 7,000 evitable consequence for alcoholics is tional law was not a current problem. Custom or tradition can have an members of AA, their famiiies and too terrible to contemplate. But as AA grew, especially after the unconscious observance that reflects en- 1941 Jack Alexander article in The forcement more complete than that Saturday Evening Post, groups sprang accorded any statute. Hardly anyone up with rapidity and at distances too would dare to smoke a cigarette in great for the influence of the original the front pew of a church while the members to be felt directly. Ques- preacher was delivering a sermon. “No tions arose about organization, paid Smoking” signs are quite unnKessary. employees, anonymity, finances, dona- Tradition can be persuasive if not

Anonymous Tradition Eleven: ON^ public relations policy is based on attraction rather Tradition Twelve: Anonymity is the than promotion; we need always main- spiritual foundation of all our Tradifain personal anonymity at /he level o f tions, ever remindin us to place prinpress, radio, and films. f ciple~above persona ities.

AS never before the struggle for power, importance and wealth is W e faced bout and found ourselves Were lhcse sacrifices? Yes. they on a new hi$ road where the direc- were. T o gain cnough humility and tearing civilization apart. Man against tton signs said never 3 word about self-respect to stay alive at all we.had man, family against family, group power, fame or wealth. The new signs to give up what had redly been our against group, nation against nation. read, “This way to sanity and serenity dearest possession-our ambitions and Nearly all those engaged in this -the price is self-sacrifice.” our illegitimate pride. fierce competition declare that their Our new book, The Twelve Steps But even this was not enough. Sacaim is peace and justice for them- d Ttuelce Traditiotzs, states that rifice had to go much further. Other selves, their neighbors and their na- “Anonymity is the greatest protection people had to benefit too. So we,took tions . . . girc us power and we shall our Socicty can ever have.” It says also on some Twelfth Step work; we behave justice; give us fame and we that “The spiritual substance of anon- gan to carry the AA message. We sacshall set a great example; give us p i t y is sacrifice.” rificed time, e n e r g and our own monmoney and we shall be comfortable Let’s turn to AA’s twenty years of ey to do this. W e couldn’t keep what and happy. People throughout the experience and see how we arrived at we had unless we g w e it away. world deeply believe that, and act ac- that bclicf, now expressed in our Tra- Did we demand that our new proscordingly. On this appalling dry bend- ditions Eleven and Twelve. pccts give us anything? Were we asker, society seems to be .staggering At thc beginning wc sacrificed a!- ing them for power over their lives, down a dead end road. The stop sign cohol. W e h.1~1 to, or it would have for fame for our good work or for is clearly marked. It says “Disaster.” killed us. But we couldn’t get rid of a cent of their money? No, we were What has this got to do with anon- ~lcohol unless we made other sacri- not. W e found that if we demanded ymity, and Alcoholics Anonymous? fices. Big shot-ism and phony thinking any of t h e x things our Twelfth Step W e of AA ought to know. Nearly had to go. W c had to toss self-justi- work went flat. So these natural deeveryone of us has traversed this iden- fication, sclf-pity, and anger right ~ u t sires had to be sacrificed; othenvise, tical dead end path. Powered by al- the window. W e had to quit the crazy our prospects received little or no cohol and self-justification, many of contest for personal prestige and big sobriety. Nor, indeed, did we. us havc pursued the phantoms of self- bank balances. W e had to take per- Thus we learned that sacrifice had importance and money right up to the sonal responsibility for our sorry state to bring a double benefit, or else littie disaster stop sign. Then came AA. and quit blaming others for it. at all. W e b e ~ a nto know about the

kind of giving of ourselves that had right to s q who our members s h ~ l l tremendous personal oration in thc those two-column spreads about “Bill no price tag on it. be. We have abandoned do-goodism, the Broker.” full name and picture. pess and Alcoholics Anonymous got When the first AA group took reform and paternalism. W e refuse much of the credit. His full name and the guv who was saving drunks by form, we soon learned a lot more of charitable money and prefer to pay picture, as 3 member of Ah, was seen the thousands ! this. W e found that each of us had our own way. We will cooperate with by millions of fans. It did us plenty Then this fair sky began to be a to make willing sacrifices for the practically everybody, yet we decline of good; alcoholics Hocked in. W e l~ttle overcast. Murmurs were heard group itself, sacrifices for the common to marry our Society to anyone. We loved this. I was specially excited be- ftom AA skeptics who said, “This welfare. The group, in turn, found abstain from public controversy and cause it gave me ideas. guy Bill is hogging the big time. Dr. t p t it had to give up many of its will not quarrel among ourselves Soon I was’ on the road. happily Bob isn’t getting his share.” Or,again. own rights for the protection and wel- about those things that so rip society handing out personal interviews and “Suppose all this publicity goes to fare of each member, and for AA as asunder-religion, politics and reform. pictures. To my delight, I found I Bill’s head and he gets drunk on us?” a whole. These sacrifices had to be We have but one purpose: to carry I could hit the front pages, just as he This stung. How could they persemade or AA couldn’t continue to the AA message to the sick alcoholic could. Besides, he couldn’t hold his cute me when I was doins so much exist. who wants it. publicity pace, but I could hold mine. good? I told my critics that this was Out of these experiences and reali- We take these attitudes not at all I only needed to keep traveling and America and didn’t they know I had zations, the Twelve Traditions of Al- because we claim special virtue or talking. The local AA groups and the right of free speech? And wasn’t coholics Anonymous began to take wisdom; we do these things because newspapers did the rest. I was aston- this country and every other run by shape and substance. hard experience has told us that we big-name leaders? Anonymity was Gradually we saw that the unity, must-if AA is to survive in the dis- maybe okay for the average AA. But the effectiveness-yes, even the survi- traught world of today. W e also give co-founders ought to be exceptions. val–of AA would always depend up rights and make sacrifices because The public certainly had a right to upon our continued willingness to sac- we ought to-and, better yet, because know who we were. rifice our personal ambitions and de- we want to. AA is a power greater Re31 AA power-drivers (prestigesires for the common safety and wel- than any of us; it must go on living hungry people, folks just like me) fare. Just as sacrifice meant survival or else uncounted thousands of our weren’t long in catching on. They for the individual, so did sacrifice kind will surely die. This we know. were going to be exceptions too. Thty mean unity and survival for the group Now where does anonymity fit into said that anonymity before the generand for AA’s entire Fellowship. this picture? What is anonymity any- al public was just for timid people; Viewed in this light, AA’s Twelve how? Why do we think it’ is the all the braver and bolder souls, like Traditions are little else than a list greatest single protection that AA can themselves, should stand right up beof sacrifices which the experience of ever have? Why is it our greatest fore the flnsh bulbs and be counted\ twenty years has taught us that we iynbol of personal sacrifice, the spirit- ished when recently I looked at those This kind of courage would soon dd must make, individually and collec- u ~ lkey to all our Traditions and to old newspaper stories. For two or away with the stigma on alcoholics. tively, if AA itself is to stay alive and our whole way of life? three years I guess I was AA’s num- The public would right away see what healthy. The following fragment of AA his- ber one anonymity breaker. fine citizens recovered drunks could In our Twelve Traditions we have tory will reveal, I deeply hope, the So I can’t really blame any AA who make. So more and more members set our faces against nearly every lnswer we all seek. 113s grabbed che spotlight since. I set broke their anonymity, all for. the trend in the outside world. the main example myself, years ago. good of AA. What if a drunk W*S 1 Years ago a noted ball player so- At the time, this looked like the photographed with the Governor? 4 We have denied ourselves persona1 bered up through AA. Because his thing to do. Thus justified, I ate it up. Both he and the Governor deserved government, professionalism and the i~mebackwas so spectacular, he got a What 3 bang it gave me when I read the honor, didn’t they? Thus’ we

zoomed along, down the d e ~ dend America. The public understanding of definite public impression that AA was good for us, that was too bad! road ! alcoholism increased, the stigma on favored “education,” liquor trade style. W e and AA’s Board of Trustees drunks lessened, and AA got new Though these two developments could go plumb to the devil. The’lecmembers. Surely there could be noth- never happened to get far, their im- tures were going on the air. ing wrong with that. plications were nevertheless terrific. This was a poser. Just by breaking But there was. For the sake of this They spelled it right out for us. By anonymity and so using the AA name short-term benefit, we were taking on hiring out to another cause, and then for his own purposes, our friend could a future liability of h u g and menac- declaring his AA membership to the take over our public relations, get US ing proportions. whole public, it was in the power of into religious trouble, put us into the Presently an AA member began to an AA to marry Alcoholics Anony- advertising business and, for all the= publish a crusading magazine devoted mous to practically any enterprise or good works, the insurance company ta the cause of Prohibition. H e controversy at all, good or bad. The would pay him a handsome fee. thought Alcoholics Anonymous ought more valuable the A A name became. Did this mean that any misguided to help make the world bone dry. H e the greater the temptation would be. member could thus endanger our SOdisclosed himself as an AA member Further proof of this was not long ciety any time or any place simply by The next anonymity breaking de- and freely used the AA name to at- in showing up. Another member velopment looked ever rosier. A close tack the cvils of whiskey and those started to put us into the advertising AA friend of mine wanted to go in who made it and drank it. H e pointed business. H e had been commissioned for alcohol education. A department out that he too was an “educator,” by a life insurance company to deliver of a great university interested in al- and that his brand of education was a series of twelve “lectures” on Alcoholism wanted her to go out and the “right kind.” As for putting AA coholics Anonymous over a national tell the general public that alcoholics into public controversy, he t h o u ~ h t radio hookup. This would of course 1 were sick people, and that plenty that was esactly where we should be. advertise life insurance and Alcoholics I could be done about it. My friend So he busily used AA’s name to do Anonymous–and naturally o w frierrd d a s a crack public speaker and writer. just that. O f course, he broke his himself-all in one good-looking pack- Could she tell the general public that anonymity to help his cherished cause age. she was an AA member? Well, why along. At AA Headquarters, we read the not? By using the name Alcoholics This was followed by a proposal proposed lectures. They were about 50 breaking anonymity and telling him- Anonymous she’d get fine publicity from a liquor trade associatiori that per cent AA and 50 per cent our self how much good he was going to for a good brand of alcohol education an AA member take on a job of “cdu- friend’s personal religious convictions. do for us? W e envisioned every AA and for AA too. I thought it an ex- cation.” Pcople were to be told that This could create a false public view advertising man looking up a comcellent idea and therefore gave my too much alcohol was bad for anyone of us. Religious prejudice qainst AA mercial sponsor, using the AA n m blessing. and that certain pcople-the alcohol- would be aroused. So we objected. to sell everything from pretzels to AA was already getting to be a fa- ics-shouldn’t drink at all. What Our friend shot back a hot letter prune juice. mous and valuable name. Backed by could bc the matter with this? saying that he felt “inspiredu to give Somethins had to be done. W e our name and her own great ability, The catch was that our AA friend these lectures, and that we had no wrotc our friend that AA had a right the results were immediate. In noth- had to break his anonymity; every business to interfcre with his right of of free speech too. W e ‘wouldn’t oping flat her own full name and pic- piece of publicity and literature was free speech. Even though he was go- pose him publicly, but we could and ture, plus excellent accounts of her to carry his full name as a member ing to get a fee for his work, he had would guarantee that his sponsor educational project, and of AA, landed of Alcoholics Anonymous. I l i s of nothing in mind except the welfare would receive several thousand letters in nearly every large paper in North course wor!!J be bound to crc:lte the of AA. And if we didn’t know what of obiection from AA members if the

path mto which I might have led our of recovery to the whole world. entire Society. Thus I learned that the =If-effacement will prove of more Bob’s r e d monument is visible If, through enough anonymity lapses permanent worth to A h than could throughout the length and breadth of temporary or seeming good can often we finally caused the press, the public m y spectacular public notoriety or fine AA. Let us look a p i n at its true b the deadly enemy of the permanent and our alcoholic prospects themselves mausoleum. . inscription . . one word only, which best. When it comes to survival for to wonder about our motives, we’d W e don’t have to go to Akron, wc A h have written. That word is AA, nothing short of our very best surely lose this priceless asset; and, Ohio, to see Dr. Bob’s memorial. Dr. Sacrifice. will be good enough. along with it, countless prospective W e want to maintain 100 per cent members. Alcoholics Anonymous Editor’s uote: delegates to AA’s General Service Conference are at preJent anonymity for still another potent tea- would not then be getting more good rol~siderirrgthe adv;sabi/ity of once more briefitzg p~dblisherson AA’J Tradition sbn, one often overlooked. Instead of publicity; it would be getting less. of a)zonjmnrity ~t rhe public level. ( A let~erO I Z this rnbjert was mailed lo all securing us more publicity, repeated and worse. Therefore the handwriting major newspapers, wire services and radio ~tatious 1950.) ‘ self-serving anonymity breaks could on the wall is clear. Because most of severely damage the wonderful rela- us can already see it, and because the tion we now enjoy with press and rest of us soon will, I’m fully confipublic alike. W e could wind up with dent that no such dark dav will ever a poor press and little public confi- fall upon our Society. I

dence at all. For a long time now, both Dr. Bob For many years, news channels all and I have done everything possible over the world have showered AA t 3 maintain the Tradition of Anonywith enthusiastic publicity. a never- mity. Just before he died, some of ending stream of it, far out of pro- Dr. Bob’s friends suggested that there portion to the news values involved. should be a suitable monument or Editors tell us why this is. They give mausoleum erected in honor of him us extra space and time becnuse their and his wife, Anne, something befitconfidence in AA is complete. The ting a Founder. Dr. Bob declined, very foundation of that high confi- with thanks. Telling me about this a dence is, they say, our continual in- little later, he grinned and said, “For! sistence on personal anonymity at the Heaven’s sake, Bill, why don’t you press level. and I get buried like other folks?” Never before had news outlets and Last summer I visited the’ Akron public relntions experts heard of a cemetery where Bob and Anne lie. sociee that absolutely refused person- Their simple stone says never a word ally to advertise its leaders or mem- about Alcoholics Anonymous. This bers. To them. this strange and re- made me so glad I cried. Did this freshing novelty has always been wonderful couple carry personal anonproof positive that AA is on the ymity too far when they so firmly resquwe; that nobody has an angle. fused to use the word “Alcoholics This, they tell us. is the prlme Anonymous.” even on their own reason for their great good will. This burial stone? is why, in season and out. they For one, I don’t think so. I think continue to carry the AA message that this great and final example of

April 1955

– — – ‘ ~ .7 r

to its near-miraculous and incredible past; that our Fellowship has n&.’&ne. of age; that we now propose to take full possession and full mponsibility for our inheritance coming from the early years -of M–thoK~,vitdlegacies of Recovery, Unity and Service. No longer will the unity aod functioning of our society depend upon its parents, elders or its founders. W w i l l %the unique ‘ . .:/ * significance of St. Louis. This m a n s that all of us-AA as a whole–arc now entirely m d y to take over full guardianship of the AA Traditions that guarantee our unity in time to come, and also to take complete charge of those World Services which arc the means by which we function as an entire Fellowship, and from which radiate cur principal life-lines to those millions all over the globe who still need AA. , Maybe this sounds vague, abstract or visionary. But it mlly isn’t. The basic:.’ idea is simple and practical. There comes a time in the life of every family, when the parents must say to sons’ and daughters alike, ‘You arc,grown up,

c .> ‘ OHB next Summer, and it will be twenty years since I first set eyes on Dr. Bob-hventy years since the spark that was to be Alcoholics Anonymous was struck and M’s Akron Group No. I took form and substance. here is your inheritance. Do with it as you will. W e will watch, wepill help, , but we must no longer decide for you, act for you or protect you. ,You ue , henceforth responsible for your own lives and well-being. So now t;&e your destiny by the hand. And may God love you.” Everybody knows that a good , This July, we are having our 1955 Anniversary at St. Louis-all of us who parent must do this. All parents, at some point, simply have to “let.80 and ,&get there, maybe ten thousand, maybe twenty. And all who can’t be there let God.” That’s exactly what we old timers will propose to you at.St. Louis. will surely be present in spirit and will be bound to share those maningful At least that’s what I plan to do as I believe such a decision will be healthy, and stirring hours with us as they read the reports. timely and right. , .,.,’.,, St. Louis isn’t going to be just another anniversary for the very potent reason On the g m t stage of the St. L&is ~uditdriunrYOU will see your el& a

that there can never be, in all our history to come, another such occasion as representatives, the General Service Conference of hkoholics, Anonymous. In .this. ‘ . I the midst of them you will see AA’s Trustees and youiworld Service Staff. As at d l anniversaries of the past, we shall thank God for our deliverance W k n the final hour of our Convention comes, I shall, on behalf of the old 3ut of bondage; we shall pay grateful tribute to those near and dear who sat timers . . . . . . . . through the dark night of the soul with us; we shall gratefully recall those But shucks, here I am, spoiling the show. ‘. . . .. ,.,.._.. friends in the world outside whose ides, good will, and bbor without stint Here’s hoping that Lois and I will be seeing you at St. Louis!, , ,,: ,, , h a w done so much to make AA what it is today. W e shall cry out our greetings – to each other with a warmth seldom known anywhere. W e shall exchange experienas, confess that our society has its faults, and ask God to show us how to Important Notice , ?,+ ,

m o v e them. W e shall ponder the meaning of our short but exciting history All hotel room reservations in St. Louis for the Convention next July and, in confident faith, we shall accept whatever destiny Providence has in 1-2-3 must be made through: The Hotels Convention Resemition Bureau. store for us. All these thing we shall do at St. Louis. 911 Locust Street, St. Louis I, Missouri, on Convention application forms But we are also going to do some t h i n p that can never be done agin: we sent to all groups in November. If you need more application forms &c going to affirm that the infancy and dolescence of our society now belongs write to Box 459. Grand Central Annex, New York 17,’ New’York. ..

May 1955

Anonymity’s Spiritual Dividends T h e writer is a nonalcoholic w h o specializes Reprinted it1 t h e s t u d y of alcoholism. He feels that f?*ornthe May 1955 anonymity is good for his soul, too. Hence no by-line

N BILL’S Grapevine article “Why There is considerable agreement curc; others, less so. I Alcoholics Anonymous Is Anonymous,”* the value of anonymity as among my professional colleagues, as well as among AAs, about the Now, to the degree that insecurity is produced, to that degrel: will the offense. If he is less assertive, he may gain reassurances from leaning on others, or false security by wrapgroup protection and insurance was emotional problems at the bottom child be motivated to overcome his ping a cloak of reserve around himspelled out in letters big enough for of alcoholism. The taproots are var- painful feelings. To that degree will self. a blind man to see. It drove home iously described as insecurity or anx- he lcarn to gain a substitute sense Any behavior style which seems the importance of anonymity to iety – some sense of inadequacy, of security and worthiness by relat- to do the job of making him feel less AA’s survival and continued effec- inferiority, or unworthiness, some ing to other persons in certain ways. insecure or less unworthy is apt to tiveness. Of equal interest to me, sense of threat to self-esteem. It is By trial and error, in the early fam- be continued. If so, it is built into however, were the suggestions scat- believed that these roots generally ily situation, he discovers the ways the personality. As an adult, the pertered throughout that anonymity is go back to childhood years. by which he can make himself feel son will still be driven, unconsciousno ordinary insurance policy, but It would take pages to do justice less ilnxious, less threatened, less ly, to repeat the behavior patterns one that pays surprising extra divi- to this viewpoint, but let me try to alone, less unworthy. He may learn which seemed to give him reassurdends – personal and spiritual. condense it into a few sentences. that by behaving in ways which ance in childhood years. What are the extra dividends? It is assumed, to begin with, that bring attention and praise -being Such seem to be the dynamics There are many. But, as I see it, faith in oneself and faith in life are a “star” – he can feel like some- which, in more assertive persons, one stands out above all others. It is the products of a deep inner sense of body anyhow. and gain temporary produce the “Big 1” drives: the the removal of the temptation to security and worth. But no child es- relief from his deeper feeling that “star” drives for praise, attention, give the dying ego the kind of nour- capes experiences (things people do he rcally is not very much of a per- personal prestige; or the “power” ishment which can so easily bring it to make him feel hurt, angry, inade- son. Or he may discover that he feels drives for control over others, for back to life. Let us take a closer quate, fearful, or lonely) which re- less threatened when he manipulates position, for money, or for any other look at this. sult in some degree of emotional and controls the people around him evidence of being a “big shot.” *ReprRt available from the General Service insecurity. Some become very inse- -that the best defense is a good Not that alcoholics behave in Ofice, Box 459. Grand Central Station. New York, N . Y . 10017.

In short, AA shows that by letting ognition and applause, then the old go of the old ego, a person is ena- ego will not easily be denied more bled to find his true self. (By losing of this nourishment. And again, his self he finds self.) The AA program cleverest gimmick is the old “good helps the person to let go of the un- of the group” stuff. He kids the satisfactory old ways and helps him member into believing that there is to dcvelop a new way of life which nothing wrong with the limelight if gives genuine security and a valid it’s for the good of the group. In sense of worthiness. It is a way fact, headlines are just what the which requires no alcohol to make group needs. Think of all the new it work, because it attunes the per- prospects who will come flooding son to life as he was meant to be in! Before we know it, personal pub- “When your hair has turned to silver, I will love you just /he surtte.” attuned; because it provides him licity and Twelfth Step work are with the feelings and relationships practically synonymous. But no matthese ways more than other people. drugs. Some keep going by just -the spiritual values-which ter how attractively disguised, it’s These ego-propping patterns are all keeping on going – excitement, ac- truly satisfy. still the old ego. It’s still the old around us. Our society practically tivity, etc. Some take it out on their But every AA knows, as my own hankering for reassurance through teaches them to us. But no matter bodies in psychosomatic illnesses. experiences with change have taught recognition and prestige. And it how widespread and common, the Others just take it out on their fel- me, that thc old self doesn’t give up ought to be plain that any soft policy trouble with these ways of compen- lows by being ornery. There are so easily. Lct me personify and say toward that old hankering can easily sating for insecurity is that they many ways. Using alcohol to relieve that the old self is a tough and per- revive the old pattern to its former don’t quite do the trick. Anxiety is the tensions which the substitute sistent old critter. Sweep him out the strength -with disastrous results. not really reduced. What’s worse, patterns produce is only one way. front door, and soon he sneaks in Seen in this light, then, anonymity new tensions are actually created. But it is a common way, and per- through the back. Kick him out amounts to a spiritual policy of “no haps the reason it is used by so again, and he returns disguised in appeasement” with regard to the What happens if a person cannot many persons today is simply be- rationalizations -clever ones, too. “star” aspects of the old ego. find a way of reducing his tensioncause it seems to be effective – for The cleverest ones are the disguises All this, of course, ties in with producing anxieties (for example, through a change in attitudes), and a while. It can be fatal, however, which make him look like the new Step Three. In fact, the acceptance as nlcoholics know. self. For cxample, if it’s power and of anonymity is part and parcel of if he has not learned enough healthful ways of temporarily relieving his The AA program works so well, control that have been important, Step Three. As long as there is an I believe, because it puts its finger he’ll disguise himself as “running unwillingness to give up the desire tensions through such means as on the iintlerlying personality pat- things for the good of the group” for gaining some glory through AA, play, hobbies, sports, social activity, music, prayer, or the like? He will terns and calls for a willingness to -but there he is, running things. the “letting go” process is obviously change them. This is the turning The AA traditions of rotating com- incomplete. Willingness to give up be impelled to seek relief from his tensions in uncreative ways. Thus, over of will and life to God, “as we mittees, no vested authority, and all thought of using AA membership some persons find tension-relief in understood Him.” That is to say, spirit of service are designed to deal to get recognition and attention, a dcath blow to this old hankering therefore, constitutes a good test of . alcohol. the old patterns for obtaining a sub- But nonalcoholics find uncreative stitute sense of adequacy and worth for power and control. how thoroughly Step Three has been ways also. Some eat too much, work are given up. Instead, the AA mem- Similarly, anonymity puts a crimp taken. ber learns a new way of life which into the old “star” pattern. If one’s And thoroughness in taking Step too hard, or push too hard. Some try sexual promiscuity, gambling, or provides the real thing. main ego-food has consisted of rec- Three is crucial! As I see it, the

\vIrolc AA program is h;lscd on tlrc alcoholic to ir way of lifc \vhicli premise that the old c30 p;lttcrn nrt~st s;~tislicslris rcid Irun~cr.l’hc progo if ill1 ;lIc0Ir01-~rcc. new pcrson;~l- priilrl not only cidk for tlic clinrity piltterll is to grow and thrive. in;~tion of ;rlcohol (by wlliclr tlic Surc. before AA. prestige ti~stcd i ~ l c ~ l i ~ l i hi~s c tricd to cover up the mighty good. So did sonrc of tlrc ilclicicncics in t l r ~0111 spirittli11diet 1. other V ~ I ~ L I C S likc power. money, and hut also c;~llsfor the i~handoningof othcr symbols of “success.” l h t n o all the substitutc foods on wlriclr he mirttcr ~ O \ Vp i ~ td l i f~ ~~ t~i ~d ~ t ~~ d has, so vi~inly tricd to nourish lris the f x t rqm;rins that they were poor. spirit. ‘Shc AA program. it seems unnourishing. substitutc foods. None to nrc. rests on the psychologici~lor of thcm si~tisticdthe rcid hunger – spiritu;d supposition th;~t to disthe hunger of the spirit for iln out- place tlic bottle it is ncccssilry also gding. siitisfyihg rcl;itionship to othcr to tlispl;icc tlrc suhstitutc spiritu;il people irnd to lifc. The AA solution foods, like prestige. i111il to rc’pI;~cc is to set ;rbi>ut sirtisfyinp thc rci~l thcm with ;i diet 1Ir;rt’s irdcquirtc. hunger. When tIi;~t is sirtislietl. thcrc And the diet wliiclr niccts our rc:d is no longer any lingering criiving ncctls’–which truly si~lislics our for prcstigc or for any of thc othcr spirits – consists of wholchcartcd. old substitute foods. deep-running. positivc rcl;~tionslrips in my opinion. that is what tlrc to othcr pcrsons, to our work. to AA program docs: It euidcs thc lifc. and to God.

fricnds that wc urgcntly nccdcd moncy Al~oliolicFoundation was tax-frec, on -a lot of it, too. cliaritablc grounds, wc thought the

– One of them, a Mr. Frank Amos, rich would contributc 13vishly. But soon madc a trip to invcstigatc thc nothing happcnccl. Alter months of Akron Group. (Prank has, by tlic way, solicitation, wc railed to turn up with rcmaincd a fricnd and trustce of Al- cvcn a ccnt Wlirt could we do next? Part I coholics Anonymous to this day.) He In the latc spring of 1338, I had rcturncd from the Wcst with a vcry draftctl what arc now tlic first two s OMEDAI’ t l ~ chistory of Alcoliolics Anonymous will bc written. Only then will most of us finally untlcrstand of tlic Akron Group still thouglit wc ouglit to stick to tlic word-of-mouth proccss; but tlic majority felt that wc optimistic rcport on tlic Akron situation, a tligcst of which Mr. Ricliartlson quickly laid bcforc John D. Rockcchaptcrs of thc book Alcoholirr an or^ytttorrs. Mimcographcd copies of these wcrc uscd as part of tlie~prospectus what ovcr-all national and interna- now nccdcd our own hospitals, witli fcllcr, Jr. This was carly in 1938. for our futilc fund-raising operation. tional services have mcant to our So- paid workcrs and, abovc all, a book Though much impressed, Mr. Rockc- At Foundation rncetings, thrn held ciety, how dilbcult they were to create, for othcr alcoholics that could explain fcllcr dcclincd to givc any largc sum ncarly evcry month, our non-alcoholic and how vital it is to maintain them to tlicm our mcthods and results. This for [car of professionalizing Ah. HC fricnds commiserated on our lack of over futurc ycars. For tlic purposc of would rcquirc considcrablc moncy- did, Ilowcvcr, donate $3,000. This succcss. About half of thc $5,000 Mr. this Manual,* wc can only supply a millions perhaps. W c didn’t thcn w.1~uscd to kccp Doctor Uob and mc Rockcfcllcr advanccd had been u x d brief historical run-down, a simple know that millions would have ruined going chiring 1738. W c wcre still a to raisc the mortgage on Doctor Bob’s timetable of thc cvents that have us cvcn more than no moncy at all. long way from hospitals, missionaries, homc. The rest of it, dividcd between brought our world scrviccs and AA So the Akron rnccting comrnissioncd books and big moncy. This looked us, would of coursc soon be exhausted. Traditions inlo k i n g , plus a con- mc to go to Ncw York and raise rnigl~[~ tough at thc time but it was Thc outlook was ccrtainly bleak. densed report of the total accomplish- moncy. Arrivcd home, I found the probably one of the best breaks that Then Frank Amos remembered his ment. Ncw York Group in full agieemcnt AA ever had. old-time friend, Eugene Exman, Re- One day in 1937, at Doctor Bob’s with this idea. Several of us went to In spitc of Mr. Rockcfcllcr’s views, ligious Editor at Harpers. He sent me Akron homc, lie and I added up the work at oncc. wc rcncwed our efforts to pcrsuadc his to Harpers and I showed Mr. Exman xorc of neatly three years’ work. For ‘~’hrougli my brotlicr-in-law, Dr. fricnrls of our crying ncctl for moncy. two cliaptcrs of our proposed book. the first time we saw that wholesale L. V. Strong, Jr., we madc a contact At length, thcy agrecd that wc did To my delight, Mr. Exman was imrecovery for alcoliolics was possible. witli Mr. Willard S. Richardson, a nccd morc moncy, ccrtainly cnough to prcsscd. Hc suggcstcd that Harpers . W e then had two small but solid friend and long-time associate of the prcparc a tcxtbook on our mctliods and might advance me $1500 in royalties groups, at Akron and at New York Rockcfcllcr family. Mr. Richardson cxpcricncc. to finish thc job. Broke as we thcn City, plus a sprinkling of membcrs promptly took firc and intercstcd a Tliis dccision Icd to tlic formation wcrc, that $1500 looked like a pilc elsewhere. How could these few re- group of his own fricnds. In the of thc so-callcd Alcoholic Foundation of moncy. covered ones tell millions of alcoholics wintcr of 1937, a mccting was callcd in tlic spring of 1738. Tllc first Board Ncvcrthclcss our enthusiasm for throughout the world the great news? at tlic oficcs of John D. Rockcfcllcr, of Trustccs consistcd of tllrcc of our tliis proposal quickly waned. With tlic That was the question. Jr. Prcscnt wcre Mr. Richardson and ncw fricnds-Mr. Richardson, Mr. book finishcd, wc would be $1500 in Forthwith Doctor Bob and I mct his group, Dr. William D. Silkworth, Amos and Dr. L. V. Strong. The dcbt to Harpcrs. And if, ~swe hoped, with eightccn of thc Akron Group at alcoliolics from Akron and Ncw York, nlcoholics wcrc rcprcscntcd by Doctor AA thcn got a lot of publicity, how the home of T. Henry Williams, a Doclor Bob and myself. After a long Uob and a Ncw York mcmbcr. Sup- could wc possibly liirc the help to steadfast non-alcoliolic friend. Some discussion, wc convinced our new plied witli a list of prospects by our answcr tlic flood of inquiries-maybe * A Mantra1 on rhe Third L e p c y which Bill is ttoiu iuriting. This is Part 1 of i ~ s ncw friends, we nlcoholics at New tliousands ! hijforical ~tcliottwhich rue’ll rrm ~ericrllyfor 3 n/onths.-Ed. York bcgan to solicit funds. Sincc the Thcrc was nnothcr problem, too, a

serious one. If our AA book became the ncw book company to alcoholics the basic text for Alcd~olicsAnony- and thcir fricnds in Ncw York. Thcy mous, its ownership would be in othcr just laughcd at us. Who would buy hands. It was evidcnt tlut our Socicty stock, tlicy said, in a book not yct ought to own and publish its own lit- writtcn ! erature. N o publislicr, however good, Somcl~ow,thcsc timid buyers had to ought to own our b a t asset. be persuaded, so we went to the Yct tlie momcnt this idca was Rcadcr’s Digcst and told thc manag- I cvcr was an author. Meanwhile, the in debt up to our ears. The sheriff appearcd at tllc Ncwark Office where . broached, opposition rose on all sidcs. ing cditor the story of our budding alcoholics at Akron, Ncw York, and W e werc told that amateurs should Socicty and its proposcd book. Hc a couple at Clcvcland, began writing wc had bccn working, and the Iandnever go into tlrc publisl~ingbusiness. likcd thc notion very much and prom- thcir pcrsonal stories-twenty-eight in lord sold thc house where Lois and 1 They almost ncvcr succccdcd, it was iscd that in the spring of 1939, whcn all. Out wcst, Dr. Bob was greatly livcd. She and I were dumped into chimed. Dut a few of us continued to wc tl~ougl~t that thc book wodd be helped in assembling thc tales by a thc strcct and thcn onto the charity of think otherwise. W e had discovered ready, the Digest would print a piece newspaperman member.. . and here in AA friends. We thought the printer, that the printing cost of a book is only about AA, of course rncntioning the Ncw York, Hank and I kcpt prodding thc Cornwall Press, might take over a fraction of its rctail price. If our ricw book. thc amateur writcrs on. the book. But Edward lackw well; the Society grew, so would t l ~ cbook sales. This was thc salcs argument wc When thc book project ncarcd corn- President, would have none of that. With such a big profit margin, rcal nccdcd. With e plug like this, thc plction, we visited the managing edi- Hc continued to have faith in us, quite moncy would surcly come in. (Of proposcd voltunc would sell by car- tor of the Digest and asked for the inexplicably, But certain of the alcocoursc we convcnicntly forgot all the loads. How could wc miss? The New ‘ promised article. Hc gave us a blank holic stock subscribers didn’t share his other l ~ a v ycosts of book production York alcol~olics and thcir friends look, scarcely rcrnembering who we faith. Sometimes thcy used strong and distribution!) So wcnt the debate. promptly changcd their minds .about wcre. Then the blow fell. He told words, not in the least complimentary. But the opposition lost out bccause the Works Publishing stock. They began how months beforc he had put our Such was the sorry state of our pub- Foundation had no moncy and wasn’t to buy it, mostly on installments. Our proposition to the Digest Editorial lishing venture. likely to gct any, that wc could see. biggcst subscriber put in $300. In the Board and how it had been turned How we got through the summer of That was the clincher. end wc scrapcd up forty-ninc contrib- down flat. With profuse apologies, he 1939, I’ll ncver quite know. Hank So two of us wcnt alicad. A friend utors. They camc up with about admitlcd he’d plumb forgot to let us had to get a job. ,?he faithful Ruth and I bought a pad of blank stock $4500 over the next nine months. W e know anything about it. This was a acceptcd shares in the defuvct .book certificates and wrote on them “Works also got a loan of $2500 from Charles crusher. company as pay. One AA friend sup- Publishing, par value $25.” My friend, B. Towns, proprietor of the hospital Meanwhile, we had optimistically plied us with his summer camp, an- Hank P., and I then offered shares in wllcre I had oftcn gonc. This kcpt ordcrcd 5,000 copics of the new book, other with a car. W e canvassed magafricnd Hank, mysclf and a secrctary largely on a shoestring. The printer zine publishers in a strenuous effort namcd Ruth going until the job was had rclicd on tlie Reader’s Digest, too. to gct something printed about our finished. Soon there would be 5,000 books in Socicty and its ncw book. Ruth typed away as I slowly dic- his warehouse and no customcrs. Thc first break came in September tatcd the chapters of the text for the The book finally appeared in April, 1939. Liberty Magazine, then headed new book. Fierce argument over tlicse 1939. W c got the Ncw York Timcs by our grcat fricnd-to-be, Fulton drafts and what ought to go into them to do a review and Dr. Harry Emer- Ourslcr, carricr a piccc called “Aicofcaturcd Ncw York and Akron Group son Fosdick supplied us with anothcr holics and God” written by one meetings for months on end. I be- really good one but nothing happened. Morris Markey. There was an instant cilmc much morc of an umpire than Thc book simply didn’t sell. W e were responsc. About 800 letters from

alcoholics and their families poured T o speak for his father, who was plug for a tiny society of struggling familics showed continued interest, we in. Ruth wrote every one of them, ill, Mr. Nclson Rockefeller then rose alcoholics. For these unknowns, he’d kcpt on writing. Aided by such letters enclosing a leaflet about tlic new to his fect. His father was very glad, gone way out on a limb. Wisely spar- and the book Alcoholjcs Anonymous, book Alcoholics Atro~ryr~rous.Slowly lie said, that those at tlic dinncr had ing of his money, he had given freely new AA groups began to take form. the book began to sell. Then tlic seen tlic promising bcginning of the of himself. Thcn and there John D. More importantly, we had lists of Cleveland Plain Dcalcr ran a scries of new Society of Alcoholics Anonymous. Rockefcller saved us from thc perils prospects in many cities and towns of pieces about Alcoliolics Anonymous. Scldom, Nclson continued, had his of property management and profes- the .United States and Canada. W e At once, tlie Clcvcland Groups mush- fatl~crshown morc intcrcst in any- sionalism. H c couldn’t have done turned tlicsc lists over to AA traveling roomed from a scorc into many liun- tliing. But obviously since AA was morc. busincss men, mcmbcrs of already esdrcds of members. More books sold. a work of pure good will, onc man As a result, AA’s 1910 mcmkrship tablished groups. With these traveling Thus wc inclicd and squceted our way carrying the good ncws to the next, jumped sharply to about 2,000 at the couriers, we corrcsponded constantly througli that pcrilous ycar. littlc or no moncy would bc rcquircd. year’s end. Doctor Bob and I each and thcy started still more groups. For W e liadn’t licard a tliing from Mr. At this sally, our spirits fcll. Whcn began to receive $30 a week out of the tlic further benefit of these travelers, Rockefeller since early 1938. Uut in Mr. Nclson Rockefeller had finishcd, dinncr contributions. This cased US we put out a Group Directory. Fcbruary of 1940, he put in a dra- tlic wl~olc billion dollars worth of greatly. Lois and I wcnt to live in a Thcn came an unexpected activity. . matic appearance. I-Iis friend, Mr. capitalists got up and walked out, tiny room at AA’s number one club- Dccause the new-born groups saw only Richardson, came to a Trustees’ meet- leaving not a dollar bchind them. house, 334% West 24th Street in New a little of their traveling sponsors, thcy ‘ ing, smiling broadly. Mr. Rockefeller, Next day, Mr. Rockcfcller wrote to York. turned to tlie New York ofice for help lie said, wantcd to give Alcoholics all those who had attcnded and even Best of all, the increased book salcs with their innumerable troubles. By Anonymous a dinner. The invitation to those who had not. Again he reit- had made a National Headquarters mail we retailed the experience of the list showed an imposing collection of cratcd his complctc confidence and possible. W e moved from 75 William oldcr centers on to them. A little later, notables. W e figured them to be col- high intcrest. Once more he insisted Strcct, Newark, New Jersey, where as we shall see, this bccame a major lectively worth at least a billion dol- that littlc or no moncy was ncciled. the AA book had been written, to 30 activity. lars. Mr. Richardson told how John Then at the very cnd of his letter, he Vesey Street, just north of thc Wall Meanwhile, some of the stock- D., Jr. had been watching our progress casually remarked that he was giving Street district of New York. W e took holders in the book company, Works with deep satisfaction and now wantcd Alcoliolics Anonymous $1,000! a modest two-room ofice right oppo- Publishing, began to get restive. All :to lend a hahd. Our money troubles When tlic public read the press site the downtown Church Strcct An- the book profits, thcy complained, were over-so we tliought. stories about Mr. Rockefeller’s dinncr, nex Post Office. Therc the famous were going for AA work in .the office. The dinner came off the following many ruslicd to tlic bookstores to buy Box 658 was ready and waiting to re- When, if ever, were they going to get month at New York’s Union L c a p c tlie book Alcoholics Anonymous. The ceive the thousands of frantic inquiries thcir money back? W e had to find a Club. Dr. H;irry Emcrson Fosdick Foundation Trustees solicited the din- that would presently come into it. At way, too, of paying Mr. Towns his spoke in praise of us and so did Dr. ner giicsts for contributions. Knowing this point, Ruth Hock becarnc AA’s $2500. We also saw that the book, 1;oster Kennedy, tlic cmincnt ncurolo- the sizc of Mr. Rockefeller’s gift, they first national Secretary and I turned A ~ C O f~f ~ O ~~t lJy m ~ t l now be- Should gist. Then Doctor Bob and I briefed actcd accordingly. Abont $3,000 camc into a sort of Headquarters handy-man. come t l s propcrty of AA as a whole. the audience on AA; Akron and Ncw in, r tlonation which, as tliing turncd Through tlic whole of 1940, book At thc moment, it was owned one- York alcoliolics xattcrcd among the out, wc solicited and rcceived each salcs were the sole support of thc third by the forty-nine subscribers, onenotables at the tables rcspondcd to ycar for just four ycars more. struggling New York office. Every cent third by my friend Hank and the . ‘ qucstions. U i c ptlicring sliowctl a Mucli Iatcr we rcalizcd what Mr. of these carnings wcnt to pay for AA rcmaindcr by me. rising warmth and intcrest. This was Rockcfcllcr had rcally donc for us. At work done thcrc. All rcqucsts for As a first stcp, we had the book it, we thought; our nioricy problems risk of pcrsonal ridicule, he had stood help were answered with warm per- company, Works Publishing, audited were solved. up bcforc the wliolc world to put in a sonal lctters. When alcoholics or their and legally incorporatcd. Hank and I

donated our sharcs in it to the Alco- vicc 11ad cvcn thcn commenced to take that Ruth ‘and I could never do it holic Foundation. This was the stock- on form and substance. alone. Form lettcrs wouldn’t be that we had taken for services ren- l’hc spring of 1741 brought us a cnough. Every single one must have dered. But the forty-nine other sub- tcn strike. I h c Saturday Evening Post an understanding personal reply. scribers had put in real money. They, dccided to do a piece about Alcoholics So volunteers with typewriters came and Mr. Towns, would have to be Anonymous. It assigned its star writer, to New York’s old 24th Street club. paid cash. Uut whcrc on earth could Jack Alcxandcr, to the job. Having ‘Iliey knew nothing of selling AA by we g t the money? just done an article on the Jerscy mail, and naturally cnough, they weakl l ~ ehelp we needed turned up in rackcts, Jack approaclicd us somcwhat cncd in the facc of tlie avalanche. the person of Mr. A. LcRoy Chipman. tongue-in-check. But hc soon lxcamc Nothing but full-time paid help could Also a friend and associate of Mr. an AA “convert,” cvcn though he possibly meet this emergency. Yet the John D. Rockefeller, he had recently wasn’t an alcol~olic. Working carly AA book income would ncvcr pay thc bccn madc a Trustce of the Founda- and lalc, lie spcnt a whole month wit11 bill. Again-what to use for money? tion. H c persuaded Mr. Rockefeller, us. Dr. Dob and I and elders of the Maybe the AA groups themselves two of his sons and some of tlic din- early groups at Akron, Ncw York, would help. Though we’d never asked had unlicard-of headaches, orators held I ncr guests to loan the Foilndation Clcvcland, I’hiladclphia and Chicago, anything of them before, this was forth, groups split wide open, mem4 $8000. I b i s promptly paid off Mr. spcnt uncounted hours with him. surely their business, if it was any- bcrs turned professional, sclling AA Charles D. Towns, settled some inci- Whcn lie could feel AA in the very body’s. An enormous Twelfth Step by the copy, sometimes whole g r o u p dental debts and fully reimbursed the marrow of his bones, he proceeded to job had to be done and done quickly. got drunk, local public relations went forty-nine original subscribers at par. write thc piece tliat rocked drunks and These appeals must never hit the waste haywire-such was our truly fright- They then turned their sharcs in to the their families a11 over the nation. It baskct. Money we must have. cning expcricoce. Foundation. Two years later, tlie book was the lcad story in the Saturday Post So we told the groups the story and Then the amazing story got around alcoholic^ At~onymorts had done so of March lst, 1941. they responded. The measuring stick that the Foundation, the New York well that we were able to pay off tliis Camc thcn the deluge. Frantic ap- for volrrtltary cor~tribtrtion was then ofice and the book Alcoholics Anonp . whole loan. lmprcsscd with this con- peals from alcoholics and their fami- set at $1.00 per member per year. The tnotls were nothing but another racket siderablc show of financial rcsponsi- lies-six thousand of them-hit the Trustees of the Foundation agreed to for which John D. Rockefeller lud bility, Mr. l~ockcfcller,his sons and New York oficc, P. 0.Box 658. At look after thcse funds, placing them foolishly fallen. ,TIiis was just about some of tlic 1710 dinner guests gave first, we pawed at random through the in a special bank account, ear-marking the limit. half the money tlry’d lcnt us back to mass of letters, laughing and crying them for AA office work only. While W e had thought we’d proved that the Foundation. by turns. How could this heart-break- thc first returns wcren’t up to full ex- AA could sober up alcoholics, but we These wcrc thc transactions that put ing mail be answcrcd? It was a cinch pectations, they proved to be enough. were certainly a long way from provthe book Alcoholics AIIOII~IIIOIISin ‘fie AA ofice took on two full-time ing that alcoholics could work totrust for our whole Society. Through workers and weeks latcr we caught up. gctl~crot even stay sober under these its I:ounclation, AA now owned its But this was only a starter. Soon new and fantastic conditions. basic textbook, subject only to royal- the pins on our oflice wall map showed How could AA stay whole, and how ties payablc to Doctor Bob and mc. AA groups springing up like mush- could it ever function? Those were Since the book income was still the rooms. Most of them had no expe- ;he anxious questions of our adolasole support of our Headquarters, the rienced ‘guidance whatever. Their ccncc. It was to take another ten years . Trustees quite naturally assumed tlic worries and problems wcrc cndlcss. of terrific experience to provide the management of tlie AA ofice at Vescy Moochers moochcd, lonely hearts surc qnswers tliat we have today. Street. AA’s structure of world scr- pined. committccs quarreled, new clubs (10 be ronlinued)

June 1 9 5 5

How could we best coopcrnte with focal point around which the AA press, radio, motion pictures and, Tradition was formed. By 1945, order HOW A.A.3 more recently, television? How would had come out of what had been a we deal with employers who wanted chaotic public relations situation. On special help? What would be the all sides, the leadership of our society SERVICES right attitude toward the ficld of edu- asked for the experience and pidance cation, research and rehabilitation, of the New York office in these private and public? What would we matters. So much success attended say to prisons and hospitals that these efforts that the average AA had startcd thc year with we get into competition with either. W2,000E 17/11 members, but we finished If we appeared to be a new religious wanted AA groups within their walls? member has always taken our excellent What were we to say to AAs who public relations record for granted. with 8,000. This was the measure of sect, we’d certainly be done for. And went into some of these fields and That was natural since these services the great impact of the Saturday Eveif we moved into the medical field. were tempted to capitalize on the AA were largely invisible to him. Neverning Post piece. But this was only the as such. the result would be the same. name publicly for advertising or fund- theless, this unseen public relations beginning of uncounted thousands of So we began to empliasize heavily the raisirig? Wliat would we say or do activity has surely been responsible for pleas for help from individuals and fact that AA was a m y of life that if A& were ever publicly exploited, much of AA’s unlxlievable growth. from growing groups all over the conflicted with no one’s religious defa&;d or attacked by outsiders? Thus far in our Service story, we world that have continued to flow belief. W e told the doctors how much Right answers and workable solutio~is have seen the Foundation, the AA into General Service Headquarters towe needed hospitalization, and we to all these and many more such prob- book, the development of pamphlet this day. urged upon psychiatrists and dryingout lems would have to be found or else literature, the answered mass of pleas This phenomenal expansion broughtplaces the advantages of cooperating AA would suffer. for help, the satisfied need of groups another problem, a very important with us. At all times, religion would Finding the right answers to all for counsel on their problems, the be the province of clergymen, and the one. The national spotlight now being these public relations puzzlers has beginning of our wonderful relations on us, we had to begin dealing with ~ractice of medicine would be for been a long process. After much trial with the public, all becoming part of the public on a large scale. Public doctors. As laymen, we were only and error, sometimes punctuated by a growing Service to the whole world supplying a much-needed missing link. I ill-will could stunt our growth, even painful mistakes, the attitudes and of AA. At last, our society, really bring it to a standstill. But enthusi- Maintained over the years since, practices that would work best for began to function as a whol’e. astic public confidence could swell our these attitudes have brought heart- us emerged. The important ones can But the 1941-1945 period brought ranks to numbers of which we had warming results. Today we have the today be seen in the AA Tradition. still more developments of signionly dreamed before. The Post piece unqualified support of nearly every One hundred per cent anonymity at ficance. The Vesey Street office was had proved this. It was not only a religious denomination. Most medical the public level, no use of the AA moved to 415 Lexington Avenue, just big problem, it was a delicate one. practitioners who really understand name for tlic benefit of other causes opposite the famed Grand Central Blunders that aroused prejudice could AA send their alcoholic patients to however worthy, no endorsemcnts or Terminal. Our new Post Office BOX cost lives. A carefully thought out us. AA members frequently speak be- alliances, one single purpose for Al- became 459, Grand Central Annex, public relations policy had to be fore religious gatherings and medical coholics Anonymous, no professional- New York. We made this move beformed and put into operation. . societies. Likewise, the men of medi- ism, public relations by the principle cause the nced for serving the many Of highest importance would be our cine and religion are often seen at of attraction rather than promotion- AA travelers through New York had relations with medicine and with re-AA’slarge open meetings. these were some of the hard-learned become urgent. The moment we lo- ligion. Under no circumstances must Important as they are, medicine and Part Two of a three-part series on religion proved to be only a fraction lessons. cated near Grand Central, we were be- Thus, our Board of Trustees and sieged with visitors who, for the first AA history by our lo-formder, Bill. of the total public relations field. the Headquarters ofice became the time, began to see Alcoholics Anony-

mous as a vision for the whole globe. time bookkeeper. Letter and Kardex carpet on which all of us could travel These were only the vanguard of files began to appear in rows. The from one distant AA outpost to thousands of AAs, their families, their Group Directory began to look like another. It became a wonderful ex-. friends, their clergymen, their doctors a suburban telephone book. More change of ,our current thought and and their employers who have since alcoholic Secretaries were engaged. As experience. visited the New York Headquarters. they divided the work among them, But the Grapevine founders, after Leaving the imprint of her devo- departments began to be created. To- awhile, discovered they had a bear . tion upon our society for all time, day’s office has a good many-group, by the tail. It was always fun to get Ruth had left, in 1941, to be married. foreign and public relations, AA Con- in ‘the material and edit the pieces. She was followed at the office by ference and office management, mail- But licking all those postage stamps Bobbie B., one whose immense indus- ing, packing, accounting, stenographic and mailing thousands of copies betry was to acquaint her with un- and special service to prisons and came impossible for them. counted thousands of AAs during the hospitals. So the Grapeviners came to the next ten years. Hers was to be a Happily, though, the office did not Foundation and asked that we take signal service in the exciting time of Again, we resorted to heavy corres- have to grow as fast as AA did. The over. The Trustees inquired of the AA’s adolescence, when no one could pondence. Sometimes we were helped bill would never have been paid if groups if they would like to make the be sure whether we could function or by American members who could it had. AA was getting so big that Grapevine their national magazine. even hang together at all. translate for us. W e searched out and we couldn’t possibly educate all its The answer came back an emphatic The expansion of Alcoholics An- briefed AA travelers going abroad. By members on what we were doing. “Yes.” Forthwith, the journal was onymous soon became nothing less these means, we gradually made some Therefore, many groups failed to help incorporated as “The A.A. Grape- ‘

than staggering. Reaching out into headway. But it was long indeed be- us at all. Less than half of them con- vine, Inc.” Two Foundation Trustees Canada, the U. S. possessions and fore we knew that AA could surely , tributed anything. W e had constant numbers of foreign lands, we got cross all barriers of distance, race, deficits which, luckily, could be under full swing. This foreign de- creed or language. Nevertheless, the plugged up with money from the sale velopment brought us a whole new AA map shows us today in fifty-two of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonyset of dilemmas to solve. Each new countries and U. S. possessions. This mous. That book was not only saving beachhead had to go through its fly- is answer enough. W e now know it alcoholics, it repeatedly saved the ing blind and its pioneering period is only a question of time when Headquarters too! just as we had done in the United every alcoholic in the world will have The year 1944 unfolded another States. W e ran into language barriers, as good a chance to stay alive and development of immense value. Down so more and more of our literature was happy as we have had here in America. in Greenwich Village, probably in an translated into other tongues. Serving the foreign groups has there- attic, a few literary news-minded AAs Then too, our foreign friends raised fore become a major activity, though began to issue a monthly publication. new and special doubts. Maybe AA we’ve scarcely scratched the total prob- They called it “The Grapevine.” It was just a Yankee gadget that would lem so far. If AA’s Headquarters had was by no means the first local AA be no good for Ireland, Englahd, never done anything else, this effort bulletin or magazine. But, from the Holland, Scandinavia, Australia and alone is worth many times its cost. start, it was such a fine job that it the Pacific. Since their countries were Since AA was growing so fast, caught on nationally. After a time, it so different, the alcoholics must be Headquarters had to grow too. The became the mirror of AA thought and different too. Would A A work in group contributions and our bulging action, country-wide. It was a magic their “cultures,” they asked. literature sales soon demanded a full

Only groups.in dire trouble took them the platform upon which our Fellow- . seriously. From some quarters there ship could best function and hold was a violent reaction, especially from together in unity for all time to come. were then seated on its he-man Board, singleness of purpose, non-endorre- groups that had long lists of “protec- They saw that the Twelve Traditions along ,with the editors. Funds from ment of other enterprises, profes- tive” rules and regulations. There was were going to be as necessary to the the Foundat~on Reserve took up a sionalism, public controversy, and much apathetic indifference. Several or life of our society as the Twelve Steps mounting d e h i t and, of course, the anonymity in its several aspects, then our “intellectual” members cried were to the life of each member. The necessary special workers were hired. such a code of principles could be, loudly that the Traditions reflected AA Traditions were, the Cleveland But the cditors and their successors written. Such a traditional code could nothing more than the sum of my Convention thought, the key to the have continued to serve as volunteers not, of course, ever become iule or own hopes and fears for Alcoholics unity, the function and even the surwithout pay to this day. In ten years, law. But it could act as a sure guide Anonymous. vival of us all. the subscriptions, coming from all over for our Trustees, Headquarters people Therefore I began to travel and Of course I realized that I had the world, jumped to 30,000. In this and, most especially, for AA groups talk a lot about the new Traditions. not been the actual author of the fashion, still another Headquarters with bad growing pains. Being at the People were at first politely attentive, Traditions. I had merely mirrored World Service was born and has center of things, we of the Head- though it must be confessed that some principles which had already been grown. quarters would have to do the job. did eo to sleen durine mv earlv hammered out on thousands of anvils As early as 1945, mediating and Aided by m y helpers thcre, I set to giving suggestions by mail for the work. The Traditions of Alcoholics solution of group problems had put a Anonymous which resulted were first tremendous volume of work on Head- published in the so-called “long form” quarters. With most of the metropoli- in the AA Grapevine of May 6, 1946. tan AA centers, correspondence files Then I wrote some more pieces exhad grown six inches thick. Seemingly, plaining the Traditions in detail. every contestant in every group argu- These came out in later issues of the ment at wery point of the compass Grapevine. (See April 1952 and s ~ b wrote us in this period. Sequent issues.-ED.) .. … IL .- a I t was chiefly from this correspon- -~eanwhile, at thc Foundation, we harangues. But after a while, I got of AA group experience. It was’clear dence, and from our mounting public had taken another significant action letters containing sentiments like this: too that A A S deneral Headquarters, relations activity, that the basic ideas that was forthwith imbedded in these “Bill, we’d loveto have you come and its Trustees and its Staff had made the ‘ for Tradition of Alcoholics Anony- Traditions. In 1945, we had written speak. Do tell us where you used to forging of these vital principles posmous came. In late 1945, a good AA Mr. Rockefeller and the 1940 dinner hide your bottles and all about that sible. Had there been no AA Headfriend suggested that all this mass of guests that we would no longer need big, hot-flash spiritual experience of quarters to bring our problems into experience might be codified into a their financial help. Book royalties yours. But for Heaven’s sake, please focus, the Twelve Traditions of Alcowould look after Dr. Bob and me; don’t talk any more about those holics Anonymous could never have set of general principles; principles group contributions would pay the damned Traditions!” been written. simply stated which could offer tested General Ofice expenses. Since that But time presently changed all that. By this time, AA had found still solutions to all of AA’s problems vf day when we declared for self support, Only five years later, several thousand more favor in the world of medicine. living and working together and of the AA Headquarters has steadily re- AA members, meeting at the 1950 Two of the great medical associations . relating our society to the world out- fused “outside” contributions. Cleveland Convention, declared that of America ‘did an unprecedented side. If we had become sure enough The first reception of the Traditions AA’s Traditions, by then stated in the thing. In the year 1944, the Medical of where we stood on such matters was interesting and arnusiqg. The now familiar short form, constituted Society of the State of New York as membership, group autonomy, reaction was mixed, to say the least.

invited me to read a paper at its usually need, granting our sponsors Long since, ‘the Headquarters office annual meeting. Following the read- the necessary visiting privileges and their anonymity before the public. Nor, had subscribed to several clipping serv- we added, did, AA solicit money: We ing, three of the many physicians cooperating with our area Intergroup ices. Magazine articles and a never- paid our own bills. present stood up and gave their highest Associations. ending deluge of news stories about In a few years the public anonym$’endorsement. These were Dr. Harry During the 1940’s, two hospitals us continued to feed the Headquarters breakers were squeezed down to a Tiebout, AA’s best friend in the did meet all these urgent needs and scrapbooks. Writers asked us to check handful; thus another valuable kleadpsychiatric profession, Dr. Kirby Col- afforded shining examples of how their manuscripts; members were quarters Service had gone into adion. lier, also a psychiatrist friend and an medicine and AA could cooperate. At helped to appear anonymously on radio To maintain all these ever-~en~thenearly advocate of AA, and Dr. Foster St. Thomas Hospital at Akron, Dr. and TV programs. Hollywood wanted ing Service lifelines, the office had to Kennedy, the world-renowned neurolo- Bob, the wonderful Sister Ignatia and to do motion pictures. Making arrange- go on expanding. In 1950 we rW’ed gist. The Medical Society itself then the hospital’s staff presided over an ments for public relations became more to 141 E. 44th Street, still close 10 went still further. They permitted us alcoholic ward that had ministered to than ever a primary effort of the New Grand Central. Today, it h d the to print my paper and the recom- 5,000 alcoholics by the time Dr. Bob York Office. How many lives all this “DO It Now” Henry G., as part time mendations of these three doctors in passed away in 1950. At New York, saved, how many years of misery were Manager, and the five fine Staff Secrepamphlet form. Very large numbers Knickbocker Hospital provided a ward averted for thousands of alcoholics and taries, Helen,* Lib, Marian, Eve and of this pamphlet have since been dis- under the care of our first friend in their families, only God knows. Ann have been seen and head by tributed all over the world, carrying medicine, Dr. William Duncan Silk- About this time a serious threat to thousands on speaking trips, often the assurance to doctors everywhere worth, whcre he was assisted by a red- our long time welfare made its ap- requested by large regional meetingsthat AA is medically sound. headed AA nurse known as Teddy. pearance. Usually meaning well, mem- On its service staff, twelve non-alto- In 1949, the American Psychiatric By 1954, 10,000 alcoholics had been ,. bers began breaking their anonymity holics sparked by Grace and ~ e n n i s . Association did exactly the same thing. referred to Knickerbocker by the New all over the place. Sometimes they look after the office routines of book- I read a paper at its annual meeting York Intergroup and had passed wanted to use the AA name to adver- keeping, filing and stenography. The in Montreal. The paper was reprinted through this ward, the majority on tise and help other causes. Others enthusiastic receptionist Dolores Prein the American Journal of P~ychiatry, their road to freedom. It was in these just wanted their names and pictures sides over the outer office. The” and we were permitted to put it in two hospitals and by these pioneering in the papers. Being photographed the visitor sees the walls covered with pamphlet form under the title “The people that the best techniques of with the Governor would really help sectional maps showing the world.wide Society of Alcoholics Anonymous.” combining medicine and AA were AA, they thought. (I’d earlier been stretch of our Fellowship. On. a table This greatly increased our standing worked out. guilty of this, too.) But at last we stands a Winged Victory, symbol of with the psychiatric profession every- Since proper hospitalization was. saw the appalling risk to AA if all the noted Lasker Award given to AA where. These medical papers have and still is, one of AA’s greatest prob- our power-drivers got loose at the by the American Public Health Assoserved the foreign groups especially lems, the New York Headquarters has public level. Already scores of them ciation in 1951. well, saving them the years of time retailed this early hospital experience, were doing it. The editorial ‘offices of the Grapethat were required here in America to along with the many subsequent de- So Headquarters got to work. W e vine are on the same floor. Pete, persuade physicians of AA’s worth. velopments and ramifications, to groups wrote remonstrances, kind ones of volunteer editors headed by Don G. While on the topic of medicine, the all over the world-still another very course, to every breaker. Then about meet with a full time Managing Ed’part Headquarters has played in the vital Service. every two years, we sent letters to tor, Louise and her assistant $ar** field of hospitalization ought to be’re- Meantime, too, the great tide of nearly all press and radio outlets, ex- to hit the monthly deadline. ~0Lther viewed. public approval continued to sweep plaining why AAs shouldn’t break downtown, where rents are cheaper, As d l of us know, many hospitals in. Noiliing contributed so much to have been reluctant to take us in for this as did our friends of the press, the short periods of treatment we radio and, in recent times, television. * Helen resigned to be married in April. And I here record our thanks to all thorr who have previously sert*ed at A A Headpmters. Our newest member is H&.

them is a large floor space where Kitty in 1947, one paid worker to every at Vesey Street, $1.00 per member of Trustees, all friends of Dr. Bob and her staff look after Grapevine’s 3,000 AAs. Today, one paid Head- per year was required to do the over- and mine, hzd been entirely responsible 30,000 subxribers and their needs-as quarters worker serves 6,000 AAs. It all job. But at that time, a dollar was for the conduct of AA’s serviceswell as their complaints! therefore seems sure that we shall a dollar. Today, a dollar is only fifty services which had accounted for at Three blocks away from the main never be burdened with a bureaucratic cents. If AA’s present membership least half the size of Alcoholics office, we have a good sized loft space and expensive service set-up. actually sent us a dollar apiece every Anonymous and for much of its unity. where all our shipping and mailing is Here’s another illustration of how year, we would still have enough As early as 1945, some of us felt that done. Six busy young lads do nothing really small, physically and financially, funds to run our Headquarters in our virtually unknown Board of but this. Last year, they shipped about our Headquarters world operation spite of the watered dollar. And we Trustees had to be securely linked . 40,000 books, hundreds of thousands really is. An AA friend of mine could pay all expenses of the General to AA. None but a trifling fraction of pamphlets, many of these newly owns a garage, filling station and a Service Conference besides. But we of our membership even knew who designed and brought out. They mailed small car agency in a suburban town. still have to ask our contributing their Trustees were. The main linkabout 30,000 letters and bulletins and His building is a hundred feet long Groups to give IWO dollars per member age of Headquarters to the movement did huge quantities of mimeographing. and fifty feet wide, about the same per year for the distressing reason was through Dr. Bob and me, and we Like our three other offices, this place total floor space that we have at that only about half of AA’s Groups were perishable. The Board of Trusthas the best of modern equipment- Headquarters. 1-4s showroom holds give their World Headquarters any ees had become an isolated island in and needs it! only two cars for exhibit. His me- support whatever. In fact Group the middle of a fellowship sprawled Down one side of the long packing chanics do repairs out back, and, in voluntary contributions have fully paid through fifty-two countries. Hence, mom, there are shelves reaching to the front, stand four gas pumps. This is office expenses in only five years out we began to ‘debate the desirability of ceiling. O n these can be found, boxed hardly big business: of the last fifteen. That Headquarters some sort of an advisory board of up, tons of the old files of our Head- Yet my friend tells me that on car reserve of “book money” has had to AAs. Or, maybe we needed a Conquarters, going clear back to the old sales, repairs, gas and oil, his busi- foot the ten deficits. W e have grown ference of larger numbers elected by days at Vesey Street. The whole world ness takes in and pays out more money so fast that the average member has AA itself; people who would inspect story of AA is hidden in these boxes, yearly that AA’s whole world Head- lost touch, and does not understand Headquarters yearly, a body to whom waiting only to be dug out. In fact, quarters, the AA Grapevine, AA Pub- his World Headquarters and what it the Trustees could become responsible, we have just begun this two-year job. lishing and the AA General Service does. So I deeply hope that this pic- a guiding conscience of our whole In a partitioned-off corner office near Office all put together. ture of mine, plus the great work the world effort. those files, I now have t y o tireless Therefore, our Headquarters is Conference delegates and committee- But the objections to this were perassistants, Ed and Nell, researching the hardly big business either. My friend’s men are now doing will be graphic sistent and nothing happened for history of Alcoholics Anonymous. I garage serves a small community; but enough to arouse in non-contributors several years. Such a venture, it was hope the day will come when I shall AA’s Headquarters serves 150,000 a continuing desire to help. Indeed, said, would be expensive. And worse be able to write it. In any case it is members and nearly 6,000 Groups. I’m certain that it will. still, it might plunge AA into disrup- I

now sure that the story of AA can And these services, well maintained, Until 1951 our Headquarters was tive political activity when Conference never become distorted. Such is our will continue to make the difference constantly over-hung with even a Delegates were elected. These o b newest vital service. between sickness and health, even life greater threat to its existence. While jections had considerable merit. There- Monq-wix, our present array. of or death, to uncounted alcoholics and this danger still loomed, and if the fore, the whole project hung fire until Services may look like big business lo their families who haven’t yet found problem it posed wasn’t solved, our about 1948. But by this time, group some. But when we think of the size AA. So let’s now have an end to all whole world service structure might contributions nowhere near supported . and reach of AA today, that isn’t true that talk of big expense and big busi- someday wind up in complete collapse. the growing AA office. The Grapevine at all. In 1940, for example, we had ness at the New York Headquarters! The danger was this: during our was losing $1,000 a month, and one paid worker to every 1,000 AAs; When we first opened for business infancy and adolescence, the Board voluntary contributions for office ex-

penses were in the frightening arrears booklet* deals. It was a plan for a of $2,000 a month. General Service Conference of AA, Then Dr. Bob fell ill, mortally ill. a plan by which our society could Finally, in 1950, spurred on by the assume full and perrnanrht responrelentless logic of the situation, the sibility for the conduct of its most Trustees authorized Dr. Bob and me vital affairs. to devise the plan with which this (to be continued)

*Third Legacy Manual. This b the second of three installments rtz which AA’s to-founder Bill tells “How W e Learned To Recover-To Stdy Together-and To Serve.” Part three, “How W e Leanled To Serve,” will appear in the ] d y issue.

AA GRAPEVINE, JULY 1955 Inc., the AA Grapevine, Inc., and This meant that we had to form a AA’s Board of Trustees, raently re- Conference representing our membernamed as the General Service Board of ship which could meet yearly with our – – Alcoholics Anonymous. Our worldwide unity and much of our growth trustees at New York and thus assume direct responsibility for the guardiansince early times is directly traceable ship of AA tradition and the direction to this cluster of life-giving activities of our principal service &airs. Otherlocated, since 1938, at New York. wise, a virtually unknown Board of Until 1950, these over-all services Trustees and our too little understood were the sole function of a few Service Headquarters operations would old time AAs, several non-alcoholic someday be bound to face collapse. friends, Doctor Bob and myself. For Suppose, acting quite on their own, all the years of AA’s infancy, we old that future trustees were to make a timers had been the self-appointed serious blunder. Suppose, with no trustees for Alcoholics Anonymous. linkage to AA, that they tried to act At last we realized that AA had for us in time of great trouble or grown up; that our Fellowship was crisis. With no direct guidance from “Recovery, Unity and Service-these are the Three, Legacies of our ready and able to take these responsi- AA as a whole, how could they do AAaexperience. Our Ieaders are but rusted servants; they do not govern. bilities from us. There was also an- this? Collapse of our top services God, as He may speak in our group conscience, is our sole authority. And other urgent reason for change. Since would then be inevitable. And if, World Service is the beart of our Third Legacy!’ we old timers couldn’t live forever, under such conditions, our world ser- URTwelfth Step -carrying the publicity of almost every description. newer trustees would be virtually un- vices did fall apart, how could they 0 message-is the basic service that They require committees, delegates, AA’s Fellowship gives; this is our trustees and conferences. And, not to, known to the AA Groups, now spread over the whole earth. Without direct ever be reconstructed? The trustees, Doctor Bob and I fiprincipal aim and the main reason for be forgotten, they need voluntary linkage to AA, future trustees couldn’t nally saw in 1950 that this appalling our existence. Therefore, AA is more money contributions. possibly function alone. risk must no longer be taken. A direct than a set of principles; it is a society These services, whether performed linkage between ourselves and AA had of alcoholics in action. We must carry by individuals, groups, areas or AA to be built. the message, else we ourselves can as a whole, are utterly vital to our These were the conclusions that led wither and those who haven’t been existence and growth. Nor can we to the formation of the General Sergiven the truth will die. make AA simple by abolishing such vice Conference of Alcoholics Anony- Hence, an AA service is anything services. We would only be asking for mous, a body of about seventy-five whatever that helps us to reach a fel- complication and confusion. elected Delegates from the States and low sderer-ranging all the way Concerning any given service, we Provinces of the United States and from the Twelfth Step itself to a ten- therefore pose but one question: “Is Canada. On a trial experimental basis, cent phone call and a cup of coffee, this service really needed?” If it is, these Delegates commenced in 1951 to and to AA’s General Service Head- then maintain it we must, or fail in sit yearly at New York with our Trusquarters for national and international our mission to those who seek AA. tees and General Service Staff memaction. The sum total of all these ser- The most vital, yet the least under- bers. vices is our Third Legacy. stood group of services that AA has, The General Service Conference of Services include meeting places, are those which enable us to function Alcoholics Anonymous has proved itclubs, hospitals and Intergroup offices; as a whole; namely, the AA General thy mean pamphlets, books and good Service Office, the AA Publishing,

self an immense success. Its record of tested body of AA members. delegates could be divided into panels. pull the inevitable election pressure achievemeat during its four-year trial Beginning, thetefore, with our Panel One, elected for two years, down? To accomplish this, it was properiod has been completely convincing. Twentieth Anniversary in 1955, the would be invited for 1951, the first vided that a Delegate must receive a Therefore, we who are the old Third Legacy of World Service will year. Panel two, elected for two years, two-thirds vote for election. If a Deletimers of AA, are now entirely ready henceforth be for all members of would be seated in 1952. Thereafter, gate got a majority of this size, nobody to deliver the principal affairs of Al- Alcoholics Anonymous to have and b 6G panel would be elected and one could kick much. But if he or she coholics Anonymous into the per- hold for so long as God may wish our would be retired yearly. This would didn’t, and the election was dose, manent keeping of this well-tried and society to endure. cause the Conference to rotate. The what then? Well, perhaps the names election of State and Provincial Com- of the two highest in the running, or mitteemen and Delegates could take the three officers of the Committee, or place at large centers of population even the whole Committee could be THE C O N F E R E N C E I S B O R N within each State and Province. Or, put in a hat. One name would be to save expense, such Assemblies of drawn. The winner of this painless Iace,towashave T one thing to say that we ought a General Service Conferbut it was quite another to de- Group Representatives could be held at annual State or Provincial Convenlottery would become the Delegate. Since the high candidates in the runvise a plan which would bring it into tions. ning would all & good ones, we successful existence. The cost of hold- But how could Assemblies of couldn’t miss getting fine Delegates ing such a Conference was easily dis- Group Representatives choose their by this method. missed. Even though the outlay might Committeemen and Delegates without But when these Delegates got to be $20,000 for each yearly session, terfic political friction? As veterans New York, what would they do there? this would be only fifteen cents apiece of many a group hassle and inter- We thought they would want to have extra for each AA member, and group brawl, we shivered. Then real authority. So, in the Charter mighty well worth it. What member came a happy thought. We remem- drawn for the Conference itself, it wouldn’t give that much to be sure bered that the usual election troubles was provided that the Delegates could that AA didn’t collapse at its center were often caused by personal nomin- issue flat directi~nsto the Trustees in some future day of great need or ations, whether from the floor or from on a two-thirds vote. And even a crisis? some committee issuing from a back simple majority vote would constitute But how on earth were we going to room. Another main cause of trouble a mighty strong suggestion. It.would cut down destructive politics with erations in mind, and with some mis- was to be seen in close elections, hotly become traditional too for the Trustall its usual struggles for prestige and givings, I commenced work on a contested. These nearly always left a ees, thereafter, to submit the names of vainglory? How many delegates would draft of a plan, much assisted by large and discontented minority. all proposed Board members to the be required and from where should Helen B. of the office Staff. So we devised the scheme of choos- Conference for confirmation. This they come? Arrived at New York, Though the Conference might be ing Committeemen out of Group As- would give the Conference an effective how could they be related to the later enlarged to include the whole semblies by written ballot, with no voice in the selection of Trustees. Board of Trustees? What would be world, we felt that the first Delegates personal nominations at all. The Along with a temporary plan for their actual powers and duties? What- should come from the U.S. and Committee would then be placed in financing the Conference, we put these ever the plan, it had to be sound Canada only. Each State and Province front of the Assernbly, which could ideas and their detailed applications enough to work well on the first trial. might be allowed one Delegate. Those then elect from it the Delegate to the into a pamphlet called “The Third No blunders big enough to create a containing heavy AA populations Conference in New York. But, sure Legacy.” We shipped about 50,000 fiasco could be allowed. could have additional representatives. enough, this was going to be the of these documents to the groups and With these several weighty consid- To give the Conference continuity, the hottest spot of all! How could we asked them to form Assemblies for the

election of Cornmittemen and Dele- . elections being decided by lot, as polite, we set up something called Anonymous was at last safe from MJ gates. – Boston had. And when these few the “Gripe Box.” Nothing but ex- storm the future might bring. With Dr. Bob’s approval, I stumped were so chosen, there was never any cellent questions were dropped into And, as the Delegates returned the country for the Third Legacy Plan, hard feeling. It was tremendously it; nobody was mad about anything, home, they carried this same convictalking to large AA audiences and encouraging. bJicve.it or not! tion with them. watching Assemblies select their Dele- The first Conference was set for So went session after session, morn- Realizing our need for funds and gates in more than two dozen States April, 1951. In came the Delegates. ing, afternoon and evening. The Dele- better literature circulation, some did and Provinces. They looked over Headquarters, cellar gates handled several tough puzzlers place a little too much anphasis on about which we at Headquarters were this necessity; others were a little disin doubt, sometimes giving advice couraged, wondering why fellow mancontrary to our own conclusions. In bers did not take fire as they had. ALL SHILLALAHS nearly every instance, we saw that they They forgot that they themselves had were right. Then and there they been eye witnesses tothe Confermcc proved, as never before, that AA’s and that their brother alcoholics Tndition Two was correct. The group hadn’t. But, both here and at home, Conscience could safely act as the sole they made an impression much greater authority and sure guide for Alcoholics than they knew. The interest of great Anonymous. numbers of AA groups commenced to How well I remember that first try- to garret, got acquainted with the Serv- Nobody present will ever forget that deepen, something which has conout in Boston! The Irish turned out ice Staff, shook hands with the Trust- ‘ final session of the first Conference. tinued in all the four Confmnce in force. To our amazement, the pro- ecs. That evening, we gave them a We knew that the impossible had hap- years since. ceedings were as unruffled as a mill briefing session, under the name of pened, that AA could never break In the midst of this exciting turn of pond, even though ballot after ballot “What’s on your mind?” We an- down in the middle, that Alcoholics affairs, the Conference agreed that the failed to get anybody a two-thirds ma- swered scores of questions of all kinds. jority for election as a Delegate. The The Delegates began to feel at home Assembly finally drew lots among the and reassured. Seeing so much quick W H O ARE A A ‘ S TRUSTEES? whole Committee, and out of the hat understanding and increased confi- In response to many inquiries indicating widespread interest in AA’s popped a mighty good Delegate! dence, our spirits rose. To a man, we national affairs, the Grapevine is glad to publish a list of the’ non- Everybody was pleased and happy; sensed that something very big was alcoholic friends of Alcoholics Anonymous who serve without compensathe heat was off. If the Irish could do happening. One strenuous Conference tion as Trustees of the General Service Board of AA: it without a fight, anybody could. session followed after another. The Right there we got the first glimmer Delegates overhauled our finances Mr. Jack Alexander, The Saturday Evening Post that AA had begun to move from par- with a microscope. After listening to Mr. Frank B. Amos, Retired Mr. Frank Gulden, Charles Gulden, Inc. tisan politics into true statesmanship. Much the same thing happened at all the other stops. About a third of the Delegates chosen were real oldreports from the Board of Trustees and from all the Services, there was warm but cordial debate on many a question of AA policy. The Trustees z Mr. Leonard Harrison, Communi Service Society Dr. John Norris, Eastman Kodak ompany Mr. Archibald B. Roosevelt, Investments Mr. Bernard B. Smith, Attorney and Author timers. The rest were active AAs, submitted sevcral of their own serious sober four to eight years. The large problems for the opinion of the Con- Seven alcoholics, serving also without compensation, complete the 15majority named were chosen by a ference. man Board. A recent vacancy among the non-alcoholic members has not two-thirds vote, only a few of the Feeling that everybody was too as yet been filled.

Alcoholic Foundation ought to be re- ways will be. AA’s Headquarters named as the General Service Board seems that important to me. When, of Alcoholics Anonymous, and this therefore, the hour comes at St. Louis was done. The word “Foundation” for me to turn over to you this last stood for charity, paternalism and great asset of the AA inheritance, I maybe big money. AA would have shall feel not a little sad that I must none of these; from here out we no longer be your Headquarters would assume full responsibility and handyman. But I shall rejoice that pay our expenses ourselves. Alcoholics Anonymous has now grown A s I watched all this grow, I be- up and, through its great Conference, came entirely sure that Alcoholics can confidently take its destiny by the Anonymous was at last safe-even hand. from me. So, my dear friends, you now have Nearly all of the last dozen years read my final accounting to you for of my life have been invested in the the World Services of Alcoholics construction of our General Head- Anonymous. quarters. My heart is there, and 11- This is the third and final installment from Bill’s “Third Legacy Mand of World Service,” which he will present in finai form at the Twentieth Attnivcrsary Convention in St. Louis this month. The second hdf of the Manual, whitb will not be reprinted in the Grapevine, gives #detailed guidance for those actively engaged in the conduct of AA’s worldwide seruices.-Ed.

and the General Service Board of In writing within tile time allotted August Alcoholics Anonymous. the consent of at lest three-quarters We have also hcard with approval of all those registered Groups who Bill W.’s proposal that AA’s Gen- rqpond to such proposal. eral Service Conference should now WE FURTHER UNDERSTAND: AA’s Co-founder Asks become the permancnt successor to the, founders of Alcoholics Anony- That, as provided in Article XI1 of the Conference Charter, the Confermous, inheriting from them all their ence binds itself to the society of Fellowship to “TakeOver” former duties and special responsibilities, thus avoiding in future Alcoholics Anonymous by the following means: time all possible strivings for in- That in all its proceedings, the TANDING before several thousand AAs and their familics at the last session of dividual prestige or personal power; General Service Conference shall S a three-day meeting celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of Alcoholics and also providing our Society with the means of functioning on a pcrobserve the spirit of the AA Tradition, taking great care that the Anonymous in St. Louis July 1-2-3, Bill W., surviving co-founder of AA, asked the membership to “take its destiny by the hand.” With a resounding “aye!” manent basis. Conference never becomes the seat those present-including AAs from Bermuda, Brazil, Enghnd, France, Hawaii , BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED: of perilous wealth or power; that and Puerto Rico, as well as the U.S. and Canada-adoptcd :he following resolu- That the General Service Confcr- sumcient operating funds, plus an tion offered by Bill: ence of Alcoholics Anonymous ample reserve be its prudent finmshould become, as of this date, July cia1 principle; that none of the Con- 3rd, 1755, the guardian of Tradi- ference members shall ever be placed THIRD LEGACY RESOLUTION tions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the in a position of unqualified authority perpetuator of the World Services over any of the others; that all im. Adopted b y The 20th Anniversary Convention of AA of our Society, the voice of thc portant decisions be reached by dis- Group Conscience of our entire cussion, vote and, whenever pos- ( T h i s Resolution Authorizes the General Service Conference fellowship and the sole successors to sible, by substantial unanimity; that. to Act for Alcoholics Anonymous and to Become the Succes- its co-founders, Dr. Bob and Bill. no Conference action ever be persor to Its Co-Founders. AND IT IS UNDERSTOOD: That sonally punitive, or an incitement to neither the Twelve Traditions of Al- public controversy; that though the coholics Anonymous nor the war- Conference may act in the service of We, members of the 20th Anniversary mous, as created in 1951 by our co- ranties of Article XI1 of the Con- Alcoholics Anonymous and may Convention of Alcoholics Anony- founders, Dr. Bob S. and Bill W. ference Charter shall ever be traditionally direct its World Sermous, here assembled at St. Louis in and authoritcd by Trustees of thc changed or amended by the General vices, it shall never enact laws or July of the year 1955, declare our Alcoholic Foundation, has now bc- Service Conference except by first regulations binding on AA as a belief that our Fellowship has now come entirely capable of assuming asking the consent of the registered whole or upon any AA Group or come of age and is entirely ready to the guardianship of AA’s Twelve AA groups of the world. These member thereof, nor shall it perform assume full ,and permanent posscs- Traditions and of taking over full Groups shall be suitably notified uf any other such acts of government; sion of the Three Legacies of our guidance and control of the World any proposal for change and shall be and that, like the society of A~co- AA inheritance-the Legacies of Servicc of our Society, as provided allowed no less than six months for holics Anonymous which it xrvts, Recovery, Unity and Service. in thc Third Legacy Manual of full consideration thereof. And be- the Conference itself will always re- W e believe that the General Service World Service recently revised by fore any such Conference action ma!: main democratic in thought and ac- Conference of Alcoholics Anony- our surviving co-founder, Bill W. be taken, there must first be received tion. 22 3

AA GTAPEVINE, NOVEMBER 1955

lines in our respective areas, so Gen- 2. Groups in 17 states contributed eral Service Headquarters serves less than $1.00 per member. throughout the world. They make it 3. Of these, 5 states contributed 1 –possible for us to have literature for less than 706 per member and 2 states the new member and to guide us in 504 or less per member. ! our public relations, so that our good 4. There were 5 states that con- I name is protected the way we want it. tributed more than $1.50 per member. Monev and Its Place Even more important, our General Service Headquarters makes it possible 5. Of these, one state, Oklahoma, was the only one to contribute more I

for you and me to find AA wherever than $2.00 per member. They came in Alcoholics Anonvmous* we may go in the world. In 1951 the General Service Conference was set up as a link between up with the astonishing figure of $3.47 per member. 6. The next highest was $1.67 per the Groups and the General Service member-then $1.63, $1.56 and Board. W e have the responsibility as $1.53. individual members, through our 7. 23% of the groups in the United group, to pay the expenses of the States contributed the suggested delegate to an annual conference. amount of $2.00 per member. HEN we speak of money and its work and help each other, all with Therefore we have money require- In this specific request for $2.00, W p l a c e in AA we are not speaking the basic idea of attracting the person ments for the group, the Central Office we have certainly failed by a very of very much money by any standards who does not yet know there is a way (if we have one), the General Service large margin. Lack of information is usually associated with money needs. of solving his or her alcoholic prob- Conference, and General Service Head- certainly not a proper excuse because In fact we are speaking of a very lem. quarters. All of this is for the purpose we have been informed at least twice small amount of money, but that small Whether a group is in a small of attracting the person who does not a year of the need and the specific amount is very important. town or large city, there are certain yet know AA. This is our financial amount per member. This subject lends itself to rather money requirements-the ad in the need, the place of money in AA. There was a period in AA when specific statements, I hope not too newspaper, the telephone, the rent for What is the specific amount we are there were two things to “soft pedal” positive or dogmatic. Dollars are a the group location, the literature. As talking about for each one of us? This -God and money. You have paid definite measurable sum. If you need more groups are formed in.an area a is not an easy question to answer, but your “initiation fee” when you walk dollars and don’t have them it is Central Office becomes necessary, with we can be specific so far as General into the group. There are no dues and necessary to do some thinking and a full-time secretary to receive calls Service Headquarters is concerned. no fees, but there are financial needs. planning. for help and transmit them where They have calculated that to finance When will we realize our responsi- The structure of AA, from the they belong. Committees are formed their responsibilities properly the spe- bility for meeting them? Group up to the General Service to carry out public relations, handle cific amount per member is $2.00 per Is it possible we have forgotten Board, made your sobriety and mine institutional help, guide the Central annum. Not a very large sum! “first things first” and mixed up the possible. It makes it possible for the Office policies and administer the How well have we carried out this cost of social affairs with our responsinew member to find us. It gives us funds needed for these services. request? A study of the 1955 Group bilities? No one should object to a the vehicle through which we can As we function along these simple Directory shows the following inter- dance, a picnic, or any decent form of esting statistics: entertainment. The big question is- *One o f three talks at a panel on “Money and Its Place itt AA,” 20th Anni- 1. In 10 states more groups failed “Can we afford it?” “First things first” versary Convention of AA, St. Louis, Mo., July 1955. to contribute than did contribute. should mean, among other things:

1. Individual sobriety. It has been my observation that 2. Helping the other fellow gain when the membership of a group are his sobriety by supporting the vehicle informed, they will respond. You which makes it possible. can’t expect a member to put in a This means supporting the Group. dollar when the leader passes the Tradition Number Seven says, “Every basket with no explanation at all, or AA Group ought to be fully self- at the most a statement that wc haw supporting, declining outside contri- coffee and doughnuts to pay for. Cofbutions.” The Groups support the fee and doughnuts used to be about other three important links: ten cents. The logical AA member The Central Office; puts a quarter in the basket and thinks The General Service Conference; he has been generous. General Service Headquarters. Therefore, it is my belief that the The financial support of these func- financial needs of AA can be comforttions are inseparably woven together ably taken care of without any strain into the place of money in AA. on anyone, through a process of con- As individual members we speak tinuous explanation at the group level. of gratitude to AA and what it has This can be accomplished very simply meant to us. Are we grateful enough with a brief financial report monthly, to give the equivalent of a double shot and if the leader at each meeting will when the basket is passed? Are we explain in passing the basket that our grateful enough to match it with the financial needs are simple but imporcost of a movie or the cost of cigar- tant, because this group believes it is ettes? essential to support General Service What is our financial status now as Headquarters and the Central Ofice compared with the time we found in addition to our own rent, literature. AA? What are our prospects in our doughnuts and coffee. work and what is our general manner These simple and essential money of living? needs will help carry the .message, Our financial support is an integral which is one of the primary purposes part of Twelfth Step work; It makes of our organization. Proper financial the Twelfth Step possible by furnish- support is a specific, tangible way of ing a means and a place through expressing gratitude. which we can complete the attraction of the new member. C.R., Los Arz~ele.r,Cali/.

NOVEMBER 1955 over alcohol. But I had not realized, God turned His spotlight ~ 1 1Step as so many do not, that there is actu- Three and I made a radicrl change in ally a Step before the Twelve. So. my religious affiliation. It was A very after a glorious honeymoon, I reached happy change . . . but still I drank. a too common conclusion. I was I went on periodic benders–of AA smarter than my fellow-alcoholics, in meetings. I was so desperate that I fact, I was smarter than all of them went the limit and even laid 05 ttie “Reserved for put together. I had had a good background in psychology and I figured bottle for several days at a time! But over and over again AA “let me down out the “cause” of my drinking. ’cause no one understood me.” Always Eureka! Given the “cause” I had there was a drink waiting jusr outside

Members Only” the “remedy.” I could “walk alone.” They say that lau~hteris good for the soul so go ahead and laugh. But, the door. Then came one of those special days of hell with which God Answers if you are an alcoholic, let your laugh- even drunken pleas for help. I came . ter hide your tears at those famous last out of my purple fog to seeAr12)rroa, words, “I can walk alone.” But this a fellow-alcoholic, standing by the is not a dissertation on the need for mirror lighting a cigarette. Suddenly AA meetings so I will skip over the his hair burst into flames. The fire was hours since I was discharged from the years in which I walked, or should I extinguished without much damage A go-round, that’s what itis is.a merry- LCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS And hospital with a paper saying that fur- say staggered, alone. but, somehow, I stood in front of the 1 have the stron-qest roof. Every once ther treatment would not be beneficial. As I look back, I believe that the mirror and saw myself and my life in a while my old friends come to visit Little could they know that the treat- miracle of AA was working all througl1 which had become completely unmanme. They visit me as they would visit ment was only beginning. But they my drinking days. After an attempted ageable. a zoo to see that animal from out of were right in that they did not say I suicide and subsequent hospitalization, All that tlny and night I lay alone their world, a sober man. Those who was cured, for I had committed myself have tried AA always say, “You know, as an alcoholic and for me there was I think I’ll have to climb back on the no cure. Program again.” Those who have not I had gone to the hospital better itried our way of life are even more prepared than most because I had a mazed and invariably comment: fairly good idea what the hospital “Shay, you look good, fella, p e s s I’ll could do for me and, most important give that thing a whirl.” of all, what it could not do. I had had Doesn’t that prove my point? a good foundation in active member- “Climb back on,” “Give it a whirlw– ship in AA several years before. The these sure add up to a merry-go-round. principles had made so much sense to But about that strongest proof, 1 am me that I had never doubted them afraid I exaggerated. It is not usually drunk or sober. I simply wasn’t ready. more than 20%-by-vol., whatever I had taken the Twelve Steps very proof that is. seriously. I had admitted, yes, and It has been quite a few twenty-four accepted, the fact that I was powerless

and thought (and drank without avail) Now I am going to risk excommu- -and thought some more. I cannot nication and let you into a secret say that my thoughts were logical or known only to the initiates of AA. even coherent but out of them sprang The next time that AA appears like a an idea which has obsessed me ever merry-go-round that you “climb on” since. and “take a whirl” be sure you do it AA has worked for hundreds of like this and you’re in, pal, you’re in: thousands but it had not worked for Just walk up to some AA group, me. I believed in the Twelve Steps give them a hand and they will give and found that they kept me sober for you the grip of fellowship. Then say a time. I had been an active member. very simply, “I am powerless.” That’s .. . Say, wait just a moment. Just how the password, see? Now they will does one go about becoming a member look at you with a certain scepticism, of such a loosely organized body as perhaps, even yet. Many phonies have AA? It has no dues or fees, I remem- learned the grips and passwords. But bered that much. now comes the proof. I carefully reread a pamphlet which You will proudly, yet humbly, flash I had but it did not help much at first. your “membership card” which you AA was not “allied with any sect, must carry with you always and show denomination, politics, organization or at any time when you are challenged institution” so my church didn’t help by anything in your daily life. On or the fact that I am a Democrat. I that card will be emblazoned in the love to argue but AA “does not wish gold of sincerity, “I have an honest to engage in any controversy.” Shucks, desire to stop drinking.” there must be a membership require- Then you will find the great secret ment somewhere! of AA. It ain’t a merry-go-round at Then, to my confusion, I found it all. It is a through express heading so plainly written that even a fool like for a glorious future. But every seat (me could read it: “The only require- in it has a big sign on it: metrr for membership is an honest derire lo stop drinkirrg.” That was the Step before the Twelve that I had RESERVED FOR never taken seriously. MEMBERS ONLY ‘ Then it was that I became 3 member of Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time. The subsequent hospitalization was simply to dry out and to F. 0.. Rrho~lt~d Crorlp, think out my new way of life. SNI Fra::ririo. Calif.

April 1956

An AA Editor Speaks- The fourth in a series of capsule curred when just a few people volcomments on AA’s Twelve Tradi- untarily meet together. The cost of tions by editors of AA publications hiring a meeting place is real. Other incidental costs grow along with all over the world. the group. But because nobody asks us to meet together except ourselves, then logically we ourselves should pay whatever costs arise through this association within our fellowship. It’s as simple as that! If honestly (through our own free will and the help of a greater Power) we seek to help ourselves, we must decline outside contributions because, after all, it’s nobody’s business except our own anyway. By helping ourselves so we help others similarly, with no thought of reward. They in turn do likewise, TRADITION SEVEN and so AA snowballs. New groups learn how to main-

E VERYTHING in the world costs something-in both material and spirituaI spheres. Just . think for a moment . . What costs tain themselves from the members’ contributions-offered in gratitude for a new found life and happiness. So please don’t be mean, as any nothing? Some say courtesy costs group surplus can help spread our nothing or love costs nothing, but message round the world through that’s not so. Even these virtues GSH. We in Australia are apprecall for humility and unselfishness. ciative of help and advice thus So, without splitting hairs, it does made possible. cost some effort to get anything or To its contributing members AA to give anything. Even love itself says, “Thank you!” To outside can cost heartaches if it’s not under- would-be contributors AA also says, stood. “Thank you very much .. . but if I n AA, minor cash costs are in- you don’t mide . . .no thank you.”

April

M O R E T H A N DONUTS “When alcoholics dry up, they Let us set aside one month each tighten up.” Or, “when we get sober year (maybe November) for “Nawe get tight.” Personally we don’t tional Roll Call Month,” when-in believe either of these two frequently gratitude – we would individually heard remarks. Alcoholics are most place anything from a dime to a dollar generous people; they never fail to in an already-addressed postage-guarrespond to an appeal. But when a anteed envelope and send it directly chairman coyly and almost apologetic- to our General Service office in New ally says, “We have no dues or fees in York. Such addressed, postage-guar- AA but we do have to pay for the anteed envelopes could be widely discoffee and doughnuts and a few other tributed at meetings, etc.-no member things, so we’ll pass the basket”- to send more than one envelope, or the AA member gives just what is more than one dollar. Completely asked for: money for coffee and anonymous contributions. Direct to doughnuts. New York. Rarely have we heard a chairman Make the Roll Call an annual event. stress the Seventh Tradition: “Every We would thus take care of almost AA group ought to be fully self- everything . . . except the coffee and supporting, declining outside contri- doughnuts! A d i e to a dollar. And butions.” no one knows but you and God. How It is not likely that as chairmen we about it? will alter our tactics. We’ll go on talk- Anon., San Francisco, Californiu ing about coffee and doughnuts. And having deficits, nationally and locally . . . in even the most prosperous times. Here’s a suggestion that may accomplish a couple of things, painlessly. It may provide enough money to take care of a major portion of General Service Headquarters expense, and it may provide a reasonably accurate census-of AA members:

AA GRAPEVINE, MAY 1956 birthday contribution, it is a habit they for AA as long as we draw a breath, won’t forget and one that will remind and we should do something to perthem about the most important day in- petuate this fellowship-we will let it their lives. go to the dogs if we do not find some W e iilcoholics are blessed with two plan to finance ourselves! birthdays: the first birthday God gave You might think I am kidding, that Excerpts from a talk given by the originator of “The Oklahoma Birthday Plan,” I am showing an over-amount of enat the AA State M e e h g in Great Bend, Kan~ar,last falJ. us life and a soul and on this birthday we receive gifts. Along came old thusiasm here, but I have been all over John Barleycorn and misjudgment and the country and have made about thir- I giving usBilltheandThirdthe Legacy BELIEVE founders in inspiration from this suggestion and gave couldn’t get it out of my mind. After we lost our soul; we lost it and we almost lost our life. Then this great ty-five talks and visited many, many groups. I find some enthusiasm, sureus everything we need to work AA being home a day or two I called philosophy of AA came along and but where are all the 200,000 or so and to perpetuate it, except a perma- seven or eight old boys who had through it we eventually found our who have “passed through”; what are nent way to finance ourselves. The “passed through” and gave them the soul, and for finding our soul we they doing? We who are active in AA $2.00 a head suggested as a yardstick thought. Every one of them was should give of ourselves in gratitude. have the greatest responsibility that we for group contributions to Headquar- interested. My AA birthday is the most impor- have ever had in our lives: to try to ters sounds all right; but in my opin- Then I called AA in Oklahoma tant day of my life. I have outlived reach the inactive olcl-timers. ion a lot of us are “passing through City-where I’d first heard the ideamy real birthday and I am living from T o get back to the Birthday Plan: AA: 25 per cent of those in this room and got the same reaction. The boys my first contact with AA eleven years the idea is that you talk about this in tonight will have “passed through” a in Oklahoma City started talking ago. your own group. The group doesn’t year from now-sober, chances’ are, about it and I started talking about it When . these older guys and gals vote on whether to accept the Birthday but not active-and new ones will be and in July we decided to try it seven and eight years sober are asked Plan-that’s an individual, voluntary taking your places. around the state. W e also decided to if they want to do some Twelfth Step thing. It does vote on appointing a I have had ;n opportunity to look back up and include the birthdays that work with money they feel the same birthday boy or girl. On the first of at this thing from a financial stand- had already passed during the year. way. Under our plan we do not write the month the birthday boy or girl point and I am worried. The seventy- The result was we sent to General letters, but when the second year rolls checks all the birthdays for the active five districts in the United States and Service Headquarters from Oklahoma, around we follow up and it gives us a and inactive members of the group. Canada which send delegates to our whose groups are below the average, chance to do some Twelfth Step work. (Some groups make a lot out of birth- General Service Conference every year almost exactly twice as much in 1954 I have come to the conclusion that it days while others do not.) H e makes . have averaged about $1500 a year in as the year before. W e continued to is just as important to reach the old- a list of all the birthdays, then studies contributions. follow the plan i n 1955, with even timer as it is to save the last boy or the Handbook and the Third Legacy On the twenty-eighth day of Febru- better results. And, at least 90 per girl who comes through the door. If Manual enough to prepare a fifteenary in 1954 while at’tending a state cent of the old-timers are repeating we do not save some of them then we minute talk. meeting in Oklahoma City a fellow their contribution. who knew I was interested in AA are turning into a processing fellow- The birthday contribution is volun- The way we approach ,these oldfinances said to me: “What do you timers is this: we ask them how they ship. tary. N o one has to contribute. But think of starting a voluntary individ- There are a few groups that are the talk will at least educate the new would like to do a little Twelfth Step ual birthday contribution to the New growing but most are still about the member in AA and tell him something work with money. I contend that as York office-a dollar for every year Americans we think in terms of same size. The older ones are “pass- about the over-all job that we had since first contact with AA, up to a ing through”; we get new members failed to do until we started working money. If we can get ,the old-timers top limit of $lo?” I received a great who are processed, and that is not under the Third Legacy (worldwide who are no longer active to make their good for AA. W e should be grateful service). The birthday boy or girl

. talks to John and Mary . . John and The Birthday Plan may not be the W e in Oklahoma are going to The experiment is working in Okla- I

Mary go to see Bill and Susie to tell answer but from this will come the try to educate the new member as he horna, and I hope by the time your them about this new way of doing answer because I know you folks are comes into AA, and try to accumulate delegate goes back to New York to Twelfth Step work with money . . . going to go home and look the facts ,tfnn@ssary funds to do the things the next Conference he will have I and you’ll be surprised at the results. squarely in the face. Get out the old we should in order to run our Head- something great to report about the I want you to remember how this Handbook that the gals at General quarters in New York with dignity- Birthday Plan. It has been working I

inspiration came to me . . . by taking Service Headquarters spend much time and we are “teasing” the old-timers in man; other states too.* to these older members and to the new in compiling and go to studying it. back. It is all AA, every bit of it. . W e have made good progress. . . I ones too. They want to do something; If there are any questions about the think it is the answer, and it is later D o you know what generally hap- than you think. W e who are active they want to be a part of this fellow- pens to that book? It is sent to the Birthday Plan and the three-year-plan ship; they feel when they make a secretary of each group and about the we are going to start in Oklahoma, I’ll in AA have a job to do, and our jd little investment that they are a part of only time it is used is when someone be more than happy to answer them. is never done. it. And they are! W h o is an AA? inquires if there is a group located in Ab A., Tdsa, Oklahoma H e doesn’t have to go to meetings . . . such-and-such a place. Read the front an alcoholic who has a sincere desire . part of this book-there is a lot of to stop drinking is an AA if he says ialuable information in it. Then get *Ed. note-we’ve been hearing murmurings and rustlings about the Birthday he is. out the Third Legacy Manual and get Plan for some time. Finally we decided to take a look at the mail and see I hope you will all go home and to schooling yourself! just how far the idea had gone by word-of-mouth. W e were amazed to come do a little serious thinking. W e have I have been to the General Service up with this (incomplete at press date) list of sixteen areas where groups are not gone to pieces yet but too many office in New York many times using the Birthday Plan: Arkansas, California, District of Columbi~a,Georgia, are “passing through” and we have to besides to attend the Conference Idaho, Kansas, M~~ssachusetts, Mississippi, OkMoma, Oregon, Pennsylvanh, reach them some way. Bill W. has meetings when I was a delegate. I Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and British Columbia. From seven scratched his head and many of the know they are always on their toes other sfares (as of press time) have come individual Birthday contribution^ active old-timers have tried to figure when the Conference is in session, direct to General Service Headquarters, many of the accompanying letten a way to reach the old guys and bring but as I say, I have dropped in many inscribed “with love to AA”: Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, them back into AA. They haven’t times. I was there at Bill’s birthday New Iersey and West Virgitria. come up with anything yet. dinner last year. Did you know they God has been good to me . . . were $40,000 in the hole? W e came when this plan was dropped in my lap up with $39,000 of it, and do you I was walking with a cane and the know where this money is coming doctor had told me to go home and from that we are short? It is coming get my affairs in shape, and play gin from the sales of the Big Book, and rummy.’ I have been “talking the did you know that the reserve up Birthday Plan” since last February there is now less than $100,000? 28th and I think I am in pretty good It is a pity. What if there is a little shape for nearly sixty-eight. God has depression? You can sec why we are givcn me health and has given me the forced t,o look this situation squarely “wherewith” to come and talk to folks in the face: we have all got to come like you, so I know God is in this up with something permanent in order thing. to finance ourselves.

May 1956

The fifth in a series of capsule aom. He feels in no way organized, comments on AA’s Twelve Tradi- since the community to which he tions by editors of AA publications now belongs also permit. him the all over the world. power of choice. Organize, according to my d i e tionary means “to put into working order.” Is there a community anywhere in better working order than ‘ An AA Editor Speaks AA without one single directive being issued by any established On Traditions authority?

‘. I INCE an alcoholic will never be IN the British Parliamentary sys- S dictated to, I doubt whether he tem there is used the phrase, “The would ever maintain his so- House will divide.” This operation briety if he were subject to any “or- takes place subsequent to the disganization,” in the present accepted cussion of some controversial issue sense of that word. I feel also that between the reigning Government the average AA member realizes and the Opposition. that no man can live successfully if What a tragedy if the house of he is entirely isolated. He cannot AA were to d i v i d m state which really live happily and contentedly might easily come about if we were outside of a community. to associate ourselves with outside In recognizing the community to issues or public controversy. We which he now belongs, an AA 6 still possess the frailties of human happy to accept the fact that cer- nature, therefore in our case it is tain conditions may be necessary almost a certainty that we would for him to achieve and maintain his be divided among ourselves. “A sober state. I think he also recog- House divided amongst itself will nizes that tradition invariably surely fall.” Our founders, in their comes from communal experience wisdom, have protected us against and, since the community is greater such a disastrous contingency by than the individual, he is again formulating Tradition Ten. fully prepared to act upon that wis- Archie P., London Newsletter

June 1 9 5 6

JUST H O W A N O N Y M O U S ? WR Eleventh Tradition tells us would like, however, a little clarifi- 0 that our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need alcation from the people who can conform to it. Possibly’ the advantages are far greater than I now know ways maintain personal anonymity about. at the level of press, radio and As I understand the Eleventh and films. Twelfth Traditions I can’t find Our Twelfth Tradition tells 1s where it is necessary for me to be that Anonymity is the spiri@al known as Myron X in my home foundation of all our Traditions, group-or any other group of AA. ever reminding us to plac: princi- I am well aware that our Tradiples before personalities. tions were hammered out on the How far do we go w t’l thin anvils of experience and it is my anonymity business? In some parts intention to conform to the best of of Canada and the Unitell States my ability and understanding. we find that we are intrcx to I truly believe that quite a few Jack L., Robert B., Louis F., Mar- others would like to have additional garet S. and by golly you ,.,A have information about this particular the dickens of a time trying to in- phase of anonymity. troduce them to others. Are we H. B., West Richfield, Ohio anonymous to this degree? How can P.S. If I didn’t break my anonymity we be located in a time of need if we by signing this letter and you didn’t are anonymous to such a degree? answer in the Grapevine how would Far be it from me to feel that the I ever get the answers I would like above mentioned policy is wrong; I to have? ,,

August 1956

AN A A E D I T O R S P E A K S O N T R A D I T I O N S X I & XI1

The last in a series of capsule comments on AA’s Twelve Traditions by editors of AA publications all over the world.

T wo practical reasons urge maintaining our own and others’ anonymity in AA. One is for the protection of the fellowship: the alky who boasts of membership today may slip tomorrow-and could drag the movement gutterward with him. A second is for protection of the individual AA: in a society that still a t best tolerates drunks, identification of someone as an alcoholic–even a today-dry one–can blast a career. Yet both these reasons merely support the central one that makes anonymity “the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions.” Anonymity is only another-and sometimes stronger-word for humility. It’s the safeguard against promotion of AA big shots. It’s the everyday assurance of a recognition that there is only one real power in AA-the Power that is supreme over the whole anonymous lot of us. A. K., Editor, “Here’s How,” Chicago, Illinois

AA GRAPEV “El AUGUST 1956

t . . . taday … 1 2 3 4 God grant – me the SERENITY TO ACCEPT 1 5 6 7 8 91011( the things – Z cannot change, 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2 0 21 22 23 24 25 COURAGE TO CHANGE the things can, 26 27 28 29 30 31 and WISDOM TO KNOW the difference.

A CROUP is not an inanimate thing. plete in coverage but merely illus- You hear references made to “the trative. They may suggest others spirit of this group. . . .” A group more directly applicable to your

How about a has personality and so groups differ group. one from another as do individuals. [I] What is the basic purpose of Some groups do well, others do the group? To keep its members sopoorly. Some groups flourish for a ber? To welcome new members? To GROUP INVENTORY? while and then go into a decline. provide a social outlet? The Fifth Some groups fail, close down and Tradition says, “Each group has cease to hold meetings. Wny? but one primary purpose . . . to car- I Step Four and Step Ten have to do with personal inventory. If an individual should take in- ry its message to the alcoholic who ventory even if he is doing well, still suffers.” Is that somewhat sur-‘ All twelve of AA’s suggested Steps are personal in that they why not the group? If things are not prising? deal with the individual. They constitute his charter of freedom.* progressing satisfactorily, then an [2] Just what is your group doing inventory is particularly in order. to “carry” the message? Does it take The Twelve Traditions, on the other hand, relate to AA as a How does s group take inven- refuge completely in the Eleventh whole and to AA in its various parts, particularly the groups. tory? Much in the same manner as Tradition which says, “Our public They constitute AA’s guide to unity.* Now if the individual an individual. I t should probably relations policy is based on attracbe done at a closed meeting. The tion rather than promotion”? Sure, should take periodic inventory, why not the group? (And, in- leader might have pencil and paper it welcomes newcomers, but is that cidentally, why not the local club. Intergroup, and General and some prepared questions. The carrying the message, or is it reapgroup then, through its members ing the harvest resulting from the Service Headquarters?l present, should review its assets and prior sowing of others? Does the liabilities-not just the financial newcomer in fact practically have items, though these, too, might be to beat down your door in order to included. Emphasis should be given get in? If he sneaks in, do you igto the over-all job being done, to an nore him? examination of how the group is ex- [3] Your group has 35 members ecuting its responsibility. This after five years of existence. “Very might best be accomplished by ask- good,” you think. Are you sure the ing some questions. The following number should not be 100? What ie queries are not intended to be com- your “trading area” population?

do about a prospect who comes in other groups? Does any one actually Could your group prepare and fi- 60,000? Applyins the national av- keep a check list b see that no one nance the publication of a Big erage, there should be 1,500 dnurks without a sponsor? Or the one who comes for a while and then does not is overlooked? How far back does Book? Or contact editors and movie in your area. Again applying the show up? How many times will you that list go? producers to prevent the disseminarough national average, 55 of the 1,500 should be in AA. But with “go after” him? Twice, ten times? [lo] Do you pick officers with tion of erroneous information that your group’s talent, members with Or do you say, “to h–1 with him,” care and consideration on the basis might be harmful to AA, and to available time, and other assets, per- or “he knows where it is. If he wants that officershipis a great responsibil- ply COlTeCt b l f ~ r m a t i ~ofn value t0 haps your figure should be half it, let him come and get it”? ity and an opportunity for the alcoholic who still suffers.? again as large as the national aver- [7] Has everything practical been Twelfth Step work? Or do you con- AA is easier to know about today age. Perhaps then you should have done to provide an attractive meet- sider the whole thing a chore and a because of the work of our service 82 instead of the projected 55 or the ing place where new people will be sort of joke, electing someone in organizations. AA is respected to- 35 you actually have? Why don’t reasonably comfortable and to open meeting who may not even be day and it is therefore easier for you have more? Has your group which older members will be glad to present? Do you elect someone be- some of us to join than it was years done anything lately to bring the return? Or are you satisfied with cause you think it might be good ago. My sobriety or your sobriety AA message to the attention of local inadequate quarters on the run- for him, forgetting that our common in the final analysis might depend editors, physicians, judges, teachers, down side? Are you paying reason- welfare should come first? on the over-all national acceptance and other public leaders who can be able rent or are you taking advan- ‘Have you given thought to the se- of AA- Any disgrace AA on the helpful in reaching those who need tage of some church, fraternal club letion of a nominating commit& national level would have an effect A A?, —-. or other organization which in a whose job it would be to consider all in every local area, in eveW WuP. 141 $Are you getting a proper sense is underwriting your sobriety? eligible members, evaluate their sta- Do You ever give any thought to

-cross-section of your community? Did you ever figure out how much bility, interest in the group, ability, these broader concepts, or is Your Or just the low bottoms? Or just the cash your group could get up in an available time, and other relevant group thinking solely oh a provinevening in the days when all who factors? The nominating c o b t & cial, selfish level? If your group has high bottoms who form a cozy, exclusive clique to which other types are now its members were drinking could then present the slate of a broad outlook, does it result in acand when the cash was going for didates to the group for its consid- tion, in generous help to your Inof alcoholics receive a frigid wel- .- liquor? eration. While other names could be tergroup, the Grapevine, and Gencome? Do you get the proper percentage of men and women? Or [8] Has proper effort been made suggested at the election meeting, eral Service Headquarters? mostly men? Or mostly women? to explain to all members the need the group will usually support its 1121 Just what has Your group [5] D o your members stick or is and value of working in the kitchen committee. This method tends to done during the last six months to turnover excessive? Do a lot of new and performing other hornkeeping eliminate the occasional nomination carry the message? pmpects come in but fall by the duties? Have they been told precise from the floor of the least likely Most of these questions relate to member by an ill-advised or even the Fifth Tradition, carrying the wayside quickly? Are you compla- ly how to do those jobs, or is the cently sure that part of this is not whole matter left to their initiative confused buddy. message. Many others could be due to group methods? Does your and imagination even though they [Ill Does your group lend its raised relative to a group’s success group do a proper job in educating, have little of either? What methods fair share of support to Intergroup, in the light of other Traditions: encouraging, and assisting the do you use to bring members more the Grapevine, and General Service common welfare, unity, group conspouse of the alcoholic? definitely into the group, to make Headquarters? These service organ- science, money, outside interests, [6] H m effective is your sponsor- them feel that they belong? izations are doing a Twelfth Step anonymity–could all be subjected ship system and how much of a [9]Is adequate opportunity given job on an area, a national and an to extensive inquiry. sense of sponsorship responsibilty to all eligible members to speak international basis. No one group In taking group inventory, the does your group have? What does it before the home group and before could carry out that responsibility. chairman, leader, or secretary.might

want to make some notes. The have to develop in that manner. The group might wish to take action as founders might have chosen paid it went along. Ideas could be re- consultations, paid sanitarium inferred to committees and chores as- carceration, paid correspondence signed to specific individuals for courses, or a dozen other methods execution. A complete set of min- of transmitting the message. utes might be prepared for reading The fact that the informal, noat the next inventory meeting, say dues-or-fees group was created is the )

six months hence. The minutes principal reason why AA has grown might help to look back and see so rapidly. what improvements resulted from I t may be the reason why you the inventory taking. and I are sober. We are fortunate that it was the The group is a precious thing. group which developed into the pri- Let’s look after it. mary instrument for channeling the Anonymous, Scarsdale, N. Y. (Ed. now: See Closed Meetinn, p. 85, for an AA message. AA did not necessarily sz~anmcnt in n r m p invento~u-taking.)

AA GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1956

Easy does it & We don’t like to interrupt the and up to fifty-one could get by for meetings with pleas for money be- less than two dollars taken from cause of our new people. What to do each collection and turned over to about it? Well, the alcoholic has for the General Service Representative years been doing everything the for the group. Thus a group with GENERAL SERVICE I hard way, so it is not surprising that one of the first things we have to thirty-five members could, if necessary, draw down $1.35 from each learn is “Easy Does It.” collection and come out even at the Then why not apply that same end of the year. But if they drew principle to our financial obligation down $2 from each collection to the General Service Office? (which would never be missed) they We call our fund-raising method could send their yearly contribution FORTHE LAST FOUR YEARS, I have penses in which we do not person- the Nevada City plan. We are a off to New York in August, and the been guilty of heckling reluctant ally participate. It chills the marrow small group, and our collections are entire group would experience the groups into parting with enough of our bones to contemplate parting necessarily low, but we find that by same feeling that the individual “filthy lucre” to discharge their ob- with an extra buck. The very boys setting aside only one dollar from member does when he gets his firstligation to General Service Head- who went rampant on “Drinks for each collection, and placing it in the year birthday cake. The General quarters, and thereby to the alco- the house!” in the old days, are the group’s General Service Fund which Service Office doesn’t need money holic “who does not yet know.” My very ones who scream like wounded is not available for any other pur- only in June and December; it needs efforts were applied to those who eagles a t the horrible thought of pose, we will always have our group it the year ’round. seemed to be the key individuals in parting with two bucks to carry the contribution to forward to the Gen- We buy our homes on time, we the groups contacted; but my recep- message to someone that they don’t eral Service Office. The dollar is buy our cars on time, we keep sober know personally. Our group is no never missed. I n five minutes at one on a day-to-day basis-then why tion, for the most part, was colder different from others in this respect. of our meetings the plan was pre- don’t we use this “Easy Payment than the proverbial “Mother-in- Financially speaking, our group is sented, discussed, and unanimously Plan” to carry the message to “those Law’s Kiss.” Most groups did come through, although with some reluc- worse off than others in our district. approved by the group. Since then . who do not yet know” . . and who We are in an area where there is General Service funds have not been never will know unless we use our tance on the part of a few. mentioned. meager donations to stabilize and little or no business except logging. We alcoholics take too literally When the snows come in the higher We have approximately twelve perpetuate this God-given AA movcthe “no dues, no fees” part of the elevations (where the timber is) members. By using this method we ment as it is today? program. We carry it almost to the everything shuts down here. In- are able to meet our fund require- Signed: The Bleeding Deacon degree that-there’s no money! We comes cease. Even an extra two dol- I .. ments in six months . painlessly! of Deer Creek Dry Diggin’s have a horror of shelling out for ex- lars is difficult for many. ‘ Groups over twenty-six in number Nevada City, California

+ but do i t …!E$

November 1956

TheTwelveTraditions OUR KEYS TO

SURVIVAL a n d GROWTH

INAA, EACH ONE OF US HAS TWO PRIME OBJECTIVES. We want to survive and we want to grow. While we cannot demand happiness, we know this to be the only way that it may be achieved. In any case, growth in the image and likeness of the Creator is our primary purpose and the main reason for our existence. For AA as a whole our objectives are exactly the same. AA must survive and then it must grow in maturity and finally it must carry its message of hope and joy to those who still don’t yet know. That is what AA’s Twelve Traditions are about. They are first concerned with our survival as a fellowship and then with our ability to grow in maturity and in numbers. Based on vast experience, they suggest to us how this can best be done. With every passing year, I find myself more and more confident that AA will always survive and grow, no mntkr what perils and temptations the future may hold. This I believe . . . because in following the Twelve Steps, each of us will find the right way, and in following the Twelve Traditions, all of us will find the right ricstky. In response to mnn.v requwts for n return to the eustnrn nf nnyinu specinl attention t o AA’s Twelve Trnditions in the November issue. we have uroupcxl several nrtirlca with this theme here. in the henrt of t h e mnmrine. beginning with n brief stntement by Bill W. written esvecinlly for this issue. followed by the Trntlitinnx tht-rnselvw: Rill’s Ihrewnrd to the originnl edi::on of the first pnrnghlt-t settinu forth the Twelve Pninta of hh Tradition; nnd three nrticlm by AAs who wrote us in recent weeks on one or another of the Trnditions.

j ~ . 4 .

AA Grapevine, November 1956

II Our Experience has Taught us.. . II

HOWSHALL WE AAS then only can we most effectively best preserve our unity? That is complete our mission. I t is becom- of mind. For whole movements victimize ourselves by petty rules the subject of this booklet.” ing ever so clear that we ought have, before now, gone on benders, and prohibitions; we could imagine When an alcoholic applies the never accept even the most alluring too! that we had said the last word. We “Twelve Steps” of our Recovery temporary benefits if these should The “Twelve Points of AA Tra- might even be asking alcoholics to Program to his personal life, his consist of considerable sums of dition” reproduced herein is our accept our rigid ideas or stay away. disintegration stops and his unifica- money, or could involve us in con- first attempt to state sound princi- May we never stifle progress like tion begins. The Power which now troversial alliances and endorse- ples of Group conduct and public that! holds him together in one piece ments, or might tempt some of us relations. As one of the originators Yet the lessons of our experience overcomes those force; which had to accept, as AA membm, personal of AA, I was asked to publish these count for a great deal. We now rent him apart. publicity by press or radio. Unity “Points,” together with supporting have had years of vast acquaintance Exactly the same principle ap- is so vital to us AAs that we cannot articles, serially in our principal with the problem of living and plies to each AA Group and to risk those attitudes and practices monthly journal, The AA Grape- working together. If we can suc- Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. which have sometimes demoralized vine. Many AAs already feel that ceed in this adventure-and keep So long a3 the ties which bind us other forms of human society. Thus these “Twelve Traditions” are succeeding-then, and only then, together prove far stronger than far we have succeeded because we sound enough to become the basic will our future be secure. those forces which would divide have been different. May we con- guide and protection for AA as a Since personal calamity holds us us if they could, all will be well. tinue to be so! whole; that we ought to apply them in bondage no more, our most chal- We shall be secure as a movement; But AA unity cannot automati- as seriously to our Group life as lenging concern has become the our essential unity will remain a cally preserve itself. Like personal we do that “Twelve Recovery future of Alcoholics Anonymous; certainty. recovery, we shall always have to Steps” to ourselves individually. how to preserve among us AAs If, as AA members, we can each work to maintain it. Here, too, we Of this, it will take time to tell. such a powerful unity that neither refuse public prestige and renounce surely need honesty, humility, May we never forget that with- weakness of persons nor the strain any desire for personal power; if, open-mindedness, unselfishness, and out permanent unity we can offer and strife of these troubled times as a movement, we insist on remain- above all-vigilance. So y e who little 1a;ting relief to those scores can harm our common cause. We ing poor, so avoiding disputes are older in AA beg you who are of thowands yet to join us in their know that Alcoholics Anonymous about extensive property and its newer that you ponder carefully quest for freedom. must continue to live. Else, save management; if we steadfastly de- the experience we have already had Nobody invented A 1 c o h o 1i c s few exceptions, we and our brother cline all political, sectarian, or of trying to work and live together. Anonymous. I t grew. Trial and alcoholics throughout the world other alliances, we shall avoid in- We would like each AA to become error has produced a rich experi- will surely resume the hopeless ternal division and public notoriety; just as much aware of those disence. Little by little we have been journey to oblivion. if, as a movement, we remain a turbing tendencies which endanger Almost any AAcan tell you what adopting the lessons of that experispiritual entity concerned only with us as a whole as he is conscious ence, first as policy and then as our group problems are. Fundacarrying our message to fellow suf- of those personal defects which threaten his own sobriety and peace tradition. Thai process still goes on inentally they have to do with our ferers without charge or obligation; and we hope it never stops. Should relations, one with the other, and * Foreword from the originnl edition of “AA Tradition” by Bill W. we ever harden too much, the letter with the world outside. They inmight crush the spirit. We could volve relations of the AA to his Conlinued o n p a g e 26

for sobriety may call themselves 6.-Problems of money, property, . group, the relation of his group to now possible, I shall venture to an AA Group, provided that, as a and authority may easily divert us Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole, place in words these suggestions Group, they have no other af- from our primary spiritual aim. We and the place of Alcoholics Anony- for An Alcoholics Anonymous Tra- filiation. think, therefore, that any considermous in that troubled sea called dition of Relations-Twelve Points (The only requirement for able property of genuine use to AA Modem Society, where all of hu- to Assure Our Future: A A membership is a desire to should be separately incorporated mankind must presently shipwreck stop drinking.) and managed, thus dividing ‘the or 6nd haven. Terribly relevant is Our A A experience has taught us material from the spiritual. An AA the problem of our basic structure that: Group, as such, should never go and our attitude toward those ever into business. Secondary aids to 1 . E a c h member of Alcoholics pressing questions of leadership, Anonymous is but a small part of 4.-With respect to its own af- AA, such as clubs or hospitals money, and authority. The future a great whole. AA must continue fairs, each AA Group should be which require much property or may well depend on how we feel to live or most of us will surely die. responsible to no other authority administration, ought to be incorand act about things that are controversial and how we regard our Hence our common welfare comes than its own conscience. But when porated and so set apart that, if first. But individual welfare fol- its plans concern the welfare of necessary, they can be freely dispublic relations. Our final destiny lows close afterward. neighboring groups also, t h o s e carded by the Groups. Hence such will almost surely hang upon what (Our common welfare should groups ought to be consulted. And facilities ought not use the AA we presently decide to do with these danger-fraught issues! come first; personal recovery no group, regional committee, or in- name. Their management should depends upon A A unity.) dividual should ever take any ac- be the sole responsibility of those Now comes the crux of our dis- tion that might greatly affect AA people who financially support cussion. It is this: Have we yet as a whole without conferring with them. For clubs, AA managers acquired sficient experience to the Trustees of The Alcoholic are usually preferred. But hos- 2.-For our Group purpose there state clear-cut policies on these, our Foundation.* On such issues our pitals, as well as other places is but one ultimate authority-a chief concerns; can we now declare common welfare is paramount. of recuperation, ought to be well general principles which could grow loving God as He may express Him- outside AA-and medically super- (Each group should be auinto vital traditions – traditions self in our Group conscience. vised. While an AA Group may . (For our group purpose there tonomous, except in matters sustained in the heart of each AA cooperate with anyone, such coopis but one ultimate authority- affecting other groups or AA as by his own deep conviction and by eration ought never go so far as a loving God as He may ex- a whole.) the common consent of his fellows? affiliation or endorsement, actual or That is the question. Though full press Himself in our group implied. An AA Group can bind answer to all our perplexities may conscience. Our leaders are but itself to no one. never be found, I’m sure we have trusted servants-they do not 5.-Each Alcoholics Anonymous govern.) (An A A group ought never come a t last to a vantage point Group ought to be a spiritual entity endorse, finance or lend the AA whence we can discern the main having but one primary purpose- name to any related facility or outlines of a body of tradition that of carrying its message to the outside enterprise lest problems which, God willing, can stand us 3.-Our membership ought to in- alcoholic who still suffers. of money, property and prestige an effective guard against all the clude all who suffer alcoholism. (Each group has but one pri- divert us from our primary ravages of time and circumstance. Hence we may refuse none who mary purpose-to’ carry its purpose.) Acting upon the persistent urge wish to recover. Nor ought AA message to the alcoholic who of old AA friends, and upon the membership ever depend upon still suffers.) conviction that general agreement money or conformity. Any two or and consent among our members is three alcoholics gathered together *Now known as The Gener:d Se-\ice Bo?r.d of \A.

241

7.-The AA Groups themselves should remain forever non-pro- 10.-No AA Group or member spiritual significance. It reminds us ought to be fully supported by the fessional, but our service cen- should ever, in such a way as to im- that we are to place principles bevoluntary contributions of their own ters may employ special work- plicate AA, express any opinion on fore personalities; that we are actumembers. We think that each Group ers.) outside controversial issues-partic- ally to practice a genuine humility. should soon achieve this ideal; that = ularly those of politics, alcohol re- This to the end that our great blesany public solicitation of funds 9.-Each AA Group needs the form, or sectarian religion. The sings may never spoil us; that we using the name of Alchoholics Ano- Least possible organization. Rotat- Alcoholics Anonymous Groups op- shall forever live in thankful connymous is highly dangerous, whether ing leadership is the best. The small pose no one. Concerning such mat- templation of Him Who presides by Groups, clubs, hospitals, or other Group may elect its Secretary, the ters they can express no views over us all. outside agencies; that acceptance of large Group its Rotating Commit- whatever. (Anonymity is the spiritual large gifts from any source, or of tee, and the Groups of a large (Alcoholics Anonymous has foundation of all our Tradicontributions carrying any obliga- Metropolitan area their Central or no opinion on outside issues; tions, ever reminding us to tion whatever, is unwise. Then too, Intergroup Committee, which often hence the A A name ought place principles before personwe view with much concern those employs a full-time Secretary. The never be drawn into public alities.) AA treasuries which continue, be- Trustees of The Alcoholic Founda- controversy.) yond prudent reserves, to accumu- tion are, in effect, our AA General E late funds for no stated AA pur- Service Committee. They are the 11.-Our relations with the genpose. Experience has often warned custodians of our AA Tradition auld eral public should be characterized us that nothing can so surely de- the receivers of voluntary AA con- Vy personal anonymity. We think stroy our spiritual heritage as futile tributions by which we maintaili our AA ought to avoid sensational addisputes over property, money, and AA General Service Office at New vertising. Our names and pictures authority. York. They are authorized by the as AA members ought not be broad- (Every AA group ought to Groups to handle our over-all pub- cast, filmed, or publicly printed. be fully self-supporting, declin- lic relations and they guarantee the Our public relations should be ing outside contributions..J integrity of our principal journal, guided by the principle of attrac- The AA Grapevine. All such repre- tion rather than promotion. There sentatives are to be guided in the is never need to praise ourselves. 8.-Alcoholics Anonymous should spirit of service, for true leaders in We feel it better to let our friends remain forever non-professional. We AA are but trusted and experienced recommend us. define professionalism as the occu- servants of the whole. They derive pation of counseling alcoholics for no real authority from their titles: (Our public relations policy fees or hire. But we may employ they do not govern. Universal re- is based on attraction rather alcoholics where they are going to spect is the key to their usefulness. than promotion; we need alperform those services for which we ways maintain personal anofAA, as such, ought never be nymity at the level of press, might otherwise have to engage nonorganized; but we may create radio and films.) alcoholics. Such special services may service boards or committees = be well recompensed. But our usdirectly responsible to those ual AA “Twelfth Step” work is 12.-And finally, we of Alcoholics they serve.) never to be paid for. Anonymous believe that the princi- (Alcoholics Anonymous ple of Anonymity has an immense

November 1 9 5 6

.I956 November 1956 1 fllav~bee…today. .. God grant me the SERENITV TO ACCEPT the things I cannot change, C O ~ R A ~ TOE CIIANGE the things I can, and w l s ~ o mTO KNOW thedifference.

ONE PART OF OUR GREAT PROGRAM.. . The Twelve Traditions …HAS COME TO M E A N LIFE ITSELF TO ME THE TRADITIONS, as written by our So. I learn that after the Twelve co-founder Bill, define for me clearly Steps have been digested, my group, and precisely how to get well and my AA, comes first; not myself, you stay well. ~hey”tel1me who God is, understand, but my AA group or what He does, and where He func- groups. My own recovery-my most tions. They show me what spiritu- prized possession, since it means life ality is and how I may seek and itself – depends upon my group’s find it. They clarify what anonymity unity. means. I am told how to stay well in Perhaps most important of all, Tradition One, and to my surprise, they point out the path toward it dawns on me that I have received humility. It is helpful that this path the first gentle whisper which nudges is not described bluntly; rather it is me along the path of humility. . whispered to me in each Tradition. Tradition Two tells me who God Tradition One tells me that “Our is, where He is, and what He does. +mmrnonwelfare should come first I t says, “For our group purpose . .” ; Not second or fourth or tenth. there is but one ultimate ‘authority but first. Why? Because “personal . . . a loving God as He may express recovery depends uljon AA unity.” Himself in our group conscience.”

Y God expresses Himself in a specific ” and- collectively, — we may do as we primary spiritual aim is to carry the organized (or so I thought) that I location – my conscience. This is wish, we are unrestricted . except good news to me. I have wondered when we step on someone else’s toes .. message to the alcoholic who still almost died from it! I was frightsutTers!” In the role of a trusted ened at first to find that I needed to ” I

for over forty years where and who or when we step on a group’s toes. servant, I must follow the instruc- be in a group that wasn’t organized. God was and what He did. Now I Thus the fourth gentle whisper to- tions of a loving authority who lives But in AA I am free to be myself as understand what was meant, long ward humility says to me, “Brother, , in the deptks of my soul. It says, I find myself at the minute, and here ago, by the command, “Be still and the common welfare comes first for “In all reverence carry to the sick I find another whisper toward huknow that I am God.” the truly spiritually selfish reason alcoholic the message that I have mility: I can be on service boards or I read on in the last hajlf of Tradi- that your own recovery depends up- I given you.” committees, and I can be a trusted tion Two and I find the second on its continued existence.” Tradition Seven tells me how to servant who is directly responsible gentle whisper toward humility: Tradition Five defines in clear obtain peace of mind. It shows me to you, my fellow A h “Our leaders [you and I] are but tern my only reason for existence. how to regain my self-respect. At Tradition Ten pleases me very trusted servants; they do not gov- There is no other for me: “Each long last I understand the inner much. I read it daily with a joyful ern!, I love the clarity and force of group has but one primary purpose peace that comes from being re- smile: “Alcoholics Anonymous has . that simple word “but.” As a leader . . to carry its message to the alco- sponsible for myself, and to myself. no opinion on outside issues; hence I am but a trusted servant; I need holic who still suffers.” There is my Tradition Seven says, “Every AA the AA name ought never be drawn not govern. Thank God! I have been answer. I need purpose-and I have I group ought to betfully self-sup- into public controversy.” Just think, a dubiously trusted leader who felt it! I must carry the message to the porting, declining outside contribu- as an AA I need never be drawn that he must govern for, too long; alcoholic who still suffers. So I say tions.” What relief that is! No into public controversy. I don’t have now I may be relieved of all of that. to myself, “Thank God for alcohol longer do I need to wait for contri- to worry about being right. Never As God may express Himself . in my- and for the unrecovered drunk!” butions. I am now free to give con- again! I don’t have to fight anymore. , ‘ conscience, I am His and your And I hear a fifth gentle whisper tributions. I’ve had enough of amtroversy. trusted servant, who governs only toward humility deep within me Tradition Eight gives to me, a God love our good co-founder, me! which says, “At long last you have professional man, the very keynote Bill, for taking it easy on my be- Tradition Three tells me that come to realize that service to others of humility: “Alcoholics Anony- fuddled brain. He held off giving me “The only requirement for AA mem- is all that you have to offer in this mous’ should remain forever non- Tradition Eleven until I could hear bership is a desire to stop drinking.” life!” professional, but our service centers and digest Tradition Ten. I read: To have a desire to stop anything is Tradition Six clarifies the spirit- may employ special workers.” I “Our public relations policy is based new to me. So I receive the third ual side,’of .this program. It says, know the professional life; I am in on attraction rather than promotion; gentle whisper toward humility. As “An AA group ought never endorse, it up to my very ears; I love it. But we need always maintain personal I hear and feel these gentle whispers finance, or l&d the AA name to any I know one other thing, too: in my anonymity at the level of press, ra- I settle more and more each day to related facility or outside enterprise life of service there is absolutely no dio, and films.” Never again do I life size, and, as a Los Angeles mem- lest problems of money, property room for professionalism. In AA I have to promote a single W g . . . ber has said, “Life comes to be for and prestige divert us from our pri- am an ordinary human being with I am free to be myself. I am free to free and for fun.” mary spiritual aim.” I’m glad to no more skills than anyone else. believe what I believe. I am free to Tradition Four brings me clearly know this, because now I can be on Tradition Nine astonishes me by say what I believe in my own way. and simply into my own right. I t guard. I have a primary spiritual stating, “AA as such ought never be And I hear a whisper (number says, “Each Group should be auton- aim which money, property and organized; but we may create service eleven) deep within that says, *’The omous, except in matters affecting prestige can bust wide open and de- boards or committees directly re- way to humility is to realize that other groups or AA as a whole.” You vour. I hear a sixth gentle whisper sponsible to those they serve.” You you need to maintain personal anoand I are autonomous. Individually toward humility which says, “Your see, in the past, I have been so well nymity!” It doesn’t say that I have

to, or that I should, or that I must; beach. Without the beach of AA it says I need – to maintain a m – there would be no you and no me. nymity, as I need the very food and So I hear the last and best whiswater and air that keeps me alive. per of all. I t says “ever reminding And so Tradition Twelve comes us to place principles above personinto view. “Anonymity is the spirit- alities.” I smile a deep inward smile. ual foundation of all our Traditions, Day after day I come to h o w that ever reminding us to place principles our common welfare comes first, above personalities.” I’ve been won- that my God is a living authority dering about this anonymity busi- located inside of me, that I am His ness. Now I know. Anonymity ungoverning, trusted servant who is means that I a m only Earle. I am dedicated to the spiritual activity of just a guy like you. You and I are carrying the message in complete equal. There are no class distinc- anonymity to the alcoholic who still tions. I am not a professional man; suffers. I am just Earle. The weather way I smile because in my organizaup there on the peak of “prestige tion I am unorganized. I smile beand gain” was bitter cold . . . down cause I need not be a professional here in the world of anonymity, it is who has opinions that he must cram warm and balmy. I can shake hands down your throat. I smile because I with you and look you straight in can at last be myself, and if I don’t the eye and say, “Hi, my name is attract anyone at least I won’t pro- Earle.” I am just one guy. No more. mote anyone. No less. I am one of the grains of But mainly, I smile because you sand that goes to make up our great –all of you in AA-have given me beach of AA. Without me as a grain the opportunity to fight for your of sand, without each of you as a principles rather than my persongrain of sand, there would be no AA ality. Earle M., Sun Francisco. Calif.

f* * C

. From the November 1956 Grapevine e’re coming out of the black- a danger which can be put down as easily, but how can he be sure that W out. And this time I don’t mean the individual blackout from booze, a calculated risk, but we had better be sure we are in on and constantly the breach will not indirectly, through association, affect the anonymity of but the blackout of public misunder- aware of the calculations. another member? standing and indifference that has too Not that we would want to do any- I have personally known of cases long cloaked the problems of the al- thing to hinder the present wave of where staunch AA members have so coholic. interest in alcoholism – even if we disregarded the anonymity of fellow Motion pictures, radio, television, could. It is good and eventually will group members that names were evenmagazines and newspapers are all tell- help in finding further solutions to tually tossed about by children in high ing the story of the alcoholic. They and acceptance of our problems. school relationships. I know of are almost invariably climaxing their But let’s not forget that we as al- another case where a man and his stories with a recognition of the true coholics are prima donnas. We love wife attended an AA meeting in a worth of AA. that spotlight. Our egos feed on atten- large Western city while on a business But in that very process of an tion. Just because alcoholism is be- trip. The next morning they found awakened public interest, there lurks coming “fashionable” doesn’t change their names listed in the daily paper a danger to AA as an organization our situation or our position one bit. as participants in the meeting. and to AAs as individuals. There is We still need the same kind of AA These things should not be. We know in AA h m Bill’s Last Message. .. Too Much “Anonymity has two attributes essential to our individual and collective survival; the spiritual and the of which we are capable; on the practical level, anonym- that we can’t medity has brought protection for the newcomer, respect and dle with another support of the world outside, and security from those member’s concepof us who would use AAfor sick and selfishpurposes. tion of “the Higher “AA must and will continue to change with the passing Power. ” We know

Spotlight practical. “On the spiritual level, anonymity demands the greatest discipline years. We cannot, nor should we, turn back the clock. that we don’t dare However, I deeply believe that the principle of anonymiry try to take somemust remain our primary and enduring safeguard. …” we always have and always will. one else’s inventory. We must learn to pay equal attention to the other And let’s not forget that there are fellow’s anonymity. Surely the two words in our name – Alcoholics greatest burden that an AA could have Anonymous. Our anonymity is a vital on his soul would be the knowledge part of our program. It builds our that he forced or helped to force somehumility and strengthens the bonds one else out of the program. that hold us together. I say turn all the spotlight we can To many of us our anonymity is on the problems of alcoholism. Focus essential to success in normal happy all the attention we can on the value living. To others anonymity is not so of AA in helping overcome those important. One of the greatest respon- problems. But let AA members as sibilities any AA member can assume individuals dwell under the protective is a breach of anonymity. He can cloak of anonymity. make the decision for himself fairly Anonymous, Spokane, Wash.

AA Grapevine, November 1956 4 ‘ T H E T W E L V E T R A O I T l r , I I ; r

at~tnEvery AA group ought to be fully selfsupporting, declining outside contributions.

Zight Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may One Our common welfare should come first; employ special workers. personal recovery depends upon AA unity. Aine AA, as such, ought never be organized; ZUO For our group purpose there is but one but we may create service boards or committees ultimate authority . . . a loving God as He may directly responsible to those they serve. express Himelf in our group conscicnce. Our leaders are but trusted servants . . . they do not govern. Ztn Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never The only requirement for AA membership be drawn into public controversy. is a desire to stop drinking. Z~EUEII Our public relations policy is based on Each group S I I O U ~be~ autonomous except attraction rather than promotion; we need always in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. maintain personal a n o n ~ ~ n i tat! ~the level of press, radio and films. fib^ Each group has but one primary purpose . . . to carry its message to the alcoholic %mtdbe Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of who still suffers. all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. I An -4A group ought never endorse, finance or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problenls of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

J u l y 1957

“Well,” said the AA committee, before. He worked himself down 1957 July 1957 “why don’t you doctors come to a and finally out of motion pictures- S M T W T F S meeting?” Two of the psychiatrists not at all a surprising development. 1 2 3 4 5 6 allowed this would be fine. They But here he was in AA, sober for God grant me the seRleNwv TO A c c r r r months. 7 8 9 10 1 1 12 13 said they would go to New York’s 14 IS 16 17 18 19 20 the things I cannot change, AA group the following week. However, it soon became appar- 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 the things I can, c o u R A o e To C H A N ~ E In that period I think we New ent that psychiatrists were still and WISDOM TO KNOW the difference. Yorkers gathered in a parlor at among Jack’s pet grudges. He actu- Steinway Hall. With much delight ally blamed them for his downfall. we had heard about the proposed Well knowing that two of them pilgrimage of the Jersey doctors. were in the room, he saw the chance Meeting night finally rolled around. of a lifetime. Now he could dish it But in the interval, my memory out and they would have to sit Let’s had slipped a cog. I forgot all about those psychiatrists. Right after our there and take it! So Jack proceeded to do a job on meeting opened, the beaming AA psychiatry and all its works. As a contingent from Jersey entered the speaker he packed a huge wallop hall and s!id into a back row. But and he had great talent for a cynieven this reminder failed to jog my cal humor that now suited his purmemory. I certainly had no reason pose exactly. He tore his several to think that one of my life’s worst psychiatrists apart, one by one. embarrassments-and one of its Then he attacked the entire profes-

With best lessons-was just around the comer. The meeting’s first speaker told a sion, their theories and their philosophies. He called them “fish worm diggers.” All the while he was

Our fine story; both grim and inspiring. You could have heard a pin drop. I t was simply great. screamingly funny. Though his talk was nine-tenths fantasy and nonsense, it was nevertheless a real piece of showmanship. The audi- Friends. . Then up got Jack. He told how he’d been a rising figure in the mo- ence was convulsed and I thought THE PSYCHIATRISTS tion picture industry and had once I’d never laughed so long or so earned the modest stipend of $50,- much. Jack finally sat down amidst IT WAS YEARS AGO and we were makine our . first contacts with mental big applause. hospitals. One of them was a New Jersey institution which had paroled 000 a year. Considering his vaunted abilities, Jack had figured this to be Following the meeting, the Jersey two alcoholics who had found AA and had stayed sober for six months. AA contingent pushed toward the only a starter. Then Demon Rum Both of them had been classed as hopeless. Despite AA’s unusual meth- platform. They looked both sick began to cut him down. His warods, the hospital’s psychiatrists were not a little impressed. and sore, and they definitely were. r i d studio produced a psychiatrist. Forthwith the eager AA group nearby began to bombard the hospital Mumbling weakly, their spokesman Grudgingly, Jack took some treatfor visiting privileges. They wanted to bring the good news to every introduced our “honored guests,” ments. The results were nil and alkie in the place, no delays allowed. The doctors weren’t so sure that the two psychiatrists! more psychiatrists were tried. But this was the right idea. Jack’s ego, his resentments and his I felt an awful sinking sensation They were still rather cautious, as they had plenty of reason to be. drinking all remained as colossal as in the region of my solar plexus.

Just then Jack, obviously much has continued to hold up AA’s pleased with himself, walked up and hands. And I venture to say that it genially slapped one of our guests is often their understanding and tolon the back. “Well, doctor,” said erance, rather than ours, which has he, “how did you like ‘them apples’ brought about this happy state of I just handed you!” This was the affairs. limit. I could have died of mortifi- Two more e~amples: In 1949, cation. the American Psychiatric Associa- But the two psychiatrists smil- tion asked me to read a paper on ingly rolled with his punch. They AA before their annual meeting. insisted that it had been a wonder- Going further, the psychiatrists pubfully helpful meeting. After all, lished that paper in their official they declared their profession ought journal and permitted AA to reprint to be able to stand a little ribbing my material in pamphlet form for now and then. T o them Jack’s talk public consumption. This one genhad been good clean fun and very erous act has since brought our felinstructive. lowship untold benefit. Only re- This was an amazing demonstra- cently a survey was made in Los tion of friendship and understand- Angeles to determine how the psying. Under w i n g conditions these chiatrists in that city and county maligned gentlemen had turned the felt about AA. I’m told that they other cheek. They had met Jack’s feel fine; 99% of them are for us! tirade with courtesy, kindness, g d Of course this little story has its humor and even gratitude. I t was a exaggerations. Great numbers of lesson in patience, tolerance, and AA’s are today very friendly to psy- Christian charity that I hope I shall chiatry and no doubt equally great never forget. numbers of psychiatrists who know As quickly as I angled nothing &out us or who have seen the two doctors into a comer and only AA f~iluresare still against us. began my apologies. I n fact I ate But this is beside the point. The crow. Then one of them looked a t point thet I am trying to make is me and said, “Think nothing of it, that we AA’s should try to be uni- Bill. As you surely see, some alco- formly friendly under all conditions. holics are more ma!adjusted than Now what became of my old others. We understand that per- friend J a c k ? W e l l , J a c k just fectly!” couldn’t make it, though he tried Within a month, this very excep hard. He died three years ago of tional doctor opened his hospital to alcoholism. AA visitors and a group began to Perhaps real friendliness was form within the walls. Ever since something which Jack never came that time the psychiatric profession to understand.

August 1957

1957 August 1957 ] August…today… every real doctor had to be possessed of the deepest dedication and faith. Such was his theme, and how certain doctors come to mind, doctors who devoted themselves to us i n our pioneering time, I wonder God grant me the SERENITY TO ACCEPT he did go to town with it. He cer- how many of us could really match tainly “carried the message” and their humility and their dedication. the things I cannot change, I saw as seldom before that we AAs Take my own doctor, William D. COURAGE TO CHANOE the things I can, certainly have no monopoly on the Silkworth. In our forthcoming hisand WISDOM TO KNOW thedifference. practice of “Step Twelve.” tory book, AA Comes of Age, I Several citations for distinguished have drawn a word portrait of him service were given, one of them to which runs in part as follows: a layman for his outstanding work “As we looked back over those among the nation’s infirm and dis- early scenes in New York, we saw

Let’s abled. He had proven to thousands of sufferers that they need no longer often in the midst of them the benign little doctor who loved

I Second in a Series I be emotionally or spiritually crippled and that some sort of useful and gainful work could always be drunks, William Duncan Silkworth, then physician-in-chief of the Charles B. Towns Hospital in New theirs. Pointing out that self-pity York, and the man who we now is a prevalent ailment of the crip- realize was very much a founder pled, he quoted the Persian who of AA. ‘From him we learned the had no shoes: “I wept because I nature of our illness. And he s u p had no shoes until I saw a man who plied us with the tools with which

With had no feet!” The beaming man behind the lectern knew whereof he spoke, for he himself had no to puncture the toughest alcoholic ego, those shattering phrases by which he described our illness: the legs; he had been on artificial limbs obsession of the mind that compels Our for years. Clearly dedication, fortitude and faith had been his relius to drink and the allergy of the body that condemns us to go mad ances. I t was for these things that or die. Without these indispensable the AMA had given him such a passwords, AA could never have signal recognition. worked. Dr. Silkworth taught us ON TELFV~ON RECENTLY, I watched as the American Medical Association This gathering of the doctors, so how to till the black soil of hopein convention installed its new president. At first thinking it might be a spiritually centered, set me think- lessness, out of which every single routine affair, I nearly switched to a “whodunit.” I’m now very glad that ing. I keenly realized that doctoring spiritual awakening in our fellow- I did not, for those doctors gave me a most memorable and moving hour. is mainly a spiritual vocation and ship has since flowered. In Decem- Up got the new president to make his inauguration address. He said that the vast majority of physicians ber 1934 this man of science had little of the science of medicine. To my surprise he pointed his talk- really join the profession to serve sat humbly by my bed following just as we often do in AA meetings-straight at the newcomers, in this their fellowmen. my own sudden and overwhelming case the young doctors just entering practice. He told them that no doctor, We AAs are apt to set a “triple spiritual experience, reassuring me: however well-trained scientifically, could get far until he was able to make A” rating on ourselves and our Fel- ‘No. Bill,’ he had said, ‘you are not sick people feel that he understood them as human beings; and that lowship. But when the names of hallucinating. Whatever you have

got, you had better hang on to; it worth. I t is estimated that in his is so much better than what you lifetime he saw an amazing forty had only an hour ago.’ These were thousand of them. In the years great words for the AA to come! before his death in 1951, in close Who else could have said them? cooperation with AA and our red- “When I wanted to go to work headed power-house nurse, Teddy, with alcoholics, he led me to them he had ministered to nearly 10,000, right there in his hospital, risking alcoholics at New York’s Knickerhis professional reputation. bocker Hospital alone. None of “After six months of failure on those he treated will ever forget the my part to dry up any drunks, Dr. experience, and the majority of Silkworth again reminded me of them are sober today.” Professor William James’ observa- S o Dr. Silkworth “twelfthtion that truly transforming spirit- stepped” forty thousand alcoholics. ual experiences are nearly always Thousands of these he patiently founded on calamity and collapse. treated long before AA when the ‘Stop preaching at them,’ Dr. Silk- chance for recovery was slim. But worth had said, ‘and give them the he always had faith that one day hard medical fads first. This may a way out would be found. He soften them up at depth so that never tired of drunks and their they will be willing to do anything problems. A frail man, he never to get well. Then they may accept complained of fatigue. During most those moral psychology ideas of of his career he made only a bare yours, and even a higher Power.’ living. He never sought distinction; “Four years later, Dr. Silkworth his work was his reward. In his last had helped to convert Mr. Charles years he ignored a heart condition B. Towns, the hospital’s owner, into and he died on the job -right a great AA enthusiast and had among us drunks, and with his encouraged him to loan $2,500 to boots on. start preparation of the book Alco- Who of us in AA can match this holics Anonymous-a sum, by the record of Dr. Silkworth’s? Who has way, which later amounted to over his measure of fortitude, faith and $4,000. Then as our only medical dedication? friend at the time, the good dodor So when -twenty-three years boldly wrote the Introduction to after Dr. Silkworth had treated me our book, where it remains to this for the last time-I saw and heard day and where we intend to keep and felt the spirit that was abroad it always. in that great A M A meeting, I “Perhaps no physician will ever thanked God for the doctors, one give so much devoted attention to of the finest groups of friends that so many alcoholics as did Dr. Silk- AA can ever have.

September 1957

great. The ever-deepening stream of wonder how much this generous act spirit on which we AAs journey to required of his understanding, love, better things now has its myriad and sheer nerve. Here was a small t r i b u t a r i e n b r a n c h e s which feed bunch of so-called “ex-drunks”virtually unknown. I still tremble I1 I1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 God grant m e the SERENITY TO ACCEPT into the main current of the life of 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 our whole fellowship. The most nu- when I think how America would 16 20 2 1 the things I cannot change, merous and most vital of these have rocked with mirth if two or 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 COURAGE TO CHANOE the things can, 29 30 streams of devotion and service have three of us AAs had turned up plasand WISDOM TO KNOW the difference. always come to us from our friends tered in the spotlight of that famous in the clergy. dinner! Clergyman Fosdick had gone Let me illustrate: far out on the limb for us. We shall Few know that it was a minister remember this always. Surely by hundreds, and probably Let’s who was the primary figure in forming AA’s original Board of Trustees, by thousands, our friends i n the clergy have since continued to go who were to become the custodians Third in a Series of AA’s services, world-wide. I am out on the limb. They install our thinking of Willard S. Richardson, meetings in their basements and soby Bill W. a friend and associate of the Rocke- cial halls. Never interfering with our fellers. I n 1937 we called upon Mr. affairs, they sit in the back rows– Richardson to help us find a lot of explaining that they have come to money for AA work. I n s t e a d h e AA to learn. When Sunday arrives, helped us to find ourselves. Largely they preach sermons about us. They With because of his kindness and understanding, his devotion and his hard send us prospects and marvel a t their progress. When we sometimes ask them to speak to us, they invariably work, AA’s first Board of Trustees was formed and the writing of the apologize for their own ineffective- Our Big Book was begun. His was the kind of giving that had no price tag ness with alcoholics. This is humility for sure. . . too much of it, perhaps. on it. What our 7,000 groups today When it comes to patience and tol- THE CLERGYMEN owe “Uncle Dick” Richardson, a erance th9y are a t their best. Of clergyman, only God could possibly course they soon learn that, although EVERYRIVER HAS A WELISPRING a t its source. AA is like that, too. I n the know. sober, we AAs can sometimes be the beginning, there was a spring which poured out of a clergyman, Dr. At the Rockefeller dinner meeting grandiose and champion rationaliz- Samuel Shoemaker. ‘Way back in 1934 he began to teach us the principles of 1940 another man of the cloth ap- ers. We can also be careless and irand attitudes that afterward came to full flower in AA’s Twelve Steps for peared. He was no other than Dr. responsible. T h e y listen blandly Recovery. Harry Emerson Fosdick. As the main when we tell (by inference) what a If ever there was a living water for drunks this was it. We took the cup speaker for the non-alcoholicrs preq- superior society we have! Once in a af Grace that Sam held out and we drank, not forgetting to pass it on to ent, Dr. Fosdick became the first while they hear experiences and lanothers. Our gratitude goes up to Him whose Grace ever fills that cup, and man of religion ever to stand right guage a t a meeting that would make out to Sam who first offered it to us. up before the general public and practically anybody blush. But they But rivers must have tributaries, else they cannot travel far nor grow give us a big pat on the back. I often never say a word, or bat an eye. They

take the nonsense side of AA in cent, I had begun to ask myself: the finest living example of spiritualstride, sometimes with the patience “Who am I?’-“Where did I come ity that I happen to know. He has of Job. They know we are really from?”-“What is my purpose often set my feet back on the-path trying to grow up, and they want to here?’-“What is the real meaning when otherwise I might have gone help. of life?’-“When the undertaker gets off on an indefinite dry bender. It This stirring and round-the-clock through with me, am I still alive, or is characteristic that he has never, demonstration by our friends in re- not?”-“Where, if any place, do I in all these years, asked me to join ligion sets many of us to thinking: go from here?’ Neither science nor his church. ‘When we consider all that these philosophy seemed able to supply Therefore it is with the deepest priesta and preachers have done for me convincing answers. Naturally I feeling that I here cast up AA’s debt us, just what have we ever done for began to shop about in other direc- to the clergymen: without their them?’ This is a good question in- tions, and I think I made a little works for us, AA could never have deed. progress. been born; nearly every principle Though the following isn’t strictly Though still rather gun-shy about that we use came from them. Their AA business, I cannot but help re- clergymen and their theology I final- example, their faith and their beport what priests and ministers have ly went back to them-the place liefs in some part, we have appropridone for many of us, personally. where AA came from. If they had ated and made our own. Almost liter- Some A h say, “I don’t need re- been able to teach me the principles ally, we A h owe them our lives, our ligion, because AA is my religion.” on which I could recover, then per- fortunes and such salvation as each As a matter of fact, I used to take haps they might now be able to tell understanding by which I can now of us has found. this tack myself. me more about growth in under- grow, if only a little at a time. He is Surely, this is an infinite debt! After enjoying this simple and standing, and in belief. comfortable view for some years I Though my sobriety had come finally awoke to the probability that easy, the growing up business hadn’t. there might be sources of spiritual Both emotional and spiritual growth teaching, wisdom and assurance out- have always been mighty difficult side of AA. I recalled that preacher for me. My quest to understand my- Sam probably had a lot to do with self-and better to know God and the vital spiritual experience that His design for me-became a matter was my fht gift of faith. He had of great urgency. The clergyman, I also taught me principles by which reflected, must represent the accu- I could survive and carry on. AA mulated wisdom of the ages in mathad provided me with the spiritual ters moral and theological. So I behome and climate wherein I was wel- gan to make friends with them-this come and could do useful work. This time to listen, and not to argue. was very fine, all to the good. I can happily report that one of Yet I finally discovered that I these clergymen has turned out to needed more than this. Quite right- be the greatest friend, teacher and ly, AA didn’t try to answer all of my adviser that I ever expect to have. questions, however important they Through the years I have found in seemed to me. Like any other adoles- Father Ed much of the grace and

September 1957

INDIVIDUAL FINANCIAL GIFTS LIMITED WITH MORE AND MORE INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS of AA making personal contributions for the support of General Service Headquarters ‘Third Legacy” services, special interest has been focused on the recent action of the 1957 Conference in re-stating AA policy on such personal gifts. In two separate actions, Conference Delegates voted to limit to $100 the amount acceptable from an individual member of the Fellowship. This new policy was first presented to the Conference in the report of the Headquarters Finance and Budgetary Committee, which was approved unanimously. Because of its importance, it was reviewed at the meeting limited to Area Delegates and again endorsed. Previously, personal contributions had been limited to “one-tenth of one per cent of the annual budget for Headquarters services.” As AA has grown, the scope of these services has increased, as have annual budgets. The new policy, limiting personal contributions to a specific dollar amount, is intended to reflect the Traditional AA viewpoint that no individual, by virtue of the relative size of a personal gift, should ever be in a position of influence on matters involving AA’s worldwide services to alcoholics. In the past, a number of sizable personal gifts have been rejected, in line with this Tradition. During the past few years, hundreds of personal contributions have been received from members, in connection with the increasingly popular “Birthday Plan” and as memorial gifts. Gifts for the support of AA services are not accepted from non-members. (Ed. note-Contributions from AA groups form the bulk of financial support of GSH.) Reprinted from “AA Exchunge BuUen’n”

October

ris Markey. From Charlie Towns, Alongside theae articles there a p 11 IN7 October 1 October…todav… proprietor of the hospital where I had once been such a good cuspeared editorial exhortations which in effect said, “AA is good and it tomer, writer Markey had received works. Come and get it.” Again the 11 1 2 3 4 5 11 ‘ God grant methe SERENITY TO ACCEPT a terrific build-up on AA which he deluge. The tiny Cleveland group the things I cannot change, now retailed to editor Oursler, one was swamped. But it happily sur- COURAOE TO CHANOE the things Z C U ~ , of the most perceptive men I have vived and in a few months its numever met. F’ulton Oursler saw the bers had shot up into the hundreds. and WISDOM TO KNOW thedifference. possibilities in a flash. Said he, Alcoholics Anonymous had started “Morris, you’ve got an assignment. the year 1939 with less than one Bring that story in here, and we will hundred members and it finished print it in September.” with more than eight hundred of Such were the words of AA’s first them. friend of the press. These words In February 1940 we got another Let’s were to save the bankrupt book and they also meant that the public was mighty lift, this time as the result of Mr. Rockefeller’s famous dinner ~ourthin a Series to have its first view of Alcoholics at which he introduced us to his Be Anonymous. Just as promised, Morris Marown friends and held AA up for the whole world to see. Again the press key’s article, “Alcoholics and God,” did a job. This time many newswas printed in Liberty magazine. papers, including the tabloids, said The results were immediate and good things about us and the great electrifying. More than eight hun- wire services carried the story world- With Our Friends 8 8 8 dred urgent pleas for help hit Liberty’s office. We carefully answered each one, not forgetting to enclose wide. AA’s membership jumped from eight hundred to over two thousand in twelve months. PRESS, RADIO, TELEVISION a book order blank. Orders soon be- In the spring of 1941, the same gan to come in and, helped by still drama was reenacted on a far larg- ITWAS THE SUMMER OF 1939. A few months before, our alcoholic fellow- more letters from our little office on er scale. Mr. Curtis Bok, owner of ship, boasting all of one hundred members, had published a book we called Vesey Street, and by traveling AA the Saturday Evening Post, saw AA “Alcoholics Anonymous.” But nothing else had happened. Our books, five members, new groups started up. at work in Philadelphia and urged thousand of them, were piled in the warehouse of the printer, Cornwall Other news-hawkers were not long his editors to select Jack Alexander Press, and nary a one could be sold. in following the Oursler example. to do a feature assignment. When The much-hoped-for piece in the Reader’s Digest-which might have A month later the public-spirited Jack’s piece hit the newsstands it told the public about us and the new book-had failed to materialize. editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer brought in a Niagara-like flood of Panic-stricken, we had rushed from one national magazine to another, gave writer Elrick B. Davis an as- appeals for help. Two years later pleading for help. But this was in vain. Works Publishing, the little com- signment to cover AA and to go the AA’s membership stood at the ten pany we had formed to launch the book venture, was flat broke and so was limit. For days on end articles about thousand mark. ‘. everybody else. There was seemingly no place to turn. AA in general and about AA in By telling our story to the Amer- But Providence knew better. Just as we hit this new low, Fulton Ours- Cleveland in particular were a lead- ican public this small band of early ler, then editor of Liberty, had a caller-a free lance writer named Mor- ing feature of the Plain Dealer. friends had increased AA’s ranks by

one-hundred-fold in the short space Years ago we requested all people of four years, had made AA a na- in communications to respect the sonally dedicated themselves to our going far into the evening, and I was tional institution, and had laid the anonymity of our members. This cause. Jack Alexander, for instance, the one who sometimes kept him up foundation upon which our society was asking for a great deal because became a trustee for AA and greatly until midnight. has grown so mightily ever since. the average reporter couldn’t imag- helped us with our literature prob- AA was then in the storms of its Today the list of AA’s friends in ine doing business without full lem, and never missed a chance to adolescence. Our Headquarters was press, radio, and television is legion. names and pictures. But when we give us a boost by word and by pen. just taking on its shape and its re- At our Headquarters we subscribe explained the “why” of our anonym- Less well known is the relation we sponsibility. We needed advice, esto an extensive clipping service. ity-that we dare not allow “big had with Fulton Oursler. His was a pecially about public relations, and Every week the mass of clipsheets shot-ism” to get going among us- most brilliant example of personal it was to Fulton that I frequently tell us the graphic story of what they saw the situation a t once; and dedication to Alcoholics Anony- went. I t was in this period that Fulthese friends have said and done. I t they have ever since fallen over mous. ton became a Senior Editor of the is a never-ending and always grow- backward to conform to our needs, In 1944 it was decided that AA Reader’s Digest, where his helpfuling stream of life-giving blood which despite many a temptation to pub- ought to have a monthly magazine. ness to us was soon reflected in the they pump into our world arteries. licize personally our nationally fa- By this time Fulton had ~ e e nAA at wide coverage they began to give ua. While word-of-mouth and per- mous members. On a few occasions, work close at hand. A person well Then came the time when we sonal contact has brought in many such members have deliberately known to him had made a remark- wanted Fulton as a trustee for AA. a newcomer, we can never forget broken anonymity, but this has sel- able recovery. The moment Fulton Knowing his immense burden of that most of us are able to trace our dom been the fault of the press. As heard of our magazine project he work, I ,was most reluctant to ask chance for recovery back to our a matter of fact, editors have fre- volunteered at once and, though him. But I .needn’t have felt that friends in communications – we quently restrained over-eager AAs never an alcoholic, he became a way, for when I popped the quesread, or maybe we heard, or we saw. who wanted their membership made member of The Grapevine’s edi- tion, his face lit up and he said, That is why AA now has 200,000 public. torial board and one of its founders. “Why, certainly! When do I begin?” active members. He went into his own pocket for Fulton couldn’t get to all our meet- Sometimes we hear members com- organization expenses, gave advice, ings, but he was always on tap. I plain about the press as though we scanned manuscripts, and wrote a remember once breaking into his were being exploited for stories and piece for one of the early issues busy hours with a request that he profit. They say, “Well, those writ- which he called “Alcoholics Are help us out in Hollywood where we ers make a good living out of story Charming People.” We afterward were in a jam with a motion picture telling and the publishers make joshed him about this title. Grin- producer. He instantly dropped his their profits. After all, what is so ning, he used to say that the title work, and got on the long distance remarkable about that? They are should have been “Some Alcoholics phone. Within an hour he called me only acting a s they normally Are Charming People”! back to say that everything was setwould.” In the years afterward I came to tled, that we need worry no more. However, most of us realize that know friend Fulton very well. A A few months before he died we such statements are far less than busier man I have never seen. No spent one more evening together. I t half the truth. matter when he went to bed, nothing was then that he told me what AA Practically every writer and ed- short of pneumonia could keep him had meant to him. Most humbly itor of our acquaintance has gone In their continuing enthusiasm from being at his desk at five A.M. describing his earlier life as a time far beyond his call to duty or his for AA many of these friends have where he wrote until eleven. But his of prideful agnosticism and sophistinatural desire for a stirring story. gone still further. They have per- day had then only begun; his count- cation which had led him down a less friends and activities kept him blind alley, he went on to relate

how the example of AA had &ected press, radio, and television, plainly him; how he had eventually joined tell us of what their dedication has the church of his choice, and how meant. In nearly every city where these two influences had inspired AA grows today, we see our friends him to write about the Bible in “The in communications following in the Greatest Story Ever Told.” He had footsteps of Jack Alexander and done for AA, he went on to say, only Fulton Oursler. a fraction of what AA had done for For all such couriers of good will, him, a non-alcoholic. let us be everlastingly grateful. And These, and a host of other expe let us always be worthy of their riences with the men and women of friendship. Ed note-With this article Bill w m e s to a temporary end in his “Let’s Be Friendl y . . .” series, which began in the July Grapevine. In the next issue–November, when AAs observe “Gratitude Week” and “Tradition Month”-Bill writes “Respecting Money.”

October -19-55

Traditions Month The following is excerpted from the Foreword to the First Edition of the AA Tradition pamphlet, first published in 1947.

When an alcoholic applies the Twelve Steps of our recovery program to his personal life, his disintegration stops and his unification begins. The Power which now holds him together in one piece overcomes those forces which had rent him apart. Exactly the same principle applies to each AA Group and to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. So long as the ties which bind us together prove far stronger than those forces which would divide us if they could, all will he well. We shall be secure as a movement; our essential unity will remain a certainty. If, as AA members, we can each refuse public prestige and renounce any desire for personal power; if, as a movement, we insist on remaining poor, so avoiding disputes about extensive property and its management; if we steadfastly decline all political, sectarian, or other alliances, we shall avoid internal division and public notoriety; if, as a movement, we remain a spiritual entity concerned only with carrying our message to fellow sufferers without charge or obligation; then only can we most effectively complete our mission. I t is becoming ever so clear that we ought never accept even the most alluring temporary benefits if these should consist of considerable sums of money, or could involve us in controversial alliances and endorsements, or might tempt some of us to accept, as AA members, personal publicity by press or radio. Unity is so vital to us AAs that we cannot risk those attitudes and practices which have sometimes demoralized other forms of human so,ciety. Thus far we have succeeded because we have been different. May we continue to be so! But AA unity cannot automatically preserve itself. Like personal recovery, we shall always have to work to maintain it. Here, too, we surely need honesty, humility, open-mindedness, unselfishness, and, above all-vigilance. So we who are older in AA beg you who are newer that you ponder carefully the experience we have already had of trying to work and live together. We would like each AA to become just as much aware of those disturbing tendencies which endanger us as a whole as he is conscious of those personal defects which threaten his own sobriety and peace of mind. For whole movements have, before now, gone on benders, too! The “Twelve Points of AA Tradition” . . . is our first attempt to state sound principles of Group conduct and public re1at’ions.

various endeavors essential to our but rather the type of speakers who fellowship and whose efforts I re- have acquired reputations for leavspect greatly and have generally ing audiences spell-bound. supported. If I am wrong and can Naturally we have a number of be convinced, stubborn alcoholic gifted speakers among the many though I am, I will gladly “eat thousands in our fellowship, though crow.” If, however, I am right, I the majority of us probably will hope we will, as one member used never attain any particular eloto put it, “give AA back to the quence. For my money, and I have drunks” before we lose any of the heard hundreds of AA talks over a tremendous gains achieved by keep- good many years, the most convincing the AA program as simple as ing ones are frequently those made possible. by frightened newcomers in their To be more specific in my criti- first effort to express gratitude for cisms, let me begin with a thought AA and faith that they at long last on the group and regional meetings. have discovered an escape from the From the Grass Roots Often, of late, there appears to have fears and frustrations of the alcobeen a tendency to have meetings holic horrors. The name speakers On Tradition XI entirely carried by name speakers. should have their turn at bat as AA “AT~RACTION RATHER THAN PRO- Here I refer to the flyers that it members but not, I feel, with any MOTION” is, according to my belief, is now almost traditional to mail special advance billing. the cornerstone on which the great out in advance of regional banquets, Do I detect lately a tendency on edifice of AA was erected-gradu- conventions and conferences or just the part of The AA Grapevine to ally and sometimes with great trav- plain open meetings, advertising the inform its readers, to a certain exail. Some years ago this thought was coming attractions as the “finest tent, of what to expect in future iseven in&rporated in The Twelve speaker in AA today,” “the most sues? If so, I suspect an effort to Traditions, for the Eleventh reads d r a m a t i c s t o r y you have ever stimulate circulation to offset an in part, “Our public relations policy heard,” “prominent attorney tells obvious necessity for a price inis based on attraction rather than all,” “top-flight executive, most dy- crease due to increased production promotion!’ Do I detect of late a namic speaker that AA has ever costs. Surely AA members do not gradual but insidious encroachment known,” etc. If it is necessary to at- have to be cajoled into buying and at the group, regional and even tract AA members to their own reading their own journal, if the General Service level of the type meetings and gatherings in this ex- content is good enough. I believe it of promotional thinking generally travagant fashion it seems to me is. The AA Grapevine should jeal- – associated with “Madison Avenue”? that these gatherings may be superfluous and that our traditions of atously guard that Eleventh Tradition and its own fine record which I n other words, this is a big deal and needs to be handled as such! traction rather than promotion and has carried the paper through thir- I know that I am implying a principles above personalities are teen years of successful publication, serious indictment of the handling being thrown out the window. into many thousands of AA homes of AA affairs by some who faith- 1 do not mean by name speakers and meetings. fully serve our best interests in the those who might break anonymity A. T., New Yorh City

November 1957

TRADITION X we as a cosmopolitan group even I N my opinion, the minute we come down the stairs on meeting night we shed the cloak of the worries of the week to gather contemplate venturing an opinion or endorsing outside issues? Our only obligation as alcoholics is to ourhere for one purpose-to help one selves collectively and individually. another. For a whole week, as in- I think that being anonymous and dividuals we have had to make de- obscure as a group is all important cisions in our businesses, our homes to prospective new members. To and in other fields. Let us enjoy most of us. the realization that we these few short hours of fellowship were failures as social drinkers and with those who understand and with needed help with our problem was the people who can laugh and have paralyzing enough at first. The ;i darned good reason for doing so. knowledge that we could enter a Then when we don our coats to go group such as this without having back up the stairs, we are better pre- our names tossed around amongst pared both mentally and spiritually the local cynics was balm to our to cope with an ever demanding life wounded pride. Now it doesn’t maton the outside. ter, but at that time if there had I see no reason why an individual, been a mere inkling of an idea that if he is so inclined, may not endorse we would be in the public eye as a his own opinions on any number of member of AA, nine chances out of outside issues as “John Doe, member ten we would still be looking for a of Alcoholics Anonymous.” That’s do-it-yourself plan. his baby. He has one mind, and no So, if we are to continue with our doubt his own track on which to run “all for one and one for all” ideals, it. But I’ll bet if we hand-picked five I believe that we should as a group people from our group here who had stay on a self-improvement program the same political leanings, religion, of our own making, steer clear of racial origin and the same outlook endeavors other than those fundaon world affairs and asked them to mental to our being here. give a panel discussion on any one Remember, united we stand, disubject, they still wouldn’t be in vided we fall. complete agreement. So, how could A. D., Grande Prairie, A l h r f a

November 1957 – -.

out how we can send a little for a few started nibbling and dondering, ‘ wonderful cause. and finally the group at Kenmare More on Let’s think it over; talk it over at meetings; and then let’s go at it and was born. We are few and far apart-where do something about it. The idea is most of you figure distance in sound and good, and for at least as blocks, out here we have to figure it “More Than Donuts” good a cause as the charities we contribute to. in miles. If you’re interested, just get a map of North Dakota; draw a If you have read this much and line 80 miles east from the Montana are still with me, I’ll tell you where line and 40 miles south from the Ca- 1hailfromtohorninonthis.Iarn nadian border; make a square of ON READING this task. Two dollars apiece would a member of the Crosby, North that and you find us with 320 square “More Than Donuts” on page 40 put G.S.H. ‘way out in front; i t Dakota group. I know some of you miles to cover. We are the only of the April Grapevine, I couldn’t would also cut down as think North Dakota is not in the group so far in that territory! help but feel how true and sad it is there would be no more red ink to Union; at least, I’ve heard it said, One night at a meeting, we figured that we AA members who feel we buy. Not one person have I met who but the politicians and income tax up the mileage driven by the memhave accomplished something good has come back to life through this department still believe we are. We bers who were present, and it figin this world have fallen down so program can honestly look me in get mail regularly whenever election ured to 384 miles from their homes badly when it comes to taking care the eye and say he or she can’t af- comes around. We also have heard and back again-just for one hour of our General Service Headquar- ford $2.00 a year to keep it going. the boys from Texas claim we are of AA meeting and a social chin-fest ters. We have discussed this several We all know that if the G.S.H. just the northern border of Texas. after. I t would figure more now as times in our meetings, and we all had the means, they could perhap Be that as it may, we are here in we have some new members from felt it was a shame and disgrace to do more in spreading the AA pro- the northwest corner of the state over in Montana. I feel sure if we all of us who have benefited by our gram and helping more people who and every once in awhile, one or two were all present at one meeting, the association in and with AA. have not as yet had a chance to hear of us come out from among the tum- round-trip mileage would be over We have gained everything, even of AA. Any way you look at it, it bleweeds, comb the hayseed out of 500 miles. And still some folks try life itself, from this program. Now, will certainly help lift the load they our hair and take off for places they to tell you a lot of people don’t want just stop and try to figure out how are carrying at G.S.H. This is the claim are in civilization. One of the a better life! In time as we got most sensible and easiest suggestion boys got away once and came back enough, we started groups closer to far we would have gotten in this I know of to clear our debt to them. from a place called Minneapolis home: Mohall, Antler-Sherwood movement without our G.S.H.; then, with a lot of wild ideas about quit- and Crosby groups all split off the just stop and think how you would like to have all the work dumped Some of us could stop and think of the times we got ten or twenty ting drinking .. . he called it AA. Kenmare group. Then it was the Now that caused a sensation out same again-the boys started drivon you that we have so thoughtless- dollars, or maybe a paycheck and . bought drinks for everybody and his here, and through his efforts–and ing up to 60 miles to get to the meetly tossed into their lap; and still on brother-if their dogs hadn’t had I mean his alone-the rest of us ings. top of that, we let them do the worbetter sense, we’d have bought them came to hear, listen and learn. He Like all groups, we started with rying and work connected with the drinks too. And from the way we was all by himself the h t year, so nothing and in order to get literafinancial end of it! From where I kept the bell ringing on the music you see how long it takes for some ture, etc., we saw we were going to sit, it looks like a pretty thankless things to soak in. I believe it was have to kick in, so we agreed to put and selfish deal. box behind the bar when we were. .along in 1945, and I know his at- a dollar apiece in the kitty every Folks, I too think that it is time sending our money on the journey tempts to start a group must have meeting night. Nothing compulsory we came alive and did our end of ~f ne return, we can easily figure been very hard, but after a year, a about it, and we wouldn’t take a

>’ us. As all new groups, we had trou- new member’s money untd\he had ble getting started and finding a decided if he wanted to be one of meeting place. shoe. Since then it’s a hit-or-miss One night we took inventory and deal, but we get along. If it pours\ found about $500 in the kitty, so out of the spout, we drink it-if not, we decided to buy a place. To do we just slice it and pass it around. this, we had to form an Alano This was not written in any sense Club, and found a place we could of bragging or boasting about our buy. We don’t know yet if we bought group or our brand of AA, but to try the lot and they threw in the build- and show some of the smaller groups ing, or if it was the other way how it can be done and how it can around. Anyway we got a place, and be painlessly financed. Remember, it was ours. we do not make the dollar-a-week Now our building is too small, so compulsory; if individuals don’t we bought one that will give us wish to or cannot do it, they are about three times the room; all we just as welcome and those of us have to do is dig a basement and who feel we can keep right on doing move the building this summer, and it. At a dollar a week, the most it we’ll be going again. We discovered can mean is five a month-and whisagain we had about $600 on hand, key is still over $5.00 a quart. so we won’t have to use too much If you come out our way, our red ink to improve our quarters. meeting night k .Thursday; meeting Just feed the kitty the right kind of starts at 8:30 P.M.,and the latchfood and it takes care of everything string is on the outside; just pull it in the line of finances! and walk in. We will guarantee you For lunch the members take turns a good, friendly argument on any bringing it, and those who are not phase of AA, or if you just want a in a position to furnish lunch keep real old-fashioned chin-fest on AA the coffee supply going, along with in general, we can furnish that also. paper plates, sugar and such. You will meet a bunch of fellows We have a very large coffee pot, who were cussed and discussed until and had a wonderful method of their souls were sick and weary until making coffeebut we lost it. We they heard of AA and came back had a horseshoe just the right size from the “legion of the damned”; and weight that we used to drop in learned how to wash their faces, the pot; when we heard it banging comb their hair and smile again. on the top, it was time to close the And what’s more, we’re all real meeting. But somehow we got the happy about it. wrong mixture of coffee and water S.S., Powers Luke, No. Dakota and one night it dissolved the horse- Crosby Group

November 1957

up with a sound and workable world-famous men and women money policy or else face endless joined up with us, they would

Respecting Money ineffectiveness and possible col- gladly stand on the roof-tops to, lapse. If ever a matter was taken shout the good word. Thus the AA seriously, it was the question of message, pure and ungarbled, would money. The money debates of that time veered crazily between two extreme poles of opinion. The conservatives said that AA as such should use no money at all. Meetings would be confined to homes, we could spread our message by word of mouth. There would be no publicity, no literature, no treasurers, no committees, no intergroups and HEREIN THE STATES it is Thanks- as vital to the life of AA as a whole no trustees. There would be no paid giving time. The whole of AA takes as is the practice of the Twelve workers; hence no army of bureauits cue from this occasion and we Steps to the life and sobriety of each crats and thercfore no possibility of rejoice world-wide in gratitude for member. any government. By refusing to colthe blessings that our fellowship has The Grapevine has asked me to lect money, we’d stay completely bestowed upon us. I t is traditional, write about the Traditions in this out of business. Everything would too, that this is the season for tak- issue. Accordingly I’ve selected be done spontaneously, each meming stock of our progress as a fellow- those which deal with the often mis- ber following his own conscience. ship. We look at our society and ask understood and sometimes unpopu- Cried the conservatives, “Lead us “How are we doing?” lar topic of money-its use and its not into temptation. Ixt’s keep it AA’s Twelve Traditions are the misuse. About this, our Traditions just that simple.” measuring rods that we use. “How make two short and simple declara- At the other extreme we had the well are we sticking to the Twelve tions. I n Tradition Seven we read radicals, the promoters. They said Traditions” is the prime question of that Every AA Croup ought to be we had to have vast sums. We must each Thanksgiving week. Every year fully self-supporting, declining out- employ press agents; we’d need a we see more clearly that adherence side contributions. Tradition Eight great literature. We would have to to our hard won traditional princi- s t a t e s , Alcoholics Anonymous own chains of hospitals; there ples is the basis for our unity and should remain forever non-profes- would need to be regiments of paid the effective carrying of our mes- sional, but our service centers may workers of every description, even sage; that indifference, lack of employ special workers. paid missionaries to carry the mesunderstanding, or rebellion against These few words pack immense sage to distant cities and far lands. whiz around the world quite as fast these principles could result in wide- meaning. They are the outcome of As we got going there would have as did Jules Verne’s hero-in just spread dissensions and maybe ruin. the huge controversies and struggles to be vast public rallies. Squads about eighty days! No fantasy was We keenly realize that the practice of our pioneering time when we of members, riding sound trucks, too impossible, no idea too gmnof the Twelve Traditions is quite knew.that AA would have to come would criss-cross the country. As diose for the promoters. And where

would they get the money’! From full-time workers. This was going the public, of course; the rich would could possibly consent to work. Respecting gifts and grants, their to cost money, but never a lot of However, the radicals had par- wisdom had been supremely right. wnd in millions. it, never enough to pose any great tially made their point. AA did T h u s we developed Tradition Today we can see that the con- problem or future temptation. have to have some paid workers, if Seven: Every AA group ought to servatives would have r o t t ~ dus by This obvious necessity did, how- only a few. We finally saw that be fully self-supporting, declining doing nothing. On the other hand, ever, pose the question of profesthese people were primarily paid outside contributions. the promoters would have surely sionalism. There was a wide-spread Not long after this Tradition for making good and effective ruined us by trying to do every- and justified fear in the early days was written, AA’s Trustees turned Twelfth Step work possible. Today thing. that AA might be saddled with a down a bequest of $10,000 a t a they are not regarded as profes- The process of separating the class of paid Twelfth Step workers moment when money was badly sionals at all and we try to pay sense from the nonsense was long -people who would want salaries them well. They are among the needed. I t was a time when, by a and painful. We were vastly con- or fees for carrying the AA message most dedicated AAs that we know. fused because nobody had any person to person and face to face. Hence, Tradition Eight declares, monopoly on good sense. In their I t did not take us long to see that “Alcoholics Anonymous should reprudence the conservatives seemed such a development would certainly main forever non-professional, but right when they a i d that great kill the spirit of our whole underour service centers may employ sums would endanger us. But when taking. The Twelfth Step simply special workers.” fear got the upper hand and they couldn’t be sold for money. But the conservatives also had insisted on no money or services This great fear of professionalism their victory when we finally took whatever, they seemed to be talking side-swiped us even when we hired the decision to build a dike against arrant foolishness. Their program an AA janitor or cook. And it the inrush of contributions from could lead only to great confusion doubly hedeviled us when we finally the world outside. We began to and a snail’s pace growth. I t was had to hire a few AA gals to work decline all such gifts, large and much the same with the promoters. full-time as area or international small. Our service centers would In their enthusiasms they some- secretaries. For a while, they car- never wax rich from the contributimes urged dangerous schemes. ried the awful stigma of profes- tions of AA members. Rut our well- Yet wisdom was often theirs none- sionalism. They were, we said, mak-‘ meaning friends, by gift and betheless. ing money out of AA. Believe it or quest, could endow us with huge Slowly, as the hammen of the not, they were personally avoided funds. promoters beat on the stubborn by many a fearful and righteous Once we began to accept donaanvils of the conservatives, our two member. Even the committees and ‘ tions of this kind, there would be “money” Traditions were fashioned. boards for whom they worked often no end. Though easily able to pay At first we made certain conces- regarded them as a sort of neces- our own small service bills, we sions to the radicals. We conceded sary but heretical evil. In them we would nevertheless begin to accept that, though unorganized as a were “mixing the material with the huge amounts of charity. Worse considerable margin, the AA groups whole, we would nevertheless have spiritual.” To keep these border- still, rich AA service boards would were failing to support their own to create committees or service line “professionals” in a proper embark on all sorts of needless and world headquarters. boards so that AA could function “spiritual condition” we mixed in compromising adventures. A large Nevertheless our Trustees and carry our message and, at re- the smallest amount of money we paid bureaucracy would certainly promptly plugged that first threatgional and international levels, we cou1d;’meaning that we paid them take shape and the worst fears of ened leak in our newly constructed would sometimes have to hire a few the least sdaries for which they the conservatives would be realized. dike against the temptation to take

clC A

money from outside AA. There- urer of our group passes the hat. after AA would pay for its services Our groups, our areas, and AA as a or do without them. That decision whole, will not function unless our still stirs me. I t was one of the services are sufficient and their bills great turning points in our history. are paid. To conclude: Our spiritual way When we meet and defeat the of life is safe for future genera- temptation to take large gifts, we tions if, as a society, we resist the are only being prudent. But when temptation to receive money fro,m we are generous with the hat we the outside world. But this leaves give a token that we are grateful us with a responsibility–one that for our blessings and evidence that every member ought to understand. we are eager to share what we have We cannot skimp when the treas- found with all those who still suffer.

November 1957

TheTwelveTraditions OUR KEYS TO

SURVIVAL a n d GROWTH

IN AA, EACH ONE OF US HAS TWO PRIME OBJECTIVES. We want to survive and we want to grow. While we cannot demand happiness, we know this to be the only way that it may be achieved. In any case, growth in the image and likeness of the Creator is our primary purpose and the main reason for our existence. For AA as a whole our objectives are exactly the same. AA must survive and then it must grow in maturity and finally it must carry its message of hope and joy to those who still don’t yet know. That is what AA’s Twelve Traditions are about. They are first concerned with our survival as a fellowship and then with our ability to grow in maturity and in numbers. Based on vast experience, they suggest to us how this can best be done. With every passing year, I find myself more and more confident that AA will always survive and grow, no matter what perils and temptations the future may hold. This I believe . . . because in following the Twelve Steps, each of us will find the right way, and in following the Twelve Traditions, all of us will find the right destiny.

In response to many reguesta for a return to the custom of paying special attention to AA’a Twelve Traditions in the November i m e . we have grouped several articles with this theme here in the heart of the . magazine, heginning with a brief statement by Bill W. written cspecidly for this issue, followed by the Traditions themselves: Rill’s Foreword to the original edithn of the first pamphlet setting forth the Twelve Points of AA Tradltlon: and three articles by AAs who wmte us in recent weeks on one or another of the Traditiona.

J a n u a r y 1958

HE LIKES T R A D I T I O N X I TOO

1 AM ENTRANCED with the article in circus and promotion stuff, too the Grass Roots Section on Tradi- much of the idea given out t h a t tion X I in the November Grapevine. should certain things now existing I am gratified over two things: in a material way fall by the wayone, that someone else feels just a s side AA would flounder and die. I do; two, that someone had the “That ain’t the way I heard it”; guts to say something about it. Even nor is that the way I have seen i t though the words a r e very mildly grow since 1941. I too can see the written and arranged, there is still Grapevine changing from a wonderthe point made regarding too much ful magazine into a part of the centralization, too much “name” ar- .. whole promotion scheme. . ranging, too much money, too much Al K., Charleston, West Virginia. ,

A A GRAPEVINE, FEBRUARY 1958 brought, as a visitor, to an “open” the personal problems of its mem- AA meeting for help and inspira- bers, let alone the problems of the 1. tion? (3) Can a pill or drug taker, whole world. Problems Other Than Alcohol: who also has a genuine alcoholic Sobriety-freedom from alcohol history, become a member of AA? -through the teaching and practice (4) Can AAs who have suffered of the Twelve Steps, is the sole pur- What Can Be Done About Them? both alcoholism and addiction form pose of an AA group. Groups have themselves into “special purpose” repeatedly tried other activities and groups to help other AAs who are they have always failed. I t has also by Bill having drug trouble? (5) Could been learned that there is no possuch a “special purpose” group call sible way to make non-alcoholics itself an AA group? (6) Could such into AA members. Wn have to con- Any time is a good time to review our relations with each other and a group also include non-alcoholic fine our membership to alcoholics with the world outside. In the following article Bill has done this drug users? (7) If so, should these and we have to confine our AA with the accent on special groups which seek to handle drug addic- non-alcoholic pill or Jrug users be groups to a single purpose. If we tion. At the moment this problem is under a great amount of led to believe that they have be- don’t stick to these principles, we discussion in many A A areas-Ed. come AA members? (8) Is there shall almost surely collapse. And if any objection if AAs who have had we collapse, we cannot help anyone. i the “dual problem” join such out- To illustrate, let’s review some PERHAPST H E R E IS NO SUFFERING of men and women who are tryin g side groups, such as Addicts Anon- typical experiences. Years ago, we more horrible than drug addiction, to cure or to escape their problems ymous or Narcotics Anonymous? hoped to give AA membership to especially that kind which is pro- by this means. Many AAs, espe- While some of these questions al- our families and to cerhin non-alduced by morphine, heroin, and cially those who have suffered these most answer themselves, others do coholic friends who had been greatother narcotics. Such drugs twist particular addictions, are now ask- not. But all of them, I think, can ly helpful. They had their probthe mind and the awful process of ing, “What can we do about drugs readily be resolved to the satisfac- lems, too, and we wanted them in withdrawal racks the sufferer’s -within our fellowship, and with- tion of everyone if we have a good our fold. Regretfully, we found that body. Compared with the addict out?’ look a t the AA Traditions which this was impossible. They couldn’t and his woes, we alcoholics are Because several projects to help apply, and another look a t our long make straight AA talks; nor, save a pikers. Barbiturates, carried to ex- pill and drug takers are already experience with the special purpose few exceptions, could they identify tremes, can be almost as bad. In afloat-projects which use AA’s groups in which AAs are active to- with new AA members. Hence, they AA we have members who have Twelve Steps and in which AA day-both within and without our couldn’t do continuous Twelfth Step made great recoveries from both the members are active-there has society. work. Close to us as these good bottle and the needle. We also have arisen a whole series of questions as Now there are certain things that folks were, we had to deny them a great many others who w e r m r to how these efforts, already meet- AA cannot do for anybody, regard- membership. We could only welstill arevictimized by “goof balls” ing with not a little success, can be less of what our several desires or come them a t our open meetings. and even by the new tranquilizers. rightly related to the AA groups sympathies may be. Therefore I see no way of mak- Consequently, this problem of and to AA as a whole. Our first duty, as a society, is to ing non-alcoholic addicts into AA, drug addiction in its several forms Specifically, here is a list of ques- insure our own survival. Therefore members. Experience says loudly lies close to us all. It stirs our tions: (1) Can a non-alcoholic pill we have to avoid distractions and that we can admit no exceptions, deepest interest and sympathy. In or drug addict become an AA mem- multi-purpose activity. An AA even though drug users and alcothe world around us we see legions ber? (2) Can such a person be group, as such, cannot take on all holics happen to be first cousins of

a sort. If we persist in trying this, Very effective answers to problems dues-paying. members are seen as viduals, .we can carry the AA ex- I’m afraid it will be hard on the other than freedom from alcohol “special purpose” groups, not as AA perience and ideas into any outside drug user himself, as well as on AA. have always been found through groups. field whatever, provided that we We must accept the fact that no “special purpose” groups, some of The same thing has happened guard anonymity and refuse to use non-alcoholic, whatever his afflic- them operating within AA and some with drying-out places and “Twelfth the AA name for money-raising or tion, can be converted into an al- on the outside. Step Houses” managed by A&. We publicity purposes. coholic AA member. Our first special-purpose group never think of these activities as I’m very sure that these experi- Suppose, though, that we are ap- was created ‘way back in 1938. AA “AA groups.” They are clearly ences of yesterday can be the baproached by a drug addict who needed a world service office and seen as the functions of interested sis of resolving today’s confusions nevertheless has had a genuine al- some literature. It had a service individuals who are doing helpful about the narcotic problem. Thie coholic history. There was a time problem that could not be met by and often very valuable jobs. problem is new, but the AA exwhen such a person would have an AA group, as such. Therefore, Some years ago, numbers of AAs perience and Tradition which can been rejected. Many early A& had we formed a Board of Trustees formed themselves in “retreat solve it is already old and time the almost comical notion that they (The Alcoholic Foundation) to look groups” having a religious purpose. tested. I think we might sum it up were “pure alcoholics” -guzzlers after these matters. Some of the At first, they wanted to call them- like this: only, no other serious problems at Trustees were alcoholics, and some selves “AA groups” of various de- We cannot give AA memberall. When alcoholic “ex-cons” and were non-alcoholics. Obviously, this scriptions. But they soon realized ship to non-alcoholic narcotdrug users first turned up there was was not an “AA group.” Instead, it this could not be done because their ics-addicts. But like anyone much pious indignation. “What will was a group of AAs and non-AAs groups had a dual purpose: both else, they should be able to people think?’ chanted the pure al- who devoted themselves to a special AA and religion. attend certain open AA meetcoholics. Happily, this foolishness task. At another time a number of us ings, provided, of course, that has long since evaporated. Another example: in 1940, the AAs wanted to enter the field of the groups themselves are One of the best AAs I know is a New York AAs got lonesome and alcohol education. I was one of willing. man who had been seven years on installed themselves in a club. The them. We associated ourselves with AA members who are so inthe needle before he joined up with club had directors and dues-paying some non-alcoholics, likewise inter- clined should be encouraged us. But prior to that, he had been AA members. For a long time, the ested. The non-alcoholics wanted to band together in groups to a tepific alcoholic and his history club members and directors thought AAs because they needed our ex- deal with sedative and drug proved,it. Therefore he could qual- that they were an AA group. But perience, philosophy, and general problems. But they, ought to ify for AA and this he certainly after awhile, it was found that lots slant. Things were fine until some refrain from calling themselves did. Since then, he has helped of AAs who attended meetings at of us AAs publicly disclosed our AA groups. many AAs and some non-AAs with “Old 24th” didn’t care one. hoot for membership i n the educational There seems to be ;lo reason their pill and drug troubles. Of the club, as such. Hence, the man- group. Right away, the public got why several AAs cannot join, course, that is strictly his affair and agement of the club (for its social the idea that this particular brand if they wish, with a group of is no way the business of the AA purpose) had to be completely sep- of alcoholic education and Alcohol- straight addicts to solve the algroup to whicKhe belongs. In his arated from the management of the ics Anonymous were one and the cohol and the drug problem group he is a member because, in AA group that came there to hold same thing. It took years to change together. But, obviously, such actual fact, he is an alcoholic. its meetings. I t took years of has- this impression. But now that this a “dual purpose” group should Such is the sum of what AA can- sling to prove that you couldn’t put correction has been made, plenty of not insist that it be called an not do-for narcotics addicts or for an AA group into the club business AA members work with this fine AA group nor should it use anybody else. and make it stick. Everywhere to- group and we are glad that they do. the AA name in its title. Now, then, what can be done? day, club managements and their I t was thus proven that, as indi- Neither should its “straight

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addict” contingent be led to our special-purpose groups have acbelieve that they have become complished very wonderful things. AA members by reason of There is great reason to hope that such an association. those AAs who are now working in Certainly there is every good the grim regions of narcotic addicreason for interested AAs to tion will achieve equal success. join with “outside” groups, In AA, the group has strict limworking on the narcotic prob- itations, but the individual has lem, provided the Traditions scarcely any. Remembering to obof anonymity and of “no en- serve the Traditions of anonymity dorsements” are respected. and non-endorsement, he can carry In conclusion, I want to say that AA’s message into every troubled throughout AA’s history, most of area of this very troubled world. I

Who … Me? “No MAN CAN consider himself a alcoholic thinking. He still retains real member of AA just because ‘he his false pride, his complete seldoes not drink,” we read, one day. fishness, his super-ego. He seeks no “There is such a thing as having a advice, and rejects any that might sober body and a mind that retains be offered. His moral and ethical its drunken stupidity: The body standards are fabricated on a loom will express lip service to the AA built to suit his own perverted program but the mind still wallows specification. And the cloak he in an alcoholic quagmire. The phys- weaves is as transparent as dayical sobriety is used only as a light. No one is deceived except cloak to cover the same corruptive the deceiver, and even he must have thinking and conniving that was his moments when he must admit always present in the mind. Dis- his life is a sham. The solution to honesty of thought and action is his problem is the same as it is just as vicious in the sober man as for all of us: ‘. . . practice these in the drunken man. In fact, it principles in ALL our affairs.’ ” has a more foul odor in the sober When we had read this we beman, because the sober man has came slightly disturbed so we took not. the excuse of fuddled judg- it to the man in the glass and ment. asked “Who–me?Was our face “Anyone addicted to this form red at the answer he gave us. of hypocrisy is still controlled by From “The Missing Link.”

March 1958

Let’s Be Friendly with our Friends: psychiatrists wave aside all issues of right or wrong and insist that Now this may seem to be a confession of the sins of AA, and in some the real problem of the alcoholic part it is. I t is also a confession that Friends on the Alcoholism Front always gathers around the neurotic a t one time or another, I have mycompulsions which he innocently self held many of these often shortacquired as a child by reason of sighted views and prejudices. But I being maladjusted by erring par- do make haste to add that what I’ve by Bill W. ents. Or, when social workers say just said applies far more to AA’s that the true causes of alcoholism past than to the present. WE ARE TOLD there are 4,500,000 alcoholics are to be seen in faulty social con- Today, the vast majority of us in America. Up to now AA has sobered up ditions, we are apt to get restive and welcome any new light that can be perhaps 250,000 of them. That’s about one say “Who cares a hang what the thrown on the alcoholic’s mysterious in twenty, or five per cent of the total. causes are, anyway? AA can fix and. baffling malady. We don’t care This is a brave beginning, full of signifi- drunks without getting into all too much whether new and valuable cance and hope for those who still suffer. that.” knowledge issues from a test tube,a Yet these figures show that we have made In similar fashion some of us A h psychiatrist’s couch, or from revealonly a fair-sized dent on this vast world decry every attempt a t therapy, save ing social studies. We are glad of any health problem. Millions are still sick and our own. We point to certain clinics kind of education that accurately other millions soon will be. and committees that have accom- informs the public and changes its These facts of alcoholism should give uj plished little; we complain that huge age-old attitude toward the drunk. good reason to think, and to be humble. sums are being wasted by state and More and more we regard all who Surely we can be grateful for every agency private sources. We roundly thump labor in the total field of alcoholism or method that tries to solve the problem every experimental drug that turns as our companions on a march from of alcoholism-whether of medicine, relig- darkness into light. We see that we ion, education, or research. We can be can accomplish together what we open-minded toward all such efforts and could never accomplish in separawe can be sympathetic when the ill-advised tion and in rivalry. ones fail. We can remember that AA itself Preoccupied with AA and its afran for years on “trial and error.” As indi- fairs, I must admit that I’ve given vidual AAs, we can and should work with too little thought to the total alcohol those that promise succes-even a little problem. But I do have a glimpse success. of it, and that glimpse I would like Nor ought we allow our special convic- to share with you. tions or prejudices to overcome our good Take those 4,500,000 drunks in sense and good will. For example, numbers out badly. We belittle the attempts America. What is their condition of us think that alcoholism is mainly a of the men and women of religion to now? What is being done, and what spiritual problem. Therefore we have little deal with us drunks. We believe that might be done for them? What about time for biochemists who would like us to sound alcohol education is a good the next generation-yet another 4 believe that drunks drink mostly because thing. But we are also apt to think million who are still children and they are bedeviled by bad metabolisms. that AA-indirectly-is doing the adolescents? Excepting for what AA Likewise, we are apt to get red hot when most of it anyhow. can do, must they be victims, too?

Let’s start at the bottom of the ment, they can do enough work to convince them they are gravely ill. are seeing a great ,many younger helip. Our mental institutions are support themselves, be in better More than anything, the answer people corning to AA as a direct reflooded with the brain-damaged and health, and save their respective seems to be in education-education sult of the recently more wide the deeply psychopathic. Here and cities great sums and trouble. This in schoolrooms, in medical colleges, spread information about the dithere a few find their way back, but and other related experiments are among clergymen and employers, in sease. not many. Most are gone beyond beginning to offer much more hope families and in the public at large. We AAs have done a lot of this recall; the next world is their best for the skidrower. Individual AAs From cradle to grave, the drunk and kind of education, and friends outhope. But more research upon their are helping, but most of the work the potential alcoholic will have to side AA have done even more. A8 condition may add to our knowledge and the money will have to come be completely surrounded by true a result, right now maybe half a of prevention for the benefit of others from elsewhere. and deep understanding and by a million of the U.S.A.’s drunks are who are approaching the jumping- What now of the millions of alco- continuous barrage of information: trying to get well -or at least off place. Great numbera of alco- holics who haven’t hit prisons, asy- the facts about his illness, its symp- thinking seriously about getting holics are also to be found in prisons. l u m or skid rows? These, we are toms, its grim seriousness. Why well-either on their own, or by Either alcohol directly got them into told, constitute the vast majority. should an alcoholic have to wait un- actual treatment. Maybe this guess the jams that landed them there, or At the moment, their best hope of til he is 55 and be horribly mangled is too high, but it is by no means they had to drink in order to commit recovery seems to be AA. Well then, to find out that he is a very sick fanciful. Sound education on alcothe crimes toward which they had why haven’t these millions come to man, when enough education of the holism, and far more of it a t all compulsive tendencies. Here re- us? Or why haven’t they tried to right kind might have convinced him levels, will clearly pay off. search-medical, psychiatric and get well by some other method? at 30 or 35? Education will not only pay off social-is p!Binly needed. AA can’t Any AA can give you a quick and History has shown that whatever in numbers treated; it can pay off do this job, but others have already very accurate answer: “They aren’t their several men ts, neither preach- even more handsomely in prevenmade a great beginning. ready, they don’t know how sick ing nor moralizing nor other efforts tion. This means factual education, Every large city has its skid row. they really are. If they did, they at reform have ever made much im- properly presented to children and The so-called derelict alcoholics adolescents, at home and at school. doubtless number several hundreds Heretofore, much of this education of thousands. Some are so “psycho” has attacked the immorality of and so damaged that the mental drinking rather than the disease of hospital is their destination. The rest alcoholism. of these countless men and women We AAs can speak with a lot of clog police blotters, courts, jails and conviction about this. Most of our hospitals. To them the cost in suffer- children have been emotionally ing is incalculable; the cost to so- bunged up by our drinking beciety, even in dollars only, is im- havior, “maladjusted” for sure. mense. Huge numbers of these, not Large numbers of them should have yet legally insane, are thus con- turned into problem drinkers by demned to mill hopelessly about. now. But they have done no such Can anything be done? In all prob- would flock to treatment, just as pression on alcoholics as a whole. thing. Alcoholism, or potential alcoability, yes. Perhaps these sufferers though they had diabetes or cancer.” But factual education about the holism, is a rare thing to see among can be transferred to farms where in The problem, therefore, is how to malady has in the last few yeam the children of AA parents. Yet we some sort of “quarantine” confine- expose them to the facts that will shown great promise. Even now we never forbid them to drink, and we

don’t preach if they do. They simply money and effort which will steer ings–sometimes to cheer, and A strangely assorted crowd turned learn by what they have seen and by the alcoholic toward treatment as sometimes, I must confess, to jeer. up at the early sessions. I well rewhat they hear that alcoholism is never before, and which will prevent (AA, you see, then thought it had a member the venerable Mr. Colvin, a ghastly business and that their the development of alcoholism in monopoly on the drunk-fixing busi- he who used to run on the Probibichances are about one in fifteen of millions of predisposed kids who will ness!) tion ticket for the U. S. Presidency. contracting the illness alcoholism otherwise take the road we know so Presently the Research Council At the other pole of violent opinion if they drink. Most of them don’t well. took on a live wire, Dr. E. M. Jel- there were certain representativerr drink a t all. Others drink sparingly. As the following fragment of his- linek. He wasn’t an M. D., but.he of the liquor industry. Sandwiched The remainder, after getting into a tory will show, great and promising was a “doctor” of pretty much in between these were a sprinkling few ominous jams, aie able to quit progress, outside of AA, has been everything else. Learning all about of clergymen, social workers, made in the field of research, treat- drunks was just a matter of catching judges, cops, probation officers, ment, rehabilitation and education. up on his back reading. Though a educators, and a certain number of I t happened that I was a witness to prodigy of learning he was never- us drunks. Everybody had his own the beginning of modem methods in theless mighty popular with us alco- axe to grind and his own cast-iron these areas and this is what I saw: holics. We called him a “dry alco- I well remember Dr. H. W. Hag- holic” because he could identify gard of the Yale University faculty. with us so well. Even his nickname In 1930, four years before I sobered was endearing – his Hungarian up, this good physician was wonder- father had dubbed him “Bunky” ing what ailed drunks. He wanted to which, in that language, means “the begin research-mostly a test tube little radish.” The “little radish” got project at the beginning-to see down to business at once. what their chemistry was all about. At length Bunky and Dr. Hag- – a n d they promptly do. This seems This so amused some of his col- gard joined forces and began in 1940 to be preventive education at its leagues that no funds were forth- to publish the “Quarterly Journal best. coming from Yale treasury. But Dr. of Studies On Alcohol” which de- Therefore it is entirely possible Haggard was a man with a mission. voted itself to articles covering the that many of these AA attitudes He put his hands in his own pockets total field of alcohol research and in- convictions. The drys and wets and methods can be widely applied and begged personal friends to do quiry. This brought Dr. Jellinek in- were hardly on speaking terms. to kids of all kinds. the same. His project launched, he to partnership and close association Every faction wanted us drunks to Now who is going to do all this and an associate, Dr. Henderson, with Dr. Haggard. agree with them. This was very education? Obviously, it is both a began work. In 1943, Dr. Haggard and Bunky flattering, but we naturally took the community job and a job for special- Later, in 1937, the renowned organized the Yale School for Alco- independent course and agreed ists. Individually, we AAs can help, physiologist Dr. Anton Carlson hol Studies. It was seen that a lab- with practically nobody! but AA as such cannot, and should and a group of interested scientists oratory and a technical journal It was out of this unpromising not, get directly into this field. formed a subsidiary body called couldn’t get far unless a wider audi- miscellany that Drs. Haggard and Therefore, we must rely on other the Research Council on Problems ence was found. The idea was ad- Jellinek had to bring order. The agencies, on outside friends and of Alcohol. This was to be a more vanced that everybody who bumped wets had to be convinced they their willingness to supply great inclusive effort. Some of us early into drunks or the alcohol problem couldn’t brush the alcohol problem amounts of money and effort- New York AAs went to their meet- should be represented at the school. under the bed; neither could those

drys go on scaring every drinker by said the plan was sound, the time of them I send the timeless gratitude alcoholism. Medical colleges are brandishing before him a hob-nailed was ripe, and he agreed with me of Alcoholics Anonymous. beginning to include this subject in liver. We AAs had to see the enor- that Marty was the one to do the Their combined efforts, often their courses. Sparked by Bunky, mity of the total alcohol problem job. sparked by A h , have since flowered the World Health Organization is and to face the fact that we prob- Originally financed by the tire- to this general effect: Four universi- carrying all this good news around ably weren’t going to dry up ths less Dr. Haggard and his friends, ties are now running replicas of the the world. School text books are world overnight. The School threw Marty started her big task. I can- Yale School. Three thousand public being modernized. In the cause of in its research findings, everybody not detail in this space the great and private hospitals have been general education, the press, radio, else contributed what he had, or accomplishments of Marty and her opened to alcoholics. Industry is and television are pouring out floods thought he had, and Bunky finally associates in the present-day Na- revolutionizing its attitude toward of it daily. This has all happened showed us that we had to face the tional Council on Alcoholism. But I its alcoholic employees. Penal in- in the twenty-eight years since Dr. actual facts together and be friendly can speak my conviction that no stitutions, police and judges alike Haggard first decided to 5 d out about it besides. His was a stroke of other single agency has done more have taken new heart. Citizens’ com- what makes drunks tick. diplomacy; i t was perhaps the first to educate the public, to open up mittees in large numbers are attack- Every one of these p i o k r s in the beginning of a comprehensive and hospitalization and to set in motion ing the total problem in their several total field will generously say that statesman-likeapproach to the prob- all manner of constructive projects, communities. Over 30 U.S. states had it not been for the living proof lem of alcohol in America. than this one. Growing pains there and the majority of Canadian prov- of recovery in AA, they could not In the next year, 1944, there were have been aplenty, but today the inces have a program of rehabilita- have gone on. AA was the lodestar two signal events. The Yale group N. C. A. results speak for them- tion and treatment. Many clergy of hope and help that kept them at opened upeta clinic where there aelvc?~. groups are ducnting their co- it. would be plenty of live drunks to In 1945, Dr. Selden Bacon, the workers. Psychiatric research and So let us work alongside all them research and to treat experimental- noted sociologist, was appointed treatment is making telling strides. projects of promise to hasten the rely. Here Ray McCarthy, as first Chairman of the first program to Test tube devotees are working covery of those millions who have administrator, began to sweat out be supported by State funds, the hopefully in their laboratories. not yet found their way out. These the clinic method with his first Connecticut Commission on Alco- The American Medical Association varied labors do not need our special batch of alcoholics. holism. This first state effort was 1 has officially declared alcoholism endorsement; they need only a help- Then along came Marty. As an the direct result of the work of Dr. 1 to be a chronic illness, and has ing hand when, as individuals, we early AA she knew public attitudes Bacon and the Yale Group. Our activated its own committee on can possibly give it. had to be changed, that people had friend Selden has since brought his to know that alcoholism was a dis- immense energy and the finest preease and alcoholics could be helped. ceptions of his profession to the aid She developed a plan for an organi- of us alcoholics. He is without doubt zation to conduct a vigorous pro- one of the best authorities from the gram of public education and to social point of view that we now organize citizens’ committees a I1 have. over the country. She brought her I much wish I could name and tell plan to me. I was enthusiastic but you of many another dedicated felt scientific backing was essential, friend of that early pioneering time. so the plan was sent to Bunky, and They have since been followed by he came down to meet with us. He others who are today legion. To all

April 1958

other is that, until recently, a small craziest and most perilous century group of AA’s old timers-acting as that the human race has ever seen.

@ parents–have tended to the perils and problems of our whole society without consulting the membership very much about such matters. As a fellowship, we shall always need to make whatever sacrifice3 are necessary to insure AA’s unity, service, and survival, under any RECOVERY Never have we had a problem conditions whatever. That is why that cut clear across us. The pub- I’m now writing to you about AA’s lic admires us, our friends love us. General Service Conference, the Religion and medicine are in our guardian of our future. comer. Nobody has seriously ex- Until recently, we have behaved

Guardian of AA ploited us. We have avoided public controversy. The world’s political strife hasn’t touched us. We like a still-young family. This family, like all families, has had parents. These parents have been the Our General Service Conference , haven’t had even one full-sized so-called old timers and originators family quarrel. While members and of AA. I was fortunate enough to by Bill w. groups have had just about all the have been one of them. Since the woe there is, AA as a whole has earliest days we parents have been never had any. This is the miracle more concerned with the future welof our twenty-three years of exist- fare of AA than with anything else. ence. At local levels, we old timers used EVERYAA WANTS TO MAKE SURE of and group survival is willingness No wonder so many truly believe to look after things; until very rehis survival from alcoholism, and and sacrifice, vigilance and work. that nothing can ever happen to cently, Dr. Bob and I, mightily ashis own spiritual well-being after- What is so true for each member AA itself! sisted by dedicated alcoholic and ward. This is just as it should be. and for each group must also be non-alcoholic friends, have beer He also wants to do what he can for true for AA as a whole. Yet many That we have been so long exempt from the pains that all na- doing the same at national and in the survival and well-being of his of us have never given this self- &national levels. fellow alcoholics. Therefore he is evident proposition the thought i t tions and societies must suffer is deserves. We are apt to take it for something for the deepest gratitude. As parents of AA we had .to see bound to have a vital interest in the granted that AA, as a whole, will go But we certainly cannot presume to it that our growing brood waa permanence and well-being of AA protected against itself, and against itself. on forever-no special attention or that this benign phenomenon will contribution being required of us. last forever. For one, I do not think the world outside. Very early, our In his AA group, every good that it should last. We can never family had to have principles to member feels deeply about this. He Save an occasional glow of pride in call ourselves “grown up” until we live by, and schooling in those prinknows, once the miracle of sobriety AA’s size and reach, it is possible that half of AA’s members and have successfully met with all tho68 ciples. The good news of AA had has been received, that Providence to be spread far and wide so that groups still have little active con- temptations and problems that inexpects all of us to work and to we could grow in numbers as well grow-to do our part in maintain- cern for the total welfare. That isn’t variably harass every large grouping of men and women. This will as in quality. Such were our reing our blessings in full force. A negligence on their part at all. They simply haven’t seen the need. be good for us-very good, I’m sure. sponsibilities. perpetual miraclewith no effort or responsibility on our part-simply There are two good reasons for Some day we may have to resist It was in 1937 when Dr. Bob and isn’t in the cards. We 011 under- this. One is that AA as a whole all the pressure that a destruction- I first began to see what we must stand that the price of both personal has never run into any trouble. The bent world can put upon us in this do. We knew there would have to

be an AA text of principles and The AA Grapevine reaches 40,000 rison and Bernard Smith you can It was a racking dilemma. SometA” methods. Other old timers agreed. subscribers plus countless thousands see what these men are. And in our how AA as such-AA as a whole- By 1939, with lots of help, we had of others each month. new history book, AA Comes of would have to take over the full published the “big book,” Alcohol- These have been the duties and Age, you can read what they and responsibility. Without doubt the ics Anonymous. This ended aH privileges of our parenthood world- others like them did for us in our groups would have to elect numerdoubt about AA’s methods. The wide. We did our best to protect pioneering time as the moving ous delegates and send them to New 300,000 “big books” today in circu- AA so that it could grow undis- drama of AA unfolded. York each year, where they could lation constitute the platform of re- turbed. Not troubling the growing During the year 1948 we workers sit with and guide the trustees. Only covery upon which our whole fel- family about these critical matters, a t AA’s Headquarters got a terrific by so doing could AA assume effeclowship stands. we acted on the principle that “fa- jolt. Dr. Bob was stricken with a tive direction of its own policy and We next realized that AA would ther knows best.” In the early days, consuming and slowly fatal malady. business. Only through these elected have to have publicity-lots of it, i t was just as simple as that. I t This created a severe crisis in our delegates could the increasing isoand of the right kind. We com- was then far too soon to throw the affairs because it made us face up lation of the trust. from the menced work on this problem. full weight of responsibility onto to the fact that the old time parents movement itself be halted. Only Maybe half of today’s members owe our whole fellowship. of our society weren’t going to last such a body could take binding detheir lives and their fortunes to the forever. cisions in any future crisis. From the beginning, Dr. Bob and telling efforts of the press and other I found that we needed special help We were filled with foreboding as When our scheme for a joint Conmeans of communication. ourselves. Therefore we called upon we realized how insecure were the ference of trustees and delegates From 1940 to 1950, we were beset certain dedicated non-alcoholics to existing links between our Head- was first proposed, a howl went up by group problems of every sort, give us a lift. With these men, we quarters and the vast sprawling fel- country-wide. At first it looked as frightening beyond description. Out formed a trusteeship for Alcoholics lowship that it served. There was, though the AA family didn’t want of these experiences the Twelve Anonymous. I t was created ‘way of course, our small Board of Trus- any part of this new and unexpect- Traditions of AA were forged … back in 1938 and we called it The tees. But not one AA in a thou- ed responsibility. To them, “AA traditions that now protect us Alcoholic Foundation (since re- sand could name half of them. At delegates” spelled nothing but polagainst ourselves and the world out- named The General Service Board the Headquarters office, there were itics, controversy, and confusion. side. This effort, requiring immense of AA). In 1940, our trustees ac- Bobbie, Ann and Charlotte. There “Let’s keep it simple,” they cried. office correspondence and experi- quired the AA book, assumed full was Dr. Bob and myself. We few But after a couple of years of ,agience, finally resulted in a whole new responsibility for AA’s general were just about the only links to tation and education, our fellowliterature dealing with AA’s unity funds, its world service office, its worldwide AA! ship clearly realized that the ultra and services. Under these influ- magazine and its public relations. Meanwhile thousands of our simplicity of the early days could ences we grew solid. To this body of trustees–alco- members went serenely about their be no more. Direct family respon- The news of AA beg& to spread holic and non-alcoholic-must go business. They knew little or noth- sibility there would have to be, or around the world, finally reaching most of the credit for making our ing about AA’s over-all problems. else AA would fold up a t its very into seventy lands. This brought a world Headquarters what it now is. They vaguely supposed that God, center. The erstwhile elders, fathers host of new problems and the need I am very glad that this issue of with maybe a slight assist from Dr. and founders would have to be to publish AA literature in many the Grapevine carries the pictures Bob and me, would go right on han- taken off the hook and replaced by tongues. Hospitals and prisons and of two of our distinguished non- dling them. Thus they were com- delegates. There was no other way. loners and men on ships also had alcoholic Chairmen of the Board, pletely ignorant of the actual state The family would have to “come of to be reached and helped. AA’s life- men whose steadfastness saw us of our affairs, and of the awful po- age” or suffer dire penalties for the lines had to extend everywhere. AA through a long season of labor and tential there was for an ultimate failure to do so. needed a monthly magazine. Today, peril. In the faces of Leonard Har- collapse. So we called in some seventy-five

delegates from the U. S. and Can- tions: Will the AA family send to ada. Together with the trustees and the Conference its finest delegates? the Headquarters and Grapevine Will we continue to choose able and staff, those delegates formed them- wise trustees? Will AAs back their selves into the General Service Con- Conference members, their trustees ference of Alcoholics Anonymous. and their world Headquarters with By then, it was 1951. enough funds, enough interest and At first this was an experiment, enough understanding? pure and simple. If it worked it For me, these are questions no would mean that AA had truly longer. The history of AA shows “come of age,” and could really that whenever a great need arises, manage its own affairs. Through its that need is always met. In this representative Conference, i t could respect, I’m quite sure that our hisbecome the guardian of its own fu- tory will go on repeating itself. Inture and the protector of its own deed, I can have no doubt whatlifelines of service. ever. Well, our Conference did work. I think, too, that my own influ- Its performance, God be thanked, ence a t the Headquarters should exceeded all our expectations. At continue to lessen. Through its the end of its five-year experimental Conference, complete authority and period, we knew that it could be- responsibility is now fully vested in come a permanent part of our fel- AA. The parent who overstays his lowship. time can only hamper the growth In July of 1955, a t AA’s twenti- of his offspring. This I must not do. eth anniversary, I stood before the My proper place will soon be along great St. Louis Convention. Amid the sidelines, cheering you newer a dwindling band of old timers, and ones as you carry on. Our family is on their behalf, I delivered the des- now fully of age, and it should firmtiny of AA into the hands of its ly remind me of that fact if I am chosen reprexntatives, the General ever again tempted to take charge. Service Conference of Alcoholics For these all-compelling reasons, Anonymous. I cannot remember any my friends, the future belongs to happier day in my life. A gaping you. Embrace these new responsichasm had been bridged . 2 . AA bilities eagerly, fear naught, and was secure at last. the Grace of God will surely be Some people still ask these ques- yours.

MAY 1958

T HE following i s a condensation of a bulletin recently sent ymous continues to be self-supporting depends directly upon whether to all groups. We reprint it here, or not the Groups keep their conbelieving that it deals with a mat- tributions up at least to the miniter so important that AAs every- mum which has become traditional. where will want to read it over– Indeed, one of our most important and think it over: traditions i s at stake. As the Alcoholics Anonymous Surely, it cannot be that as we movement grows in size and im- grow bigger and stronger in memportance, the scope and the cost of bership, we are becoming less able our necessary services also in- and less willing to pay our own creases. It is an AA tradition that way. It may be that, in deference to there be no dues, no fees. It i s d- our tradition of “no dues, no fees,” so an AA tradition that we pay our we have not sufficiently stressed own way. We neither solicit nor our equally important tradition of accept outside contributions. AA voluntary self-support. i s humbly greatful for the ability We ask the serious consideration to support itself and its own essen- and cooperation of each Group in tial activities. solving this problem. We feel sure Contributions to the Foundation it can be solved and will be solved in the past have averaged a dollar by just a little extra effort on the per year per member. Last year, part of individual A A s and Groups however, contributions fell con- everywhere. siderably short of this traditional In asking for this extra effort, amount. The result was that our we at the Foundation and in the expenses were greater thun our in- General Service Office are gratecome. It was necessary to dip into fully aware of past support, and our slender reserves. Obviously, confident that we shall be able to we cannot go on doing this. go ahead without permanent Whether or not Alcoholics Anon- difficulty.

September 1958

r

The .Dean & Mrs. X it. We shouldn’t let them give the AA and is in some danger of go- AT A DINNEB PARTY whole group a black eye. ing overboard again, from my obfor a well-known, newly-elected uni- 4. There are also those who might servation. versity president several y e m ago, try to “use” the group for business It is easier if he discusses his a dean turned to his dinner partner or personal reasons. This would problems with other alcoholics and asked, “Is that little fellow our defeat its whole purpose. alone. What weird advice our new president?” 5. Anonymity also adds a pleas- friends and relatives may have! ‘first’ attempting the new way of life ‘q don’t believe you know who antly mysterious atmosphere to the The kind anonymity of AA: in AA. The new AA owes it to him- I am,” said the lady. “I am his whole project. The glamour of un- where there is no competing, where wife.” self to make his path as easy as he can. I t takes a long time to der-cover work in secret places ap- everyone is given a hearing, and “Do you know who I am?’asked peals strongly to the imaginative, all answers could be right. It is the dean. learn to be tolerant with the intolerant and the small-minded, but sensitive alcoholic. Being “in-the- no place for names, or positions, or “No,” said Mrs. “X.” know” is exciting, whether it is in anything but human beings, meet- “Well, thank God,” said the it is necessary. Included in the type of di5cult a fraternal order or a smoke-filled ing on the common ground of a dean. room. common problem. Anonymity to members of AA is person whose confidence we must not invite is the sister-in-law (for 6. And most important, the spir- One of the world’s great histoeven more important than it was itual value of anonymous good rians, Arnold Toynbee, said reto this dean. example) who says, “You mean he can’t have even works is beyond measure. The poli- cently that man may be learning tician who announces his large gift the great secret-humility before How many times have you heard- a tiny little glass of sherry at to charity is not the man the AA his Maker. an old member say to a newcomer, Christmas time?’ And the “he” emulates. The giving of help must “The motive is important,” he with a tolerant smile, under discussion would like to come from the heart, if it is to said. “If the aim is for power or ‘Well, you’ll get so you don’t strangle her with it. cause the spiritual growth the AA influence, it decreases the value ‘ mind people knowing that you be- Better that “he” should just tell is seeking. of what is done. It must be done long to AA. In fact, I’m proud her that he’s on the wagon or some The AA cloak of anonymity is such euphemism. for its own sake-because it’s the for people to know it.” not shame. It is protection for good and right thing to do.” Such men are dangerous-to 2. Of course, real anonymity is spiritual growth. I t is as neceessary He had another message that themselves, to their group, and to necessary for attracting the kind as the dark warmth of the earth of persons who will profit from AA could be especially for alcoholics: AA as a whole, in my opinion. is necessary to the seed, if it is Here’s why: affiliation. The secret drinker is “We seem to learn only by pain. to grow. It would be better if we could learn 1. There is no need for the going through enough without the The sobered-up alcoholic is trynewly-dry alcoholic, by definition worry that everybody in town will without it, but in practice we have ing to belong again to the human to go through it before we take a more or less emotionally dis- know his past. If you break your race. He wants and needs social seriously what is essentially right.” turbed person, to submit himself own anonymity, except in cases contacts. He doesn’t want his to difEcult social pressures. Igno- where you can be useful, he will We have learned that secret help friends to think he is a bore or a to others in pain will help to cure ‘rant people, gossipers and others suspect (rightly) that you might fanatic. There is no reason why the pain in us. If there is no sewho are intolerant and lack under- break his. standing can cause new resentments 3. And there are slippers, even he should be either. In fact, if he cret, there may be no cure. though we don’t like to talk about becomes either he is not a good More Anon., Raleigh, N. C. . and troubles to the person who is

October 1958

. . . our primary purpose. . . THERE IS A . . . a t least it makes us feel that we Our Fifth Tradition Group meets occasionally to review the group Fifth Tradition Group within our are giving the fellow or girl another group. We think it helps to examine chance, perhaps in recognition of membership to remind others that our group conscience every once in the multitude of “another chances” someone has been around for a few a while, especially that part of our given each of us. months and may be ready to talk conscience which could tell us We ask our members to keep this at an open meeting or lead a closed whether or not we are properly per- “group-within-the-group” informed meeting. They often suggest that a forming our primary purpose. of all prospects that come to us, member might be helped if he were through Intergroup, local phone ex- encouraged to get into a new group You will remember that Tradition change, clergymen, doctors, or when activity, or someone else is getting Five reads: “Each group has but they might just come to our open close to an anniversary and should . one primary purpose . . to carry meetings, seeking information for be given a chance to decide whether its message to the alcoholic who still themselves. We don’t hound or he or she wants to celebrate at an suffers.” That seems to place a re- chase after those who don’t want open meeting. They also greet our sponsibility on a group, over and us, but there probably are some guest speakers at open meetings and beyond the responsibility of the in- who need just a little more encour- see to it that they know we apprecidividual who might meet with or agement. ate their visit. They keep their eyes sponsor a suffering alcoholic. There Also. this group extends its in- open for any new faces which might have been a t least a few occasions terest to those who are new in AA indicate that another suffering alcowhen one of us after visiting a pros- and those who seem’to have a little holic is seeking help; and try to pect once or twice will decide that difficulty in stopping and even to neglect no one. the fellow is “not ready” or “too far gone” or “not wanting to stop”; and those around for awhile who haven’t picked up any group activity or – In fact, they aredoing what ably all of us want to do, yet so then proceeded to forget him, des- made any firm friendships. Ofttimes often overlook. They are not relievpite the fact that the sdering alco- this group will suggest that one of ing us of our individual responsiholic had approached the group for us become a “friend” to such peo- bility or stopping any of us from help. ple. We don’t appoint sponsors for being as active as we want to be. Our little Fifth Tradition Group the newcomer because we believe They are merely watching in the (made up of four or five new and that each one has the personal priv- , background so that we as a group old members) tries to keep track of ilege of selecting his sponsor, but such prospects and according to will be ever mindful of our-primary: many times this “friend” can make purpose–to help all who come to their judgment, may suggest that another member – closer perhaps the newcomer feel more welcome, and help him better understand us for help. Someone . .. at some because of neighborhood, vocation time .. .helped each of us. We want what is going on. We don’t spy or or age group-give this still-suffer- pry or try to find out when the felto be sure that no one will coning alcoholic an occasional phone low or girl had his or her last drink tinue to d e r . . . just because we forgot! call or suggest a pick-up for a meet- . . . we just want to be sure they Anon., Hartsdale-Ardsley, N.Y. ing that might have some special know we are interested and eager mutual interest. Sometimes it works to help when asked.

October 1 9 5 8 d

Too much Spotlight

of AA we always have and always wife attended an M meeting in, a will. large Western city while on a buai- And let’s not forget that there are ness trip. The next morning they two words in our name-Alcoholics found their names listed in the daily Anonymous. Our anonymity is a vi- paper as participants the meettal part of our program. It builds ing. our humility and strengthens the These things should not be. bonds that hold us together. We know in AA that we can’t To many of us our anonymity is meddle with another member’s con- .essential to success on the program, ception of “the Higher Power!’ We a danger which can be put down as and to success in normal, happy liv- know that we don’t dare try to take WE’RECOMING OW OF THE BLACK- ing. To others anonymity is not so someone else’s inventory. We muat OUT. And this time I don’t mean the a calculated risk, but we had better important. One of the greatest re- learn to pay equal attention to the individual blackout from booze, but be sure we are in on and constantly aware of the calculations. sponsibilities any AA member can other fellow’s anonymity. Surely the the blackout of public misunder- assume is a breach of anonymity. greatest burden that an AA could standing and indifference that has Not that we would want to do He can make the decision for him- have on his soul would be the too long cloaked the problems of the anything to hinder the present wave self fairly easily, but how can he be of interest in alcoholism–even if we knowledge that he forced or helped alcoholic. sure that the breach will not indi- to force someone else out of the pro- Motion pictures, radio, television, could. I t is good and eventually will rectly, through association, affect gram. magazines and newspapers are all help in finding further solutions to the anonymity of another member? I say turn all the spotlight we can telling the story of the alcoholic. and acceptance of our problems. I have personally known of cases on the problems of alcoholism.Focus They are almost invariably climax- But let’s not forget that we as where staunch AA members have so all the attention we can on the value ing their stories with a recognition alcoholics are prima donnas. We disregarded the anonymity of fellow of AA in helping overcome those of the true worth of AA. love that spotlight. Our egos feed on group members that names were problems. But let AA members as But in that very process of an attention. Just because alcoholism is becoming “fashionable” doesn’t eventually tossed about by children individuals dwell under the proawakened public interest, there lurks in high school relationships. I know tective cloak of anonymity. a danger to AA as an organization change our situation or our position one bit. We still need the same kind of another case where a man and his Anon., Spokane, Wash. and to AAs as individuals. There is

October 1958

To MANY AA MEMBERS it is not members of AA who know some- What could our work be without same for all of us if AA had not clearly known just how the service thing about AA? the reliable knowledge of collected spread all over the world? Maybe I boards mentioned in Tradition Nine Well, we have been able to use experiences? We are, like ali alco- it would be enough that there was serve us, and as a matter of fact, the foreign department of General holics, great idealists. We have mil- only one group in action . . . The some members may wonder, do we Service Headquarters. Of course, lions of “private ideas” and we could group I belong to? need them at all? I t is quite under- there has been correspondence with have killed AA in our country a long Would it be quite all right if I standable that the publishing com- other special departments of Head- time ago had we not learned that it was alone again? pany is needed, and the Grapevine quarters, but I tell only of what I am is always advisable to ask what kind We are not “halfway fellows.” too, but these are both self-support- personally familiar with. of experience others have had before Either we are alone, or all together. ing businesses. In addition we have We have succeeded in being able we start to practice our own “finer- We have a good AA society here General Service Headquarters which to give a small annual contribution ies.” And thus time and again we in Finland. You can all be proud, is supported by the groups, but the but naturally we understand that it have been “dropped on earth.” And for the work-supported by your conception of the nature of its has not in any sense covered the it is very important to us, for are we dollars-has borne a beautiful fruit. services is pretty misty to many services we have received. not living on the underside of the The foreign department of Genmembers. Not once have we been dissatis- globe? eral Service Headquarters is one of Let me present a form of service fied for the treatment we have got. Now, one may ask is it worth while many “service boards.” It is not offered by General Service Head- We know Bill’s words in our Tradi- for the members of AA to share in meant to serve you, but it is meant quarters. I choose to present it be- tions: “Of course you are at perfect the expenses caused by us? What to serve us on your behalf. It has cause I am familiar with it, but to liberty to handle this matter any does it matter if the 100,000 Finnish ~ervedus magnificently. the most members it is quite un- way you please. But the majority alcoholics would drop into space? A great many thanks to you all, known. experience in AA does seem to sug- Well, maybe it would not trouble who have made it possible. . This p&t summer I achieved gest . .” We have been served in you at all. But would it be all the ‘V.K.. Helsinki,Finland seven years of continued sobriety, this way and it has been a way that and I appreciate it very much. Dur- produced good results. We have reing these seven years I have seen the ceived all possible material free, and growth of AA in my country, Fin- permission to translate it to our own land, and have been an active mem- language, and to forward it to the ber in our society all these years. hands of our members. Over 180 of our alcoholics have re- We have asked many questionsceived a birthday cake with a burn: maybe sometimes pretty funny ones ing candle on it. A great many of -but always the answer has been them have received several cakes clear and friendly. At our disposal and many candles have burned. has been all the experience gathered How has this been possible in the in AA, and many most talented country so far north that the Polar members have offered their help circle divides it in two . . . far from personally.

November 1958

HIS is Thanksgiving time; our gratitude should certainly be boundless. TTwenty-four years ago this month, I landed in a hospital foi the last time. Then and there 1 received the gift of sobriety. Like all who have since joined AA’s ranks, I was given a chance to choose what I would do with my new life. Just like most AAs.of today, I chose to try to pass my gift on to the next suffering applicant. This simple practice of trying to give of one’s self without demand for reward (at least sometimes!) has brought incredible blessing-more than my share, I guess. Every practicing AA comes up, however, with just about the same general list of them. First we receive sobriety, which is the chance to go on living. We try to bring that chance to others and watch them come alive. We slowly discover that our lives have a purpose because God has a plan for us; a plan that we grow little by little toward His likeness and image. Then follows the conviction that we live in a universe filled with His love-a creation that makes sense. As this vision comes clear we can begin to vve4n harmony with ourselves and with our fellows. We are

f going son) lace; our destiny becomes secure. Next 3 begin actually to welcome our growing pains. Suffering is no longer a menace to be evaded a t any cost. When i t does come, no matter how grievously, we realize that it too has its purpose. I t is our great teacher because it reveals our defects and so pushes us forward into the paths of progress. The pain of drinking did just this for us. And so can any other pain. Our Twelve Traditions are a prime example of what pain has done for us since we sobered up. Every single AA Tradition was evolved from the immense growing pains of AA’s early years; each rests securely upon this foundation. For this reason only, we now have our Twelve Traditional principles that can spell unity, brotherhood and service for all time to come. What people in this very troubled world of 1958, could possibly have . more reasons to be grateful a t Thanksgiving than we of Alcoholics Anonymous!

NOVEMBER 1958

is absolutely vital. Short-comings causes alcoholism.” Talking to my and defects of character? Who do late friend the “Barber of Seville” you know that doesn’t have them? he explained that he didn’t know After all we, who choose to be our- the causes either, but that he felt selves, have our emancipation proc- he knew the main contributing faclamation in those few short words, tor. The answer? Simple: alcohol.

The $impIe Answer “We are not saints.” There have Need we know more? been many fine things said and “He went out to save the world written about us, but did you ever . . . and he forgot the man next try looking a t them as challenges door.” Rather than visit all you rather than statements of fact? fine people, I just stay a t home and Did you ever try looking at your- try to practice these principles–in self in the light of a culprit rather my home, in my business and LET’SFACE IT. Let’s lay all fifty-two ing for an angle, a way to get out than a victim? Didn’t you ever see among my thousands of friends. cards on the table face up. Some- from in under. a drunk before you started drink- both in AA and out. Somewhere in thing wrong? Oh yea, there’s al- There were two schools of oper- ing? Didn’t you have even a faint our voluminous literature I read ways something wrong with the guy ators around a t the time of my in- awareness of what alcohol did to and accepted a suggestion: “After whose imagination never sleeps. So doctrination-the tough school and people? Isn’t it true that being a reasonable length of time, we reto be sure, let’s be honest with our- the soft school. Being a roughneck aware of this fact, the thing we call tire to the sidelines and a new team selves and with each other. Let’s I chose the former and to this day egotism (which wasn’t born in a takes the field!’ face it. I have never been able to ascertain bottfe) caused you to say to your I now have a very good seat right Is this something new? Oh, no- whether the soft school was soft in little ofd self: “It will never hap- between the Twelve Steps and the I’ve been saying this for a long, the heart or soft in the head. The pen to the Great I Am?’ If it is Twelve Traditions. The mechanics time. I n fact I’ve been saying a lot tough boys let me have it straight: true then you have the answer and ,of AA belong to the younger genof things for a long time. Such “What’s your problem besides drink- you won’t have to go stumbling eration for I firmly believe that things as, “It might be a good time ing, what do you want to do about through life looking for an excuse every AA should be the chairman to start getting honest and tell the it and when do you want to start?’ or an alibi. of something at some time, that truth, it might be a good time to I elucidated in a few thousand well- You can leave alcoholism to the everyone should be given some restart making amends, it might be chosen words. They were patient experts and devote your time and sponsibility and as a reward should a good time to start facing reality and understanding: “You’ve told attention to the alcoholic, that won- have his “day in t h ~ . sun”. Of course and accepting responsibility and if us what you think you want, now derful retarded juvenile delinquent this can be dangerous as I’ve nowe have any money it might be we’ll tell you what we think you’ who only needs to grow up. Natur- ticed a few who apparently have a good time to start paying our need”‘-and for the first and only ally, I’m only referring to those been out in the sun too long. . . . debts.” This approach will never time in my life I heard the explana- who have regained their sense of And so I have chosen as my sole win any popularity contests nor tion of First Things First, the fore- humor and have learned that they spiritual entity, not a creed, but a will it get you on the big time cir- runner of all things to come: “Stop should never take themselves too code. Mine is a spiritual code that cuit, I can assure you from experi- drinking and quit kidding yourself.” seriously. Not too long ago I lis- requires not only that I believe in ence. These subjects are not an aid I learned that cruelty is the first tened to a very learned discoune God but that I must believe in the to digestion a t the larger banquets. cousin to kindness, that the truth on alcoholism and its causes, which things He believes in sufficiently I wasn’t looking for sobriety about oneself can be very, very ended in this very startling man- that I make a reasonable effort to when I came into AA. I was look- painful, but the necessity of truth ner, “After all, no one knows what live them. That I have a responsi-

bility to every member of AA and Since this condition has existed in so far as possible I give them since the over-worked and undera t least the same opportunity to paid days of Ruth and Bobbie a t recover as I have been given. GSH, it certainly shouldn’t be new While I did many wrong ‘things to a few of us. during my drinking, I do not feel This is not the problem of the that God has punished me for them. new person, nor as suggested, the I was asked the same question that sole problem of the old timer. As Christ asked on so many occasions, I understand things AA is a prov- “Would ye be made whole?” When ing grounds where people learn to I answered yes I was on my way stand on their own feet and carry back. The power of choice and a their own weight. free will were again mine. Doctor Bob once said, “A man For a long time I have been hav- who does not accept his responsiing trouble with my eyes and ears. bilities is a bum. If he drinks he It seems I’m not seeing what I’m is usually a drunken bum. If he hearing. The condition must be im- comes into AA and just sits there proving because everywhere 1 seem and does nothing, he is still a bum.” to look and a lot of what I hear As I like to brag a little and don’t is about a very nauseating subject relish being a bum, I’ll take the -money. The repulsive part of the simple answer, “Send check.” whole thing is the fact that this Such a direct solution should reis money that is owed. Money that lieve the need for any meeting of is owed by a self-admitted “wonder- the minds to concoct some particu- . . ful group of people” . you and lar scheme for getting the necessary me. I have always agreed with the funds. Once we get this debt paid, man who rose to state, “Money has let each to the extent of his gratino place in AA–can anyone here tude and financial ability see that loan me five bucks?” we keep solvent and by so doing Like most things in AA the an- offer concrete proof to Bill that we swer is simple when you take an along with AA have “dome of age.” honest look. Take for example the This morning when I was shavproblem of refusing an offered drink ing I glanced in the mirror and a t a party. My answer is simple remarked, “Eph, you’re a good kid “I’m sorry, I can’t drink.” -The only thing you have to do is The answer to the why of the prove it.” And in the years to come, money problem is the same as that when I have proven it, 1 think I of being overdrawn a t the bank, a will be given a better understandproblem with which most of us are ing of what I really mean when I familiar. We either didn’t put in say, “Thanks, God, for another enough or we took out too much. day.” Anon., Pittsburgh, Pa. I

first; personal recovery depends first. Just try staying away from the upon AA unity-they had kept AA first drink one day a t a time. Keep

Something Kept Me Sober alive, and there it stood ready to save my messy life that bleak day. My first knowledge of AA had an open mind, and remember, we’ll help.” So I pocketed the Steps, not even daring to read around the edges come from a newspaper column, about them, and began mechanically which said these people were anony- not drinking for twenty-four hours mous, claimed no credit for what a t a time. they did, even declined to let their I wanted to join, right away, offic- I names appear in print. The fact that ially. I wondered if they knew what there was such a “secret” place for .. I was really like . the stealing, the people who drank too much kept on lies, and worse. But I’d promise any attracting me as my drinking got thing. I could pay on the installprogressively worse, the troubles ment plan. multiplied, and the hangovers (such “It doesn’t cost a cent, if you want a mild word) grew monumental. to stop drinking,” the smiling wom- When the day of ultimate need an a t the desk said. “Is it giving you and first willingness finally came, I trouble?’ When I gulped and nodremembered I could go there, to ded, she said, “I’m a drunk myself. those people, and no one would You stick around and well talk it know. The promise of anonymity over. You’re in, if you want to be.” opened the way in, gave me a pro- (The only req,uirement for AA memtective mantle under which I could bership is a desire to stop drinking.) beg them to save my life. Without A few weeks later I saw a celebrity the promise I surely would have show up. He got no more, no less,atdied of pride and booze. (Our public tention than I had. It was as if we relations policy is based on attrac- were a l l just faceless, nameless tion rather than promotion; we need drunks, and anyone who wanted it always maintain personal anonymi- got the Group’s full-hearted help. ty at the level of press, radio, and (Anonymity is the spiritual fourpdawoman and a few fellows happened they were there the day I fi1ms.l tion of all our traditions, ever re- 0 NE sat in the old Clubhouse the needed them. For years they had day I first walked in. Sick with clung to each other in desperate I was unable to read the Twelve Steps those first days. When I did, minding us to place principles before personalities.) fright, I wondered who they were, need-each for the others and all for they scared me. But a good friend, As the days went by, that drafty what they would say or do. I t was the one thing they repeatedly could disguised as one of those sober, in- old Clubhouse turned into a warm hard to believe, but I saw it with find together, but had never been terested strangers, divined the ‘tune and familiar haven for me. There my own eyes: as if in gentle, un- able to have by themselves, on their of my unworded panic and his smile was hope, after all. I saw it sitting spoken agreement, they all seemed own power-sobriety. They had to merciful 1y tempered the Twelve comfortably row on row a t every, to turn to the same task-each in have i t . to live. frightening things. meeting. I heard it in chorus every his own way-to help me! Acting out the conviction that “Don’t worry about it today,” he time we said the Lord’s Prayer. Long afterward I learned how it their common welfare should come counseled. “Easy does it. First things When I was dried out a little bit, ,

.’i

eating and sleeping again, feeling did not try to sell me anything-not did, because it felt so good at last Especially helpful to me that first h e and bouncy, I began to wonder even the Big Book; not a hospital to be part of a crowd. year were the concepts of a particuwho was in charge at AA. I wanted or a rest farm; not a particular But finally I could be of more lar religion. Since many other memto meet the important ones, and brand of AA; not conformity of any singular service, answering the tele- bers also profited by its teaching, make sure they knew me. So I man- kind. phone, talking to new men. Only a I wondered then why it was not aged to get introduced to the Group Instead, they seemed to concen- drunk could carry the message to officially recommended by AA. officers. trate on being of service to me and another drunk, they said, but one Now I wonder what would have Then one night I overheard that the others. (Each group has but did not need to be an alcoholic to happened to me if the group had one of them was drunk. “What will one primary purpose . . . to carry perform caretaking and clerical endorsed, instead, a different happen now? Who’ll be in charge?’ its message to the alcoholic who still chores. I t didn’t matter to me church, one to which more members I asked (hopefully?). “We’ll elect a suffers.) whether we hired a catering service, belonged, but toward which I felt new one,” I was told. “He wasn’t the From time to time we named a or found a new man who needed antipathy. I guess I would have boss, you know. The rest of us don’t cafeteria manager. Running such a flop and paid him for washing the tried to go it alone. I t would have have to get drunk because he did.” a place was tough. New sets of dishes. This was not the essence of been a short, grim journey. There it was: For our group purpose rules kept evolving, and enforcing AA work. I also wanted the group to cruthere is but one ultimate authority them was thankless, if not impos- The point was, I could not accept sade for education about alcoholism. .. .a loving God as He may express sible. The cafeteria lost money . . . money for my personal Twelfth But I was advised to concentrate Himself in our group conscience. or made too much. Quarrels fol- Step activity. If I did, then money in AA on recovery, and keep my Our leaders are but trusted servants lowed, and some of those involved was my reward, not sobriety.(Alco- love for other causes, no matter how .. . they do not govern. got drunk. (An AA group ought holics Anonymous should remain worthy, outside the clubhouse. I learned that other groups oper- never endorse, finance, or lend the forever non-professional, but o w Just as AA did not tie my soated differently from mine. Newcom- AA name to any related facility or service centers may employ special briety to endorsement for a cause I ers in some were assigned to spon- outside enterprise, lest problems of workers.) liked, it did not put on my sobriety sors or classes; pins or poker chips money, property and prestige divert I brought with me to AA a touchy the drag of some cause I could not were given to mark lengths of sobrie- us from our primary purpose.) resentment against organizations. I t believe in. If I had identified AA ty. I thought such things should be Often what I slipped into the had been my custom to try to run with a cause I disliked, surely my stopped. collection was my only contribution them and change them; then resent animosity toward the outside issue Then I heard from friends in those to the group’s work. I wanted us them; finally denounce them and would have been turned against groups that these things were help- to have a meeting place, literature, flounce out. AA, and I would have died of ful in their sobriety. In fact, they refreshments and a telephone, so AA stymied those impulses. The drinking. (Alcoholics Anonymous thought my group’s easygoing ways, I could call when I felt shaky. But rotating service committees kept us has no opinion on outside issues; which were just to my liking, were I did not want my family, or X going with minimal fuss, usually. hence the AA name ought never be shameful. But no governing body di- Industry, or Y Religion, or Z Move- If my group had been efficiently drawn into public controversy.) rected either group to change. We ment subsidizing these things, thus organized, with rules, I’m sure the As you see, during the first year lived comfortably side by side, each having a claim on my sobriety, my flouncing would have led me right I did no conscientious work on mygroup with many sober members. group. (Every AA group ought lo into a bar, turned against sobriety self with the Steps. But something (Each group should be autonomous be fully self-supporting, declining itself. My life was saved by Tradi- held me safely sober. except in matters affecting other outside contributions.) tion Nine: AA, as such, ought never I’ve come to believe that the groups or AA as a whole.) “Help empty the ash trays . . . re- be organized; but we may create something was God, acting through To my surprise, my group con- type this list. . . .” they told me service boards or committees direct- our Twelve Traditions. They were tinued to ask me for nothing. They when I wanted to do more. And I ly responsible to those they serve. just being written but had longi

been operating the day I held my Twelve Traditions in action lift me breath and walked into the door of from soggy despair and keep me in that old Clubhouse, into the com- dry custody-safe and healing, that forting arms of the people already first year. acting them out. What would have happened if During that first dry year, my they had not been in action? Where bleary eyes couldn’t see them; my would I be now? In my opinion 1 warped and foggy brain couldn’t owe my life to their wise guidance, grasp them; but my weary heart felt their kind strength, their gentle something keep me away from help. I’m grateful, oh, so grateful. drinking. I t felt, I’m sure now, our Anon., Greenwich Village, N. Y.

January 1959

ONE PURPOSE ONLY

The third in a series of capsule comments on AA’s Twelve Traditions by editors of AA publications all over the world.

TRADITIONS V A N D VI

By H.W.D., Editor, CENTRAL BULLETIN, Cleveland, Ohio NE of the most common faults These “extras” are dynamite if 0 of the alcoholic, in my opinion, is our fickleness. Control of our emotions, depth of our interthey are not judiciously controlled. Every member and every group should etch this important Fifth est, loyalty and gratitude, and our Tradition on our minds. Diversions willingness to “stay in harness” have destroyed many fine groups in must be developed first before we the past twenty years. can become properly integrated into Tying in with the Fifth is Trathe group and its simple practice of dition Six which also warns of ex- Tradition Five: “carrying the mes- ternals. As individuals we can serve sage.” The’first signs of fickleness on boards a t hospitals, nursing appear after attending meetings for homes, civic welfare committees, but several months. We’re sober, but we cannot serve as representatives restive. We become bored with the or spokesmen for AA per se. (to us) prosaic, monotonous weekly Again we emphasize, we have but meetings. “What this group needs,” one primary purpose-“to carry its we argue, “is variety. Let’s have a message to the alcoholic who still dance or n card party!” suffers.”

they lead by example.” In effect, we are saying to them, “Act for us, “. .. our Society is blessed but don’t boss us.” =ram the April 1959 Grapevine A leader in AA service is there- criminate when and when not to do fore a guy (or a gal) who can person- this. He recognizes that even large ally put principles, plans, and poli- majorities, when badly disturbed or cies into such dedicated and effec- uninformed, can, once in a while, be Leadership in AA: tive action that the rest of us want to dead wrong. When such an ocback him up and help him with his casional situation arises, and somejob. When a leader power-drives us thing very vital is at stake, it is badly, we rebel; but when he too always the duty of leadership, even Ever a Vital Need by Bill W. meekly becomes an order-taker and when in a small minority, to take a he exercises no judgment of his stand against the storm-using its own-well, he really isn’t a leader at every ability of authority and per- True as it was in the beginning, all. suasion to effect a change. it is even more so today Good leadership originates plans, Nothing, however, can be more with AA membership tripled policies, and ideas for the improve- fatal to leadership than opposition to over a million ment of our Fellowship and its ser- for opposition’s sake. It never can vices. But in new and important be “Let’s have it our way or no way matters it will nevertheless consult at all.” This sort of opposition is widely before taking decisions and often powered by a visionless pride actions. Good leadership will also or a gripe that makes us want to No SOCIETY can function well without able leadership in all its levels, and AA can be no excep- Real leadership, of course, has to function in between these entirely imaginary poles. In AA, certainly, remember that a fine plan or idea block something or somebody. can come from anybody, anywhere. Then there is the opposition that tion. It must be said, though, that Consequently, good leadership will casts its vote saying, “No, we don’t no leader is faceless and neither is we AAs sometimes cherish the often discard its own cherished like it.” No real reasons are ever any leader perfect. Fortunately, our plans for others that are better, and given. This won’t do. When called thought that we can d o without any Society is blessed with any amount leadership at all. We are apt to warp it will give credit to the source. upon, leadership must always give of real leadership-the active people the traditional idea of “principles of today and the potential leaders Good leadership never passes the its reasons, and good ones. before personalities” around to for tomorrow, as each new genera- buck. Once assured that it has, or Then, too, a leader must realize such a point that there would be no can obtain, sufficient general back- that even very prideful or angry tion of able members swarms in. We “personality” in leadership what- have an abundance of men and ing, it freely takes decisions and people can sometimes be dead right, ever. This would imply rather face- women whose dedication, stability, puts them into action forthwith, when the calm and the more humble less automatons trying to please vision, and special skills make them provided, of course, that such ac- are quite mistaken. everybody, regardless. capable of dealing with every pos- tions be within the framework of its These points are practical illustra- At other times, we are quite as apt sible service assignment. We have defined authority and responsibil- tions of the kinds of careful disto demand that AA’s leaders must only to seek these folks out and trust ity. crimination and soul-searching that necessarily be people of the most them to serve us. A politico is an individual.who is true leadership must always try to sterling judgment, morals, and in- Somewhere in our literature there forever trying to “get the people exercise. spiration; big doers, prime examples is a statement to this effect: “Our what they want.” A statesman is an Another qualification for leaderto all, and practically infallible. leaders do not drive by mandate, individual who can carefully dis- ship is give-and-take-the ability to

estimates, both for the immediate whole or in part. But even so, this and for the more distant future. will be far better than to refuse to Some might feel this sort of striving think at all. compromise cheerfully whenever a have at last learned that these folks, The making of estimates has proper compromise can cause a who may be a trifle sicker than the to be a sort of heresy, because we AAs are constantly telling ourselves, several aspects. We look at past and situation t o progress in what rest of us, need not be really de- present experience to see what we “One day at a time.” But that appears to be the right direction. structive at all, depending entirely think it means. From this, we derive Compromise comes hard to us all- valued maxim really refers to our on how we relate ourselves to them. a tentative idea or policy. Looking or-nothing drunks. Nevertheless, we emotional lives and means only that To begin with, we ought to listen we are not to repine over the past first at the nearby future, we ask must never lose sight of the fact that very carefully to what they say. how our idea or policy might work. nor wishfully fantasy or daydream progress is nearly always char- Sometimes, they are telling the Following this estimate, we ask how about our future. acterized by a series of improving whole truth; at other times, a little our policies and ideas might work As individuals and as a fellowcompromises. We cannot, however, truth. More often, though, they are under the several differing condicompromise always. Now and then, ship, we shall surely suffer if we cast just rationalizing themselves into the whole job of planning for tions that could arise in the longer it is truly necessary to stick flat- nonsense. If we are within range, future. If an idea looks like a good tomorrow onto a kind Providence. footed to one’s conviction about an the whole truth, the half-truth, or bet, we try it on-always experi- God has endowed us human beings issue until it is settled. These are even no truth at all can equally hurt mentally, when that is possible. with considerable capability for situations for keen timing and a us. That is why we have to listen so Somewhat later, we revalue the sitforesight, and He evidently expects most careful discrimination as to carefully. If they’ve got the whole uation and ask whether our estimate which course to take. us to use it. Therefore, we must truth, or even a little truth, then needs distinguish between wishful is, or may soon be, working out. Leadership is often called upon to we’d better thank them and get on At about this stage, we may have face heavy and sometimes long- with our respective inventories, to take a critical decision. Maybe we continued criticism. This is an acid admitting we were wrong, regard- have a policy or plan that still looks test. There are always the construc- less. If it’s nonsense, we can ignore fine and is apparently doing well. tive critics, our friends indeed. We them. Or we can lay all the cards on W ~ ctort us, Nevertheless, we ought to ponder ought never fail t o give them a care- the table and try to persuade them. but don’t very carefully what its longtime ful hearing. We should be willing to Failing this, we can be sorry they are effect will be. Will today’s nearby let them modify our opinions or too sick to listen, and we can try to boss us. 99 advantages boomerang into large change them completely. Often, forget the whole business. We can liabilities for tomorrow? The temptoo, we shall have to disagree and think of few better means of self- tation will almost always be t o seize then stand fast without losing their survey, of developing. genuine the nearby benefits and quite forget friendship. patience, than the workouts these dreaming for a happy tomorrow about the harmful precedents or Then we have those whom we like usually well-meaning but erratic and today’s use of our powers of consequences that we may be setting to call our “destructive” critics. brother members can afford us. thoughtful estimate-estimate of in motion. They power-drive, they are poli- This is always a large order, and we the kind which we trust will bring shall sometimes fail to make good These are no fancy theories. We tickers, they make accusations. future progress rather than unfore- have found that we must use these Maybe they are violent, malicious. on it ourselves. But we must needs seen woe. keep trying. principles of estimate constantly, They pitch gobs of rumors, gossip, and general scuttlebutt to gain their Vision is therefore the very es- especially at world-service levels Now comes that all-important ends-all for the good of AA, of attribute of vision. Vision is, I sence of prudence-a sound virtue if where the stakes are high. In public course! Well, in AA at least, we think, the ability to make good ever there was one. Of course, we relations, for example, we must shall often miscalculate the future in estimate the reaction of both AA

groups and the general public, both ly a deep conviction-a vision for be much of a musical success. Every sponsor is necessarily a short-term and long-term. The same tomorrow. Such is our process of When, therefore, we talk about AA leader. The stakes are huge. A thing goes for our literature. Our estimating the future. Our respon- leadership, we declare only that we human life and usually the happifinances have to be estimated and sible world leadership must be espe- ought to select that leadership on ness of a whole family hang in the budgeted. We must think about our cially and constantly proficient in the basis of obtaining the best talent balance. What the sponsor does and service needs as they relate to gen- this vital activity. This is an ability we can find, making sure that we says, how well he estimates the reeral economic conditions, group much t o be desired, especially land that talent, whatever it is, in actions of his prospect, how well he capability, and willingness to con- among our trustees, and I think the spot where it will do us the most times and makes his presentation, tribute. On many such problems, we most of them should be chosen on good. how well he handles criticisms, and must very often try to think many While this article was first how well he leads his prospect on months and even years ahead. thought of in connection with our by personal spiritual example . . . As a matter of fact, all of AA’s world-service leadership, it is quite well, these attributes of leadership Twelve Traditions were at first Attributes possible that many of its suggestions can make all the difference, often can be useful to everyone who takes the difference between life and questions of estimate and vision for of leadership can an active part in our Society. death. the future. Years ago, we slowly evolved an idea about AA being … make the Nowhere could this be more true than in the area of Twelfth Step Thank God that Alcoholics Anonymous is blessed with so much self-supporting. There had been difference between work itself-something at which leadership in each and all of its great trouble here and there about “outside gifts.” Then, still more trouble life and death. 99 nearly all of us most eagerly work. affairs! developed. Consequently, we began to devise a policy of “no outside gifts.” We began to suspect that the basis that they have already large sums would tend to make us proved their aptness for foresight in irresponsible and could divert us business or professional careers. from our primary aim. Finally, we We shall continually need many saw that for the long pull outside of these same attributes, insofar as money could ruin us utterly. At this they can be had, among our leaders point, what had been just an idea or of AA services at all levels. The general policy hardened firmly principles of leadership will be just down into an AA Tradition. We saw about the same, no mattei what the that we must sacrifice the quick, size of the operation. nearby advantage for long-term This discussion on leadership may safety. look, at first glance, like an attempt We went through this same pro- to stake out a specially privileged cess on anonymity. A few public and superior type of AA member. breaks had looked good. But then But this is not really so. We are the vision came that many such simply recognizing that our talents breaks could finally raise havoc vary greatly. The conductor of an among us. So it went: first a gleam orchestra is not necessarily good at in the eye, then an experimental finance or foresight. And it is even policy, then a firm policy, and final- less likely that a fine banker could

AA GRAPEVINE, APRIL 1959

Guest Editorial by Dr. John Norris, Non-Alcoholic Trustee UR life is full of paradoxes, seeming contradictions that go deep into

0 the heart of things. The last part of AA’s Tradition-Two is one of these: “Our leaders are but trusted servants . . . they do not govern.” How often we find an answer to our own problems as we serve someone, or a group. AS we become successful in this service, we are given positions of leadership among our fellows. And then something happens to us. We begin to feel that we know all the answers. We are hurt and resentful when anyone questions our wisdom and authority, and everyone suffers. Jesus said, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant.” Let us be thankful that AA has had as its founders men who saw and lived by this wisdom, and built it into the structure of the fellowship. May we be vigilant to do our part, each of us, each day, to keep this tradition of leadership a t the center of our own lives and of the group we serve.

November 1959

Each year during the season of giving thanks we try to bring you 1 a few new and meaningful words on an old but ever-deepening i subject: the Twelve Traditions of AA. W e heard none better in I the past year than Bill W.’s closing words to the General Service Conference, and we saved them for this, our Traditions Issue.

HIS Conference opened on the ship, you said, was not for dele-

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;,.:;,, , :. ;: -,:, .-ie’i .., . <‘:’ft”, :y:.., .;: T keynotes of prudence, trust and gates and trustees alone; it had to faith, and its proceedings have be out there i,n the grass rootsbeen characterized by these atti- and it already was there. . . .. …:.. … … … ..>…. . . . . . :: ,$,

– – . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ;:.,:,,, .:;.:. ;.,~,;;’,-.’ , ‘ tudes and practices throughout. Then, too, we have all been glad- . .. .. .. . . … .. . . . I …. . .,’ j.., .( …. :: ,%,,: Confidence has therefore abounded dened by reports from nearly every …… ..I:”.: +.;.. . .: :: y. ,.I. ;?:

…:.;. . ,:G among us and in this year’s session quarter of our fellowship to the we have gone nearly scot-free of effect that confidence and real trust any worry or fear. Indeed we have in our world services and servants gone along so quietly that we have has been much on the increase; rather missed the usual excitements that the fears of other days have of hot debate and “viewing with almost evaporated. These are some alarm for the good of the move of the newer and healthier excitement.” ments that we have felt in this nota- But there has been an excitement ble conference of 1959. nevertheless; a healthier excitement Fresh in memory is that great of quite another quality and kind. big laugh we had when one of you For instance: I found a most satis- delegates, addressing me, rose and fying excitement as I watched the said, “Bill, we all heard you give I real eagerness, discipline and dedi- that convincing pitch on trusk and cation with which this assembly has faith the night we got here. Now waded for days through a great pile what would you say if I told you THE AIVTIDO;~E.FOR FEAR of humdrum but very necessary that out in our country we have routine work. I t made me most a member who was supposed to be happy when I hoard you delegates acting as our treasurer for a prctty PRUDENCE, pay r e p a t 4 and grateful tributes large and important meeting; that to the folks back h o m e t o those the minute the tickets were sold

TRUST hundreds of committeemen and and the money was banked, he dethousands of General Service Re- veloped a terrific thirst, drew out dl presentatives whose combined labor that dough, and took off on a travel- AND had been, and always must be, the ing wingding that blazed a cmssfinal foundation on which our whole country trail a thousand miles world service structure and effort long?” We all remember how our FAITH i can securely rest. A A service Ieader- fellow drlegatcs grinned as he spoke

and how we roared with mirth as deeper meaning than this. posing them would seldom do sepa- trast to the world about us, and we he finished. In reality I’m sure we were laugh- rately and on their own. devoutly hope we shall stay that Now there was a time, years ing a t ourselves, a t our old and While it’s not for us to take a way. In these perilous times this back, when such a thirsty and ab- far fetched fears. We were rejoicing moral inventory of the world in any will be the sort of collective prusconding treasurer cmuld have shat- bccausc~they had gone. Gone wila ‘ scme of pride or superiority, I do dence that we shall constantly need. tered our confidence wholesale. How the awful fear of what a n indivi- think it fair and timely to point I t will guarantee our effectiveness, well I remember the first one! I can dual’s failure or behavior might do out we AAs have thus far demon- safety and survival as nothing else remember, too, my own shock and to us all, gone was the long time strated a collective behavior prob- can. ‘ ably much superior to our indivichagrin when one of my best friends fear that the pressures and conflicts Our collective prudence respectattacked me unmercifully because of the world around us might one 1 dual conduct. The whole, in our ing money, fame and controversyhe didn’t like the way I was acting. day infiltrate and crush AA. We case, seems to be rather better than derived of course from our Twelve I remember those first breaks of laughed, I think, because we had the sum of its individual parts. We Traditions-has continued to make anonymity a t the top public level no bondage to fear and felt free. are pretty much a bunch of power AA new hosts of friends, and, just and all of the fear and violent con- We had ceased to doubt our collec- drivers. Yet AA, as a whole, has as importantly, no enemies. May troversy that followed in their wake. tive safety and security. never quarreled with anybody. We this benign process never stop, with- Such were the alarms of AA’s early This brings mc to another like money for ourselves but we in and without our fellowship. time. We feared we couldn’t stay thought, another rcBason for reas- keep our fellowship treasuries poor. As this wonderful Conference has sober, we feared our group couldn’t surance. Of most nations and so- We like prestige, yet we somehow so well shown, the absence of fear survive, we really feared that AA cieties it seems true that their col- remain anonymous. As individuals has made way for wisdom and might collapse completely. lective behavior has often been far we are apt to be aggressive, yet our prudence; prudence has led us to But how times have changed! worse than the individual behavior society a s a whole is quite non- confidence and trust and faith- What was once a big fear is today of their memberships. For example, I aggressive, minding its own business. faith in our fellow man, faith in oura big laugh-take that one about few individuals in the world of to- I In short, we are in a strange con- selves, and faith in God’s love. the erring treasurer. I n i t I think we can find some wonderful things. day are hankering for war. Yet many nations crave conquest and I Let it be recalled that in that laugh armed conflict. Nations notable for there wasn’t a trace of contempt or the individual honesty of their citianger. There wasn’t the slightest zens will keep phony books, inflatc thought of punishment and I’ll their currencies, load their peopltl wager that not one soul here would with debts that can’t be paid and have thought to call him a thief. engage in all sorts of fraudulent Underneath that laugh there was propaganda and praclicrs. Evcn thc sympathetic understanding, there great religions, as organizations. was the realization that any one have, quite contrary to their own of us was still capable of an equal teachings, sometimes gone in for :I folly. Because we understood so degree of violence and bigotry well, we could forgive lightly and which the majority of their adeasily. Of course, we were laughing herents would never have dreamed at the startled and penniless con- of imitating in their own personal vention a s it heard the bad news. lives. Mobs do all sorts of things But I think our laugh had a far that most of the individuals com-

March 1960

For the many groups throughout the AA world who plon to hold twenty-filth annlvcrsary gatherings this year, our to-founder Bill W. has written this glimpse of the panorama of AA’ today. GSO has also mad. available a short version of Bill’s message for groups wishing to use it at “AA 25th” meetings-THE EDITORS.

I T is very wonderful to know that most of our world-wide anniversary gatherings will be so widely shared by our families and by our and spiritual strength will ever be too great to hold us in full readiness for the day of their homecoming. When I think of our small and dedicated friends – the ones who quiet unnoticed beginnings of only have seen us through, the ones who twenty-five years ago; when I recolhave watched and who have so much lect the early struggles,uncertainties helped our passage from the dark- and perils of our pioneering time, I ness of alcoholism into the bright now find it both incredible and insunlight of AA. finitely moving to realize that all For Lois and me, and for AA peo- this will be climaxed July next when ple everywhere, this twenty-fifth an- Lois and I will be seeing so many niversary time is one of warm and thousands of you face to face at our happy recollection; of gratitude for International Convention in Long the sobriety and the new life that Beach, California. From now until the last quarter century has brought then, we shall surely be exclaiming to so many of us once hopeless peo- to each other, “Indeed, what hath ple; of gratitude for the ever-widen- God wrought?” This meaningful exing opportunity to serve man and clamation will be our constant re- God which is today ours, an oppor- minder that AA is truly God’s creatunity that will require of us an tion. No single one of us, nor any ever-deepening dedication to our single group of us alcoholics got tocherished AA principles of recovery, gether to invent Alcoholics Anonyunity and service–those themes of mous. Contemplating the totality of our Twenty-fifth Anniversary now all that has happened in these on every tongue. twenty-five years we see that He has We are thinking deeply, too, of all worked through the willing hearts those sick ones still to come to AA and minds and hands of thousands. -thousands surely, and perchance For this reason Dr. Bob and I have millions. As they try to make their often deplored being called coreturn to faith and to life, we want founders because such titles may them to find everything in AA that create the impression that we pretty we have round, and yet more, if that much invented, structured and be possible. On our part, therefore, spread AA all by ourselves. no care, no vigilance, no effort to Nothing could, in fact, be further preserve AA’s constant effectiveness from the truth.

8′ –

To illustrate, we might review for for which there must necessarily (continued from page 22) – a moment the basic ideas on which be a spiritual remedy. We AAs we learn about moral inventory, beyond calculation or repayment. our recovery program is founded recognize this in the first five words amends for harm done, turning But even these great gifts could not and then ask whence these ideas of Step Twelve of the recovery pro- wills and lives over to God? Where have amounted to anything had they came to us–and just who brought gram. Those words are: “Having had did we learn about meditation and not been passed from hand to hand them. a spiritual awakening . . .” Here we prayer and all the rest of it?” in these last twenty-five years. You, Our recovery Step Number One name the remedy for our three-fold The spiritual substance of our re- the members of AA, have continued reads thus: “We admitted we were sickness of body, mind and soul. maining ten Steps came straight to forge countless fresh links in the’ powerless over alcohol . . . that our Here we declare the necessity for from Dr. Bob’s and my own earlier chain of recovery that now encircles lives had become unmanageable.” that all-important spiritual awaken- association with the Oxford Groups, the world. It is your example, your This simply means that all of us ing. as they were then led in America by influence, and, under God, your have to hit bottom and hit it hard Who, then, first told us about the that Episcopal rector, Dr. Samuel work which has already brought and lastingly. But we can seldom utter necessity for such an awaken- Shoemaker. hope and health and happineas to make this sweeping admission of ing, for an experience that not only At this point in our very early ex- millions -alcoholics and non-alcopersonal hopelessness until we fully expels the alcohol obsession, but perience there remained, however, holies alike. realize that alcoholism is a grievous which also makes effective and truly one missing link-an absolutely vital A great many of you can well and often fatal malady of the mind real the practice of spiritual prin- one. We still lacked a full compre- recall the perils of AA’s time of and body -an obsession that con- ciples “in all our affairs”? hension of the terrific impact at frantic mushroom growth. You redemns us to drink joined to a physi- Well, this life-giving idea came to great depth which one alcoholic member how we feared that an all cal allergy that condemns us to mad- us of AA through William James, talking to another could make. I had too human scramble for money, ness or death. the father of modern psychology. partly realized this when my alco- fame and power might ruin us. You So, then, how did we first learn I t came through his famous book, holic friend and sponsor, Ebby, told remember how we feared any pubthat alcoholism is such a fearful sick- Varieties of Religious Experience, me about his own drinking, his re- lic exploitation of the AA name, ness as this? Who gave us this price- when my friend Ebby handed me lease from it and of the Oxford whether by our own members or by less piece of information on which that volume at Towns Hospital im- Group principles which had made others. Then there were the bogies the effectiveness of Step One of our mediately following my own re- this possible. Still more realization of political and religious strifeprogram so much depends? Well, it markable spiritual experience of came during my own spiritual ex- bogies that might break loose and came from my own doctor, “the lit- December, 1934; perience which had included the smash us. There was the fear, too, tle doctor who loved drunks,” Wil- William James also heavily em- vision of a chain reaction among al- that if we ever created a world krvliam Duncan Silkworth. More than phasized the need for hitting bot- coholics, one alcoholic talking to the ice organization, our servants worktwenty-five years ago a t Towns tom. Thus did he reinforce AA’s next. But it was not until I met Dr. ing there might presently become Hospital, New York, he told Lois Step One and so did he supply us Bob that I knew I needed him as our masters and so saddle us with and me what the disease of alco- with the spiritual essence of today’s much as he could ever need me. This an expensive and disastrous govemholism actually is. Step Twelve. was perfect mutuality, this was full ment. There was apprehension about Of course we have since found Having now accounted for AA’s brotherhood. This was the crucial wide publicity, lest it turn into prothat these awful conditions of mind Steps One and Twelve, it is natural and the final answer. The missing motional ballyhoo that could garble and body invariably bring on the that we should next ask, “Where did link was then fully forged and some- our message and could bring ridithird phase of our malady. This is the early AAs find the material for how we knew this at once. cule upon us and so keep alcoholics the sickness of the spirit; a sickness the remaining ten’steps? Where did To those wonderful friends who and their families at a distance. We thus brought Dr. Bob and me within also feared that we might be tempted reach of k v e r y , our debt is quite to take great gifts of money, thus

297

making us dependent upon the char- that is nearly everywhere ours; the Groups, now numbering more than a have been and still are very great. ity of others and tempting us to basis for an excellent service struc- thousand, are growing prodigiously. And we hope that we shall never foolishly scatter our energies into ture now so highly effective that not Again this reflects the progress of cease to rededicate ourselves to their outside projects that could be better many more years can pass before the many, of all of us. correction. handled by others. You can remem- alcoholics everywhere will have the Such is a mere glimpse of the vast May we so continue to deepen ber our fierce hostility toward any marvelous opportunity for sanity panorama of AA today, and it surely our humility and our devotion to and all AA members who had the and for sobriety that we who are must be a good token of still finer man and to God that we may meet temerity to enter these other ven- gathered here know so well. Cer- things to come. Of course this re- and transcend all future problems tures in the field of alcoholism. You tainly it is not only to the few that cital of past accomplishment and and perils. Let us pray that both we can recall how we lambasted any we owe these remarkable develop- the vision we have of our hoped-for of today and the new generations of AA who, for any purpose, received ments in our unity and in our ability future cannot possibly create any our tomorrow will become increasa cent of our money; how we so to carry AA’s message everywhere. mood of complacency or self-con- ingly worthy of the happy and usefeared professionalism that we I t is to the many; indeed it is to the gratulation. We well know that our ful destiny that our Creator is most scarcely dared hire any full-time AA labors of all of us that we owe these defects, as people and as a society, surely holding in store for us all. gals to answer the phones in our prime blessings. local offices. Above all, you remem- This is the brand of dedication ber how we shuddered a t that first and unity that, little by little, has rash of public anonymity breaks by enabled us to cross nearly every barboth well-meaning and self-seeking rier of race and creed, of nationality members. and of language. In fact, we have Such were our fears- some of been gradually learning to deal with them ridiculous and some of them all conditions and with all obstacles. abundantly justified. What, then, With joy we have watched the good could we do? news catch up with the young and For a long and anxious time we not too badly damaged alcoholics, simply did not know whether we as we have learned to raise the botcould live and work with each other tom and hit him with it, so saving or with the world about us. Could him years of misery. With equal we hold in unity at all levels, could satisfaction we have witnessed the we effectively function to carry AA’s salvage of the very rich and the very measage? We simply did not know. poor. Today we see them learning Then, little by little, we moved what true wealth of spirit can be. away from the fear of our growing We note with high interest how pains. We began to lear! from these so many of us are trying to practice experiences. Genuine prudence re- AA’s principles in all of our affairs, placed destructive fear. And out of how the quest for emotional and our collective experience in working spiritual growth is quickening and and living together there finally is being reflected at home, at work emerged the Twelve Traditions of and in the world at large. Our fami- AlcoholicsAnonymous-the present- lies, too, have adopted AA’s Twelve day basis for the truly splendid unity Steps as their own. Their Al-Anon

A p r i l 1960 . .

GROUP AUTONOMY DOES I T

I N the Pro and Con section of the December issue, Anonymous, Toronto, Ontario, writes of a desire to regiment our AA meetings to a duration of one hour. It appears to me that during his ten years of sobriety he has overlooked the Fourth and Ninth Traditions. If he wants one hour meetings, the solution should be simple. Make a motion at the next meeting of his own group that their meetings be limited to one hour, if the motion is carried, he will have his one hour meetings. If his own group members vote against the motion, then I suggest that he contact two or three other members who feel as he does, form a new group, and limit their meetings to one hour. I don’t think we should ever attempt to compare our fellowship to churches, lodges and other organizations; none of them have memberships composed entirely of alcoholics. I have heard it said that the group is the backbone of AA. Let us guard most carefully our privilege of group autonomy, and do everything possible to avoid regimentation and organization. Critics of AA will always be with us, but AA will continue to grow and strengthen so long as these critics are outnumbered by active sober members, dedicated to our primary group purpose by carrying our message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 3. B., Brantford, Ontario, Canada

May ‘1960

WHAT IS FREE-DOM IN this meeting place costs some money. we make the choice to live. This, in We hope you will put some cash in turn, means the choice of AA printhe hat, but don’t want to make you ciples, practices and attitudes that do it. You can attack us, but you’ll can salvage us from total disaster by probably find that most of us won’t insuring our sobriety. This is our first fight back. You can bust your ano- great and critical choice. Admittedly nvmitv in ~ublicand misuse the AA this is made under the fearful and , , a

name for your own prestige and immediate, lash of John Barleycorn, pocketbook. If you insist on such the killer. Plainly enough, this first foolishness, we can’t stop you. The choice is far more a necessity than same is true if you drag the AA name it is an act of virtue. into public controversy. We hope you But once over this hump, we comwon’t do any of these things to us, mencc to make another kind of or to yourself. We simply say that choice. We begin to see that AA prinyouwill have to practice AA’s prin- ciples are good ones. Though we are cioles because voic want tlretn for still beset with much rebellion, we yorrrsdj-not because we insist. The incrcase the practice of these princhoices are yours; this is your char- ciplcs out of a sense of responsibility By Bil W. tcr of freedom in AA.” to ourselves, our families, and our For any other society such un- groups. We bcgin to obey because

T HE Traditions and customs of Alcoholics Anonymous reveal a charter for individual and group free- True, our friend had gone overboard to make out his case. An AA drunk a t an AA meeting is limited freedom for the individual we feel we ought to obey. Though would be disastrous. Sheer anarchy painful, we see that this is the right would take it over in jig-time. How thing to do. As we try for results we dom, the like of which history has seldom seen, and it’s probable that is it, then, that we AAs can stand see that we are growing. This is an never before produced. We have nobody has yet smoked opium in a this amount of liberty, a liberty which earned satisfaction. Life still isn’f no humanly administered govern- clubhouse. Nevertheless any of us son~etimeslooks like a license to do easy, but it’s a whole lot better. Bement whatever. can read between the lines of that exactly as we please, individually sides, we have a lot of company. All Once upon a time there was an placard, and to good effect. and collectively? Then, too, is this around us there are plenty of fellow AA member who got the notion that Our prankster was really saying unheard-of charter of liberty made travelers, individuals or groups. We his own group was a little too stuffy, to each of the respectable and the possible by our virtues? Or is it ac- can do together what we can’t do in respectable and intolerant. Hence it fearful, “But for the Grace of God, tually powered by our necessities? separation. was, he thought, over-fearful of the there go I.” To disturbers of the Well, our necessities are certainly Finally we see that there is ‘still lapses and deviations of its mem- group peace he was saying, “No- immense and compclling. Each of us anothcr dimension of choice which bers. Tongue in cheek, he pondered body can compel you to behave, or must conform reasonably well to may now and then be attained. This a remedy. Finally he hung a placard punish you if you do not. AA has AA’s Steps and Traditions, or else is the’point where we can take an in the club room. It read as follows: Twelve Steps for recovery and for we shall go mad or die of alcoholism. attitude, engage in a practice or obey “Folks, just about anything goes in spiritual growth. It has Twelve Therefore the compulsion among a sound principle, because, without here. But if you happen to be drunk Traditions for the unity of every AA most of us to survive and to grow reservation or rebellion, that is what at this meeting, don’t be too noisy group and our whole fellowship. soon becomes far stronger than the we really want. When our willingabout it. And please don’t smoke These Traditions show how we can temptation to drink, or to misbehave. ness and acceptance becomes this your opium in the club elevators!” all stay in one piece, if we will. Now Literally, we must “do or dic.” So complete, we find that all rebellion

disappears. Now we conform be- giving every AA group its local cause we fully want to conform. Or autonomy. to put it another way: we want noth- Still more, we questioned whether ing else but God’s will for us, and we shouldn’t throw out undesirables, His Grace for our fellows. and even unbelievers. To give every Looking back we see that our free- alcoholic in the world an exclusive dom to choose badly was not, after right to say whether or not he would all, a very real freedom. When we be an AA member was a breath- ‘ chose because we “must,” this was taking decision. Such were the fears not a free choice either. But it got of those days, and such were the reus started in the right direction. strictions that we were tempted to When we chose because we “ought place upon each other. After all, to” we were really doing better. This thesc wcre the restrictions that cven time we were earning some free- the more benign of socicties and dom, making ourselves ready for governments had had to place on more. But when, now and then, we their members and citizens. Why could gladly make right choices with- should we be the exception? out rebellion, hold-out or conflict, Happily, however, we adopted no then we had our first view of what governmental measures. Instead, we perfect freedom under God’s will cast up the Twelve Traditions of AA. could be like. Few indeed can long These were truly the utterance of remain on that lofty plateau; for our entire group conscience. The most of us its permanent attainment amazing degree of today’s voluntary has to be a lifetime and, more prob- conformity to them is something for ably, an eternal job. But we know the greatest wonder and thanksgivthat this highest plateau is really ing. We now know that we shall althere-a goal someday to be reached. ways practice these principles: first Such are the several freedoms in because we must, then because we AA, and this is how they seem to ought to, and finally because the work among us. To gain these in- majority of us will deeply want to sights took a long time. It was not do just that. There cannot be the until 1945, ten years after I met Dr. slightest question of this. Bob, that we even dared put the We trust that we already know Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous what our several freedoms truly are; on paper. There had been a period that no futurc generation of AAs in which we continually feared what will ever feel compelled to limit them. erratic members within and the Our AA freedoms create the soil in world without might do to us. It was which genuine love can grow – the difficult to believe that our group love of each for the othcr, and all for conscience could be a reliable guide. God Himself. ~ e n c ewe questioned the wisdom of (End)

local services, no world services. eeLETgSK E E P IT SIMPLE” with others and prayer was the sole Returning to that early-time brand of

…BUT HOW? formula for our surviyal and growth. These were the uncomplicated years simplicity would be as absurd as sellof halcyon simplicity. There was no ing the steering wheel, the gas tank need for the maxim “Let’s keep it and the tires off our family car. The simple.” We couldnlt have been less car would be simplified all right-no complicated. more gas and repair bills, either! But The contrast between then and our car wouldn’t go any place. The now is rather breath-taking. To some family life would hardly be simpliof us it is frightening. Therefore we fied; it would instantly become conby Bill W. I ask, “Has AA really kept faith with Dr. Bob’s warning, ‘Let’s keep it fused and complicated. A formless AA anarchy, animated simple’? How can we possibly square only by the “Let’s get together” spirit today’s Twelve Steps, Twelve Tra- just isn’t enough for AAs here and ditions, General Service Conferences now. What worked fine for two score T HISGRAPEVINEwill be read as we celebrate AA’s Twenty-fifth Anniversary in July at Long Beach, General Service Board Trustees, together with our Headquarters legal, financial, public relations, editorial and International Conventions with our original coffee-and-cake AA?” members in 1938 won’t work at all for more than 200,000 of them in California. We shall be stepping over experts and their staffs. Our group For myself I do not find this diffi- 1960. Our added size and therefore a new threshold into our future. We and area services add still more to cult to do. Genuine simplicity for greater responsibility simply spells shall rejoice as we think of the gifts this seeming complexity. today is to be found, I think, in what- the difference between AA’s childand the wonders of yesterday. And, Twenty-two years ago last spring, ever principles, practices and serv- hood and its coming of age. We have as we rededicate ourselves to fulfill- we were just setting about the forma- ices that can permanently insure our seen the folly of attempting to recap ing the immense promise of AA’s tion of a trusteeship for AA as a widespread harmony and effective- ture the childhood variety of simplitomorrow, we shall certainly survey whole. Up to that moment, we had , ness. Therefore it has been better to city in order to sidestep the kind of how we stand today. Have we really neither stated principles nor special state our principles than to leave responsibility that must hlways be “kept AA simple”? Or, unwittingly, services. Our Twelve Steps weren’t them vague; better to clarify their faced to “keep it simple” for today. have we blundered? even a gleam in the eye. As for the applications than to leave these un- We cannot possibly turn back the Thinking on this, I began to won- Twelve Traditions-well, we had only clear; better to organize our services clock, and shouldn’t try. der about our fundamental structure: forty members and but three years’ than to leave them to hit-or-miss The history of our changing ideas those principles, relationships, and experience. So there wasn’t anything methods, or to none at all. about “simplicity for today” is fasattitudes which are the substance of to be “traditional”. about. AA was Most certainly indeed, a return to cinating. For example, the time came our Three Legacies of Recovery, two small groups: one at Akron and the kitchen table era would bring no when we actually had to codify-gr Unity and Service. In our Twelve another in New York. We were a hoped-for simplicity. It could only organize, if you please-the basic Steps and Twelve Traditions we find most intimate family. Dr. Bob and mean wholesale irresponsibility, dis- principles that had emerged out of twenty-four definitely stated princi- I were its “papas.” And what we harmony and ineffectiveness. Let’s our experience. There was a lot of ples. Our Third Legacy includes a said in those days went. Home par- picture this: there would be no defi- resistance to this. It was stoutly Charter for World Service that pro- lors were meeting places. Social life nite guiding principles, no literature, claimed by many that our then simvides thousands of General Service ranged around coffeepots on kitchen no meeting halls, no group funds, no ple (but rather garbled) wordaf- Representatives, hundreds of local tables. Alcoholism was of course planned sponsorship, no stable lead- mouth recovery program was being Committeemen, eighty General Serv- described as a deadly malady. Hon- ership, no clear relations with hospi- made too complicated by the publiice Conference Delegates, fifteen esty, confession, restitution, working tals, no sound public relations, no cation of AA’s Twelve Steps. We

were “throwing ‘simplicity’ out the -when we would have to learn how window,” it was said. But that was to make “material things” serve not so. One has, only to ask, “Where spiritual ends. Somebody with exwould AA be today without its perience had to be at the steering Twelve Steps’?” That these principles wheel and there had to be gas in the were carefully defined and published AA tank. in 1939 has done (only the Lord As our Trustees and their coknows) how much good. Codifica- workers began to carry our message tion has vastly simplified our task. worldwide, our fears slowly evap Who could contest that now? orated. AA had not been confused- In 1945, a similar outcry arose it had been simplified. You could ask when sound principles of living and any of the tens of thousands of alworking together were clearly out- coholics and their families who were lined in AA’s Twelve Traditions. It coming into AA because of our was then anything but simple to get World Services. Certainly their lives agreement about them. Yet who can had been simplified. And, in reality, now say that our AA lives have been so had ours. complicated by the Traditions? On When our first General Service .the contrary, these sharply defined Conference met in 1951, we again principles have immensely simplified drew a long breath. For some, this the task of maintaining unity. And event spelled sheer disaster. Wholeunity for us AAs is a matter of life sale brawling and politicking would or death. now be the rule. Our worst traits The identical thing has everywhere would get out in front. The serenity happened in our active services, par- of the Trustees and everybody else ticularly in World Services. When would be disturbed (as indeed it our first trusteeship for AA was sometimes was!). Our beautiful created there were grave misgivings. spirituality and the AA therapy The alarm was great because this would be interfered with. People operation involved a certain amount would get drunk over this (and inof legality, authority, and money, and deed a few did!). As never before, the soon they would be gone, too. The Service Conference together, despite the transaction of some business. We shout went up, “For God’s sake, let’s Trustees would be quite isolated and its special expense and perils? Or, had been running happily about say- keep this thing simple!” Cried some unconnected with the fellowship they would we sit on our hands at home, ing that AA had “completely sepa- members, “Why can’t Dr. Bob and sewed. The first big gale could well awaiting the fateful consequences of rated the spiritualfrom the material.” Bill and the Trustees go right on run- bowl them over. AA would suffer our fear and folly? What, in the long It was therefore a shocker when Dr. ning those services for us? That’s the heart failure at its vital center. Irre- run, we wondered, would really be Bob and I proposed World Services; only way to keep it simple.” trievable collapse would be the al- the better – and therefore the simwhen we urged that these had to But few knew that Dr. Bob was most certain result. pler? As our history shows, we took head up in some kind of a permanent mortally sick. Nobody stopped to Therefore we AAs had to make a action. The General Service Conferboard, and further stated that the think that there would soon be less choice: what would really be the ence of Alcoholics Anonymous has time had come-at least in this realm than a handful of old-timers left; that simpler? Would we get that General just held its tenth annual meeting.

Beyond doubt we know that this in- lors. As neighbors, my friend has a dispensable instrument has cemented dozen AA cronies. He sees them our unity and has insured the recov- constantly over kitchen tables and ery of the increasing hosts of suffer- coffee cups. He takes a frequent ers still to come. whack at Twelfth Step cases. For Therefore I think that we have him, nothing has changed; it’s just kept the faith. As I see it, thii is like AA always was. how we have made AA truly simple! At meetings, my friend may see Some may still ask, “Are we never- some books, pamphlets and Grapetheless moving away from our early vines on a table. He hears the lady Tradition that ‘AA, as such, ought secretary make her timid announcenever be organized’?” Not a bit of it. ment that these are for sale. He We shall never be “organized” until thinks the New York Intergroup is we create a government; until we a good thing because some of his say who shall be members and who fellow members were sponsored shall not; until we authorize our through it. On World Services, he boards and service committees to is not so clear. He hears some pros mete out penalties for non-conform- and cons about them. But he conity, for non-payment of money, and cludes they are probably needed. He for misbehavior. I know that every knows his group sends in some AA heart shares in the conviction money for these undertakings, and that none of these things can ever this is okay. Besides, his group’s hall happen. We merely organize our rent has to be paid. So when the hat principles so that they can be better comes by, he cheerfully drops a buck understood, and we continue so to into it. organize our services that AA’s life- As far as my friend is concerned, blood can be transfused into those these “modernizations” of AA are who must otherwise die. That is the not a bit shattering to his serenity or all-in-all of AA’s “organization.” to his pocketbook. They merely rep- There can never be any more than resent his responsibility to his group, this. his area, and to AA as a whole. It A concluding query: “Has the era has never occurred to him that these of coffee-and-cake and fast friend- are any but the most obvious obligaships vanished from the AA scene tions. because we are going modem?” Well, If you tried to tell my friend that scarcely. In my home town I know AA is being spoiled by money, polian AA who has been sober several tics and over-organization, he would years. He goes to a small meeting. just laugh. He’d probably say, “Why The talks he hears are just like those don’t you come over to my house Dr. Bob and I used to hear-and also after the meeting and we’ll have anmakc-in our respective front par- other cup of coffee.” (End)

ow that we’re celebrating our N twenty-fifth birthday, many of us naturally like to look back through later would find it a thrilling and helpful thing to be reminded in this way of the history of his own freedom marvel at, while the live green growth of AA as we know and cherish it simply withered away. We’d be so our history to AA’s beginnings. How ‘ from the killing compulsion to drink. busy admiring our statuary that we much of this is good for us, both as Other places, too, of course, could not hear or heed the crying individuals and as a movement? should be considered. Perhaps our voices of drunks all around us dying Inevitably, many fine human be- fellow members in England, say, for lack of our help. A N 0 Ny M0 US ings have been involved in all stages of that history, from its very earliest would decide to honor their first anonymous member by marking the Years ago Dr. Bob quashed what might have been the beginnings of roots to the present day. They de- site where he first heard the message. just such a disaster when he discour- S E PT serve our recognition and gratitude. However, as we honor our heritage And Ohio, Texas, and California members would have a good case for aged the idea of erecting a big monument to him, by saying to Bill, “Why we must, in my opinion, be careful to paying tribute to the early members can’t we just get buried like other HER E keep those personalities, as wonder- who carried the message in those states, by putting velvet ropes around folks?” It set an example for all of us, and the sickbeds from which those incidentally made it clear to the world “founding fathers” first arose to walk that we in Alcoholics Anonymous in the AA way. feel our work is more important than Scores of members-and maybe our persons, that AA members do non-members, too-would use such not seek prestlge as a reward for places to improve their conscious their AA activities, or any preeinin; contact with God through their pray- ence or power within AA itself. Coners of thankfulness for the existence, trary to so much in the non-AA wisdom, and work of those people. world today, this attitude distin- In that way, such sites would have guishes us now from the powerreal value, and could be good things drivers and money-grubbers we used for many of us. And therefore dan- to be, and keeps the lid on these tengerous, I think. It has so often been dencies in us now, for the protection proved in AA that the good in the of our fellowship. Surely this is one short run is the enemy of the best in of the strengths and glories of our the long run. movement, and one of the most val- We could easily slip into a binge uable lessons its history teaches us. of competitive monument-building, Other examples have been estabglorifying people all over the place. lished for us, too. One of our greatest Although protecting the letter of universities wanted to confer on Bill anonymity, we could thus subtly an honorary LL.D. for his work in avoid its spiritual implications, and behalf of alcoholics. Technically, the his drinking friend Bill W., and sup- undermine one of the precious key- university intended to respect the letpose we preserved it as a monument stones of our fellowship. The AA ter of the tradition of anonymity by to them-anonymously, of course. landscape would be littered with hon- using only the name “Bill W.” Even I’m sure that many an AA now and orary sculpture for us to stand and .so, Bill turned it down.

” Bill would have been other than chain-reaction of honor-getting seri- the old Twenty-fourth Street club- every way I can, the gift of sobriety. human had he not wanted it. In my ously damage our whole society? house to answer those pleas. These I need to work harder at AA today. opinion, he richly deserved it, just That is why the Lasker Award that members were really functioning for There is no time for misty-eyed senas a dozen or maybe a hundred other year, for the only time in its history, the first time at a worldwide service timentality or nostalgia for yesterday, good AAs around the world deserve went not to an individual, but to our level, doing the work now carried on with all the AA jobs around me that honors from their townsmen, from fellowship as a whole. by your General Service Office. need doing today. legislatures, from industrial and Here’s another example. New Perhaps it is even more significant I get even more of a wallop when health associations, for the tremen- York’s historic old AA clubhouse , that the old building with its long I read the book “AA Comes of Age.” dous work they have done in combat- on Twenty-fourth Street was con- “last mile,” its mantelpiece where I find it an awesome experience, and ting this public health problem. They demned to make way for new hous- early speakers leaned, and its nar- the word gratitude is inadequate to all have every right to such benefits, ing, but some good AA members set row stairway leading to the tiny bed- express what I feel. If it were not for except one: they owe their lives and out to raise funds from other mem- room upstairs, remained a beehive of that history, where would most of us sobriety to AA, and what would hap- bers to save the old building and AA activity up to the last minute. be today? That history is a precious pen to AA if such a business ever got move it to a new site close by. Some eighteen groups were meeting heritage, nourishing our AA life of really going? We’d have authorities, Some of the first reactions were there weekly. New drunks were find- today with the strength, the shared and competition, and slips all over negative. “Should we in AA of all ing AA there every day. experience of the past. the place, I fear. places turn our faces to yesterday? On the basis of that record, I’ve That book teaches me that per- It can be argued that such honors Isn’t it contrary to our spiritual prin- had to reach this decision: if those haps the most precious legacy I have would hasten the public’s recognition ciples to spend time and money and who want to preserve the old place inherited from the earliest members of alcoholism as a disease, would energy preserving relics of the past? want to further the good work started is the third one-the responsibility for encourage the public to support wor- Doesn’t it violate the spirit of our there, and if visiting it helps members giving service. That third legacy thy programs in the general field of Twelfth Tradition to preserve in appreciate more and more the lessons makes possible the other two, if I alcoholism, and probably would at- honor the room where Bill slept?” of AA’s past, that can perhaps be a participate in it. It continually makes tract many new members to us and I’ve tried to examine my own re- good thing. But if it is to be a profit- sure of my own recovery. It unites thus save many lives. actions closely, inquire deeply into making enterprise, soliciting AAs to me with my fellow alcoholics in a All good results, I agree. But my own motives, and assemble all the save the clubhouse as a monument to bond of giving. which is the better result for the wel- pertinent facts before coming to any glorify a person, that’s quite another Today’s opportunities for service fare and future of our beloved fellow- conclusion. matter. Maybe that’s a pretty good are sure tools for preserving and imship: maintenance of the spirit of The facts are: that old building rule of thumb for weighing any proving my own sobriety-in person- Tradition Number Twelve, or the saw some important AA history perpetuation of our history, or any al Twelfth Step work, in group servestablishment of a caste of “honored” made. The lessons of many of our such project connected with it. ice, in helping with Intergroup work, drunks among our members? Traditions were bitterly forged out in There’s a lesson here, I think, for and in supporting the worldwide Our founders faced the same di- practice there, before they were dis- my own AA growth. Once every few Twelfth Step work carried on through lemma in 1951 when the 12,000 tilled into writing for the guidance years I go look at the old church the Conference structure by the Genphysicians of the American Public of those of us who came later, to save building on Forty-first Street in eral Service Office. Health Association proposed to pre- us many griefs and troubles. When Manhattan where I first found an AA Older members told me my first sent the Lasker Award to them. It Jack Alexander’s original Saturday home. It renews my gratefulness for day, “The only way to keep sobriety was respectfully declined. If any AA, Evening Post piece about AA came the existence of AA and the un- is to give it away.” Could there be a even a founder, is rewarded publicly out in 1941, and thousands of suffer- counted blessings it has brought me. better way to honor our AA heritage for his work, aren’t there scores of ers wrote New York for help, night It strengthens my feeling of responsi- and those who have given it to us? others also deserving? Could not a after night volunteers slaved away in bility: I must pass on unstintingly, in Anonymous, New York City

2 “

From the August 1960 question raised in correspondence vacuum. No one “got AA” in isola- Grapevine can only be settled by the group itself. tion. Each member of the group is The GSO does offer advice as re- sober today because some other indiquested; it does prepare literature in vidual “carried the message.” And which group experience with certain no individual stays sober in AA by problems is made available t o all; himself but as a member of a group. GSO speakers when invited t o area Whether it be a local group, his own meetings regularly present not their “correspondence group,” or the own opinions but the varied experi- larger group of AA as whole. ences throughout the AA world as reported to GSO. Self-government is so deeply imbedded in the AA Traditions after “SeIf-~overnmentlj twenty-five years that it is far from needing defense. On the contrary, so deeply imbedded in here – as through all AA and indeed all human affairs – easy does it the AA Trmdtioons applies. Autonomy, like all other after twenty-jve good things, can be carried t o excess. Autonomy can become isolation; years that it isfar the self-respecting individual – independent, self-supporting, deciding f i m need& defense” for himself what is right and good can (as he carries his independence to — –

an extreme) become the dour, sour No group developed of itself and by little man in the box, cherishing the itself. No single group is responsible thought that “people are no damn for the development of the principles good,” a thought which, carried to its we live by – the three legacies of Repopular cartoon by William Steig many, still the question arises: logical conclusion, includes himself. covery, Unity, and service; no group shows a dour little man huddled “Does group autonomy mean In this respect, the group is like the can handle the thousands of inquiries inside a box. The caption reads: group isolation?” Or, does group individual. It must be responsible for which flow in each month, assign AA “People are no damn good.” autonomy mean nonparticipation in the management of its own affairs; members to call on new prospects, I was reminded of this cartoon as any but local AA activities? elect its officers and representatives; provide for the translation of the AA some delegates to the Tenth General Everybody agrees that self-govern- raise its own finances; provide its own message into other languages, keep in Service Conference of AA last April ment of the local group is an essential meeting place; conduct its meetings touch with hospital and prison mentioned groups in their areas which AA principle. One of the most com- as it sees fit; develop its own program groups, advise press, radio, and TV decline to participate in the world- mon daily activities of staff members of Twelfth Step work and sponsor- on AA ideas and procedures, keep in wide services of Alcoholics Anony- at the General Service Office is the re- ship; work out its own arrangements touch with the loners and internationmous because – so the report went – minding of groups that a particular with other groups and individuals in alists – no group is wise enough, big they prefer to be autononlous. the community. enough, wealthy enough to do the Artwork /or thrs ortick was reprinted in 1960 wrrh But it should not try to operate in a Obvious though the answer may be to the permission of the artist. total AA job today.

Paul Tillich, recognized as one of members? AA as a whole loses be- ately need to hear the message we The strength of AA sobriety rests the great philosophers and theolo- cause it is deprived of the knowledge have to carry. on the shared experience. AA memgians of our times, says that every in- of local thinking, local solutions to The local group which withdraws bers and groups have differed in the dividual must have the “courage to local problems. Virtually all AA into outer space punishes itself and its past, differ today, and will differ tobe” – courage t o be himself and problems exist at the local level; there members as well. It becomes inbred. morrow. Through argument we grow courage to be part of something else. are a few national or state situations, By its very act of isolation from in wisdom and strength. But we shall The man who does not have the cour- but most of our difficulties arise out others in AA it tends likewise to iso- fall apart if every individual or every age to be himself, to stand for some- of local developments. The group late itself from society and often group pulls out over each disagreething, to preserve his identity and to which refuses to share its experiences stops carrying the message, being ment with some action or viewpoint refuse to become a slave to either tra- with others makes it just so much content to remain a tiny self-admira- – whether of another individual, dition or custom ceases to be a man harder for the group in the neighbor- tion society of recovered drunks. It another group, or AA as a whole and flees from life’s realities into ing town or nearby state – or across deprives its members of satisfaction through its General Service Consome larger group where he may be the world – to handle similar situa- in the achievements of AA at home ference. supported; the man who does not tions when they arise. and abroad. Is a new group helped to The Traditions stress this thought have the courage to be part of some- A secondary – but just as damag- get started somewhere? The isolated in many ways: “. . .there is but one thing else isolates himself from the ing – loss is to the group itself. Just group has had no hand in it. If the ultimate authority – a loving God as stream of life and deprives the society as individual thinking on the Twelve very exciting news of the translation he may express himself in our group of which he is a part of his interest, Steps and the Twelve Traditions can of Alcoholics Anonymous in still conscience. . .each group should be support, and ideas. become warped if the individual does another foreign tongue is reported autonomous except in matters affect- Both types of participation are not occasionally check his thinking the isolated group can feel no sense of ing other groups or AA as a whole needed, Tillich says, for the full life. against that of his brother in AA, so shared responsibility. If a sailor, . . .every AA group ought to be fully This idea can be applied equally to group thinking can get “off the struggling against such heavy odds to self-supporting. . .” the groups in AA. They must have beam” on strange and even weird keep sober on the beach in Yoko- Just as one of the horrors of our the courage to be themselves, to stand tangents, sometimes producing inter- hama, finds help through a Japanese drinking days was loneliness, so one on their own feet, to meet the prob- pretations which most other AAs AA group. . .or a Loner in a prospec- of the greatest joys of our recovery lems of relations with other groups would question. Contacts with other tor’s cabin miles from civilization has been the love and support we and with outside agencies without groups and with the movement as a keeps clear of the bottle because of a have found from others in AA. As fear and without arrogance. Many of whole can contribute much toward stream of friendly letters from GSO free individuals and members of the problems forwarded to GSO will the overall unity of the larger group . . .if alcoholics in a state prison or AA’s autonomous groups, we ought disappear as local groups become conscience of AA as a whole.’ mental hospital are helped to prepare always to remember that our recovery truly autonomous – in actuality as Thus we are bound up together in a for sobriety in the outside world by depended on the support of others, as well as in tradition. Fellowship which depends for its GSO’s encouraging support to the in- does the continuance of our sobriety. But just as individuals in AA need strength and performance on the liv- stitutional groups. . . if these and Simple gratitude compels us all to be each other’s support, so the groups ing attachment of all its groups and thousands of other efforts in the mindful of the needs of others and to need a sense of fellowship with others individual members, one with an- world struggle against alcoholism work in the ways and through the in the AA way of life. other. And thus do we see that auton- succeed inch by painful inch. . .if all means developed by the AA move- Just what damage is done when a omy, if carried to an extreme, can these things in which AA members re- ment to try to reach some of the milgroup chooses to withdraw from par- make of AA a fragmented affair, lim- joice come to pass – the isolated lions of our fellow alcoholics who are ticipation in the whole AA move- ited to the strength of each local group can take no joy in them if, in still suffering in the hell from which ment, to function only in its own group, unable to speak with a united truth, it thinks about them or even we have escaped. community, for the benefit of its own voice to the millions who still desper- hears about them. J. I? L., Paterson, N.J.

September 1960

UNITEMIZED BILL There are no dues and, finally, the awful awareness of a man, existing in a vacuum, com- the Twelve Steps. Perhaps he falls that sanity was fast departing. These ing from nowhere and going no- once, or twice, or several times. If or fees in AA because are the things for which we can where. This is fact, not theory. His he learns to be honest with himself the alcoholic has already never name a price, but we can whole life has centered around al- and is willing to continue trying, he never forget that the price was paid. cohol. He cannot for a minute manages to hang on, and gets up paid the price Perhaps this is why “there are no imagine a life without it, for he to go on, stronger than before. dues or fees for AA membership.” knows with a certainty born of ex- Along the way he meets more un- MEMBERSHIP COSTS nothing, Those of us who are willing t o follow AA never has, and never will-in dollars and cents. We know only too twelve simple steps will receive benefits which all the money in the world perience that he will be unable to face the everyday problems of life without this crutch he has come to derstanding friends, offering their help. Soon he learns to laugh again, his faith in God is renewed a n 4 his well, though, what “qualification” could not buy. Sobriety? Sure, but rely on so heavily. Take his crutch eyes are opened to the simple but for AA has already cost most of us sobriety is only the beginning, a away and, like a cri$ple, he cannot beautiful things in life. His world by the time we are ready to admit miraculous beginning to those of US stand. gradually changes from one of fear, we need help. Materially we had who have already known the end. When this same alcoholic comes remorse, suspicion and futile dreams nothing-or almost nothing-left. Temporary sobriety is cheap. It can to AA, however, he soon finds that to one of kindness, fellowship, con- But material cost is not the sub- be bought at any hospital or sani- he no longer has to stand alone and fidence and long-sought-after fulfillject of this article. It is true that most tarium, by those who can afford a unaided. He is given something ment. of us paid a small fortune for the few weeks in bed; it can be forced more substantial than a crutch on Through our Twelve Steps we find liquor we drank, and another small on us behind steel bars; in fact there which he may confidently place his a completely new way of life, of fortune to the courts, not to mention were many, many times when we dependence. At first it is the kind- which sobriety is only the foundathe money lost when we were unable had sobriety for weeks or even ness and understanding of all the re- tion, not the end result. True happito work. But the true price we paid months, for reasons not of our own covered alcoholics who have lived ness, peace of mind and bright promwill never show on a neatly tabulated choosing. This sobriety had no last- his life of misery themselves. Then ises of even more become reality and and itemized bill. The true price ing qualities, no real hope, behind it; he learns to stand on his own feet not the hopeless dreams we once is engraved forever on countless it was merely a lull, a short drying- by practicing the AA program . . . had. We in AA know without doubt scarred souls, and can be plainly out period between binges-and how slowly at first, because he is just that God has truly smiled on us . . . seen in the eyes of any suffering al- well we knew that it could not last. learning to walk unsupported but, in not for a price, but for love. coholic: loss of self-respect; failure To dry out and no more can never time, he is ready to try climbing all Bill O.,Charleston, S. C. in every endeavor; shattered fami- be enough for any alcoholic. Take lies; hate when we sought love; dis- the alcohol away from an alcohblic gust when we sought understanding; and you have nothing . . . just a shell

I N its deeper sense AA is a quest for freedom-freedom under God. Of course the immediate object of lious refusal to work upon our glaring defects can be a ticket to destruction. Or, for a time, we can stay sober our quest is sobriety-freedom from with a minimum of self-improvement alcohol and from all its baleful con- and settle ourselves into a comfort- I sequences. Without this freedom, we able but often dangerous mediocrity. have nothing at all. Or we can continuously try hard for -.—thnw st d i n e aualities which can add ——– 51 1 Paradoxically, though, we can up to greatness of spirit and action- ,achieve no liberation from the alco- true and lasting freedom under God, hol obsession until we become will- the freedom to find and do His will. ing to deal with those character de- For most of us this last choice is fects which have landed us in that really ours; we must never be blinded helpless condition. Even to gain so- by the futile philosophy that we are briety only, we must attain some just the hapless victims of our infreedom from fear, anger and pride; heritance, of our life experience, and from rebellion and self-rightcous- our surroundings-that these are the ness; from laziness and irresponsibil- sole forces that make our decisions ity; from foolish rationalization and for us. This is not the road to freeoutright dishonesty; from wrong de- dom. We have to believe that we can pendencies and destructive power- really choose. driving. Similarly, our whole society, and In this freedom quest, we are al- every group in it, will constantly face ways given three choices. A rebel- these identical decisions. Shall we

-t settle for destruction? Shall we try sibility, trust and love, in our relaonly for the temporary comforts of always have to deal with the fearful times love our society more than tions with each other and with the forces which are released when the ourselves. a complacent mediocrity? Or shall world around us. Out of these prac- human ego runs amuck – the same Tradition Two – “For our group we consistently face the disciplines, tices flows the spiritual energy that forces that are shattering the world purpose there is but one ultimate aumake the sacrifices and endure the moves us along the road to full of our time. Deliver rrs /rum templa- thority . . . a loving God as He may discomforts that will qualify us to liberation. tion must therefore continue to be a express Himself in our group conwalk the path that invariably leads As we ponder protection, we prime ingredient of our every atti- science. Our leaders are but trusted toward true greatness of spirit and see that our Traditions warn against tude, practice and prayer. When servants . . . they do not govern.” action? the perils of public fame and power, things go well, .we must never fall This is a study in mutual trust in God, These reflections are meant to be against the perils of great wealth, into the error of believing that no in ourselves, and in our service leadbackground for the theme of this ar- against the making of compromising i great ill can possibly befall US. Nor ership. This has been one of our ticle-the Twelve Traditions of Alco- alliances, against professionalism. should we accusc ourselves of “nega- finest experiments and it has sucholics Anonymous. We are reminded that we may deny I tive thinking” when we insist on fac- ceeded far beyond our expectations. AA’s Traditions are the yardsticks no alcoholic member his member- ing the destructive forces in and Traditiori Three defines the perby which our fellowship can accu- ship, that we must never create an around us, both realistically and sonal liberty of the AA member. It rately measure its progress-or the authoritative government of men. effectively. Vigilance will always be says, in effect,that any alcoholic can lack of it. In our Traditions we see We are cautioned that we should the price of survival. bc an AA member the moment he such wisdom as we have been able never force AA’s message upon the This is the protective aspect of our says so. Neither can any of us deto muster in a quarter of a century world by aggressive promotional Traditions. But AA’s Twelve Tradi- prive him of that membership, no of living and working together. That schemes, and that we should shun tions should provide us with far more matter what his behavior. Perhaps these principles stake out the path public controversy as the devil him- than protection against mediocrity no other society has ever staked out we ought to follow, there can be self, and dissolution-and they do. such a broad expanse of liberty for little doubt. Such are typical examples of Let’s now think about the positive, the individual as this. Every AA As we contemplate the Traditions the protective prudence which our the progressive side of AA’s Tradi- ncwcomer feels at once that he is we see that they have two main char- Twelve Traditions directly express, tions; the disciplined sacrifices and wanted and trusted and loved. How acteristics, and that each of these or clearly imply. Some claim that responsibilities that we shall need to well we understand his needs; ceraspects reinforces the other. these warnings are nothing but the undertake; the degree of mutual trust tainly we have had them ourselves. The first aspect of the Twelve sum of our collective fears. Once and love that we shall need to achieve Seldom has any alcoholic taken un- Traditions is protection; the second upon a time this was very true. In if we are to find the greater freedom fair advantage of that unlimited charaspect is progrqss. We are first re- our first years, every violation of we seek. The length of this article ter for freedom. We took this deciminded what our fellowship’s tempta- these precepts seemed to threaten will not admit a full examination of sion for individual freedom years tions really are and by what means our actual existence. We then doubt- all Twelve Traditions in this respect, ago. We are glad that we did; there we may best deal with them. This is ed if our rebellious membership but a few examples can serve to illus- has never been any cause for regret. our basis for a continuous moral in- could cvcr resist its great tempta- trate just what we mean. Tradition Four is yet another con- I ventory of our collective behavior- tions. But we have resisted, and so Take Tradition One. It says that fident declaration of mutual trust and the first step to actively casting aside we have survived. Therefore the stark AA’s common welfare comes first. love as it flows from each AA group our road blocks. In the affirmative fears of yesterday have since given This really means that our personal to the other. We give each group or positive aspect of the Traditions way to a vigilant prudence-some- ambitions will have to be set aside full autonomy, the undisturbed right’ we learn, both directly and impliedly, thing quite different from unreason- I every time they conflict with the to manage its own affairs. To make how we may best apply the high ing panic. safety or the effectiveness of our fel- this condition doubly permanent and ideals of sacrifice and willing respon- Of course, we know that we shall lowship. It means that we must some- secure, we have guaranteed to all .

AA groups that they will never be bers would doubtless conceive count- us. No doubt mankind has wrung lessly abandon the principle of persubjected to any centralized govern- less schemes for doing good. In many a freedom out of violent con- sonal anonymity at the top public ‘mentor authority. In turn each group those few past instances where we troversy and bitter war. Yet we AAs level. This possibility arises from the agrees that it will never take any have taken outside money, distrac- have had to learn that the kinds of fact that many of us AAs have been, action that could injure us all. Rarely tion and contention within has been freedom that we must possess cannot and sometimes still are, possessed by indeed has any AA group ever for- the aln~ostuniform result. Therefore possibly be obtained by violence. As enormous power drives. These are gotten that precious trust. we are well aware that the respon- a fellowship, we cannot fight any- frequently fueled by an almost irre- Tradition Seven proclaims AA’s sibility for full self-support brings us body, anywhere or at any time. This sistible craving for money, approval, principle of self-support. In it, we great spiritual and practical bless- has been proved. When we had and public acclaim. My own past undertake to pay every cent of our ings. This is sacrificial prudence at directly attacked John Barleycorn, history is outstanding in this respect. own service expenses, meanwhile its best-a chief bulwark to our cher- we had lost. Booze fighting had never [ can well understand the constant declining outside contributions. ished freedoms. worked. When we quarrel too much temptation to turn one’s self into a The fact that we don’t take money Another example: Tradition Ten with each other, we get drunk. public figure. Therefore I have urged, from the outside world builds ‘con- is an emphatic warning against pub- Hence genuine peace will always in season and out, that we AAs fidence in every alcoholic who thinks lic controversy. This was perhaps the be a chief ingredient of AA’s free- maintain our personal anonymity at of approaching us. This we know. first AA Tradition ever to take shape. dom. But let none suppose that we the top level, no matter what the Public good will has also been in- Of course we did reserve that some- I shrink from major conflict only be- personal sacrifices may be. creased because people like the idea times enjoyable right of quarreling cause we are afraid. Nowadays we Our chief hopc for the future is that the once irresponsible alcoholics among ourselves about lesser mat- believe we keep the peace because that these appalling urges of ours have now become responsible. There ters! But when it came to the awful we love each other. will be held in restraint by self- ‘ is no doubt, either, that this salutary issues that rock society about us, Let’s now examine that vital Tra- discipline, by love of AA, and by firm practice takes us in the direction of such as politics, religion, reform and dition Eleven. It deals with our pub- group and public opinion. These increased freedom for ourselves. By the like-well, the early AAs knew lic relations. Here is our greatest powerful constructive forces, all resolutely declining outside funds, these terrible conflicts were surely channel of communication to the working together, have thus far been whether offered by individual donors not for them. alcoholic who still suffers. Tradition enough. We pray that they may or by governments, we are making Later on, a new aspect of this same Eleven reads: “Our public relations always prevail. I dead sure that we shall always pre- peril came into view. All sorts of peo- I policy is based on attraction rather Let’s look once more at how serve our own liberty of action. ple and organizations begged us to than promotion; we need always immense this temptatioo .really is. Hence the old adage, “Who pays the “take stands,” “deliver opinions,” maintain personal anonymity at the A vast communications net now piper calls the tune” will never be and “fight evils,” all up and down level of press, radio and films.” Since covers the earth, even to its remotest descriptive of us. the line. Again we instantly saw that this great Tradition describes the reaches. Granting all its huge public There is little question that large if we evcr embarkcd upon such a most important application of AA’s benefits, this limitless world forum sums could be raised today for AA- course, it would ccrtainly be our fin- principle of anonymity, and because is nevertheless a hunting ground for I that is, if we ever gave the word. ish. Drunks by the thousands would it sets the pitch and tone of our en- all those who would seek money, Perhaps no greater calamity could be kept away from AA through tire public relations policy, nothing acclaim and power at the expense befall our fellowship than such a de- sheer prejudice. The same old peril can be more critically important. If of society in general. Here the forces velopment. We would be at once ab- would again menace us. This time it personal ambitions ever invade our of good and evil are locked in strugsolved from the beneficial respon- would crash in from the outside. public relations we shall be badly gle. All that is shoddy and destrucsibility of raising our own funds. This was when we AAs knew for crippled, perhaps lost altogether. tive contests all that is best. With lots of other people’s money sure that we had to be at peace- The danger, of course, is the pos- Therefore nothing can matter available, our idea-a-minute mem- internally, and with the world around sibility that we may one day reck- more to the future welfare of AA

than the manner in which we use present at AA’s Twenty-fifth Annithis colossus of communication. versary in Long Beach rededicated Used unselfishly and well, the results themselves to the service of AA. They ‘ can surpass our present imagination. kncw that the choice was theirs, and Should we handle this great instru- they made it. These were their telling ment badly, we shall be shattered by words: the ego demands of our own people- “By God’s grace we are here asoften with the best of intention on sembled in grateful remembrance of their part. Against all this, the sacri- the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the ficial spirit of AA’s anonymity at the founding of our fellowship. top public level is literally our shield “At this meaningful quarter-century and our buckler. Here again we must mark we are deeply aware that we be confident that love of AA, and stand upon the threshold of a great of God, will always carry the day. door which opens wide into our fu- Lastly, in Tradition Twelve, we ture. Ours can be a destiny of eversee “Anonymity as the spiritual increasing promise and fulfillment. foundation of all our Traditions, Our faith in this vision has never ever reminding us to place principles faltered. before personalities.” “But the future would still lack its This principle, and its enormous full use and meaning did it not bring implications, touches every aspect of us fresh problems and even acute our lives. Anonymity is humility at pcrils-problems and perils through work. To maintain the humility of which we can grow into true greatour society we shall constantly take ness of action and spirit. stock of our temptations and of our “To these ends we have pledged defects. The spirit of anonymity calls our lives and fortunes. We here reupon each of us for personal sacrifice dedicate ourselves to an ever deepin every level of our fellowship’s un- ening love of each other-love for dertakings. Only through such will- the wondrous creation in which we ing sacrifices can we AAs meet our live and serve, and love for its responsibilities to ourselves, to the supreme Author, God Himself. victims of alcoholism everywhere, “We now entrust you of AA’s disand to society as a whole. Here we tant reaches-you who so well symclearly see that only sacrifice can bolize the unique and loving comfulfill responsibility; that only high munication that is ours in this uniresponsibility can lead to mutual versal fellowship-to carry this mestrust; and that only mutual trust can sage to fellow members everywhere; be the foundation for great love- and most especially to all those each of us for the other, and all of others who still know not, and who us for God. God willing, may soon issue out of In just this spirit, all of those their darkness into light.”

4~ – A A GRAPEVINE, F E B R U A R Y 1961 I

feelings ~l was voicing. During that I thought was just “one drunk talking time I talked much and often about to another” was already the property, the “necessity of growth”; “accepting not of just a few of us, but probably the facts of things as they are”; “liv- of the ages, for all mankind ing in today, not yesterday or to- wanted to profit by it. “rO morrow.” I had never applied those Saying, “I must live in today, not words to my own attitude toward AA yesterday or tomorrow,” I persisted AA Is Getting Too Organized! as a whole. Mostly I talked about how wonin declaring that AA of yesterday was better, or was the real AA. I derful AA was when I first came in. continually pined for AA’s yesterday, So thinks a conservative old-timer I was often heard bewailing the loss feared for its tomorrow (oh, me of But the Fellowship is the only place of some quality of the movement that little faith). I where both “conservatives” and “radicals” had impressed me during my first While saying, “Groups are getting can win-at the same time year or so of sobriety. I face it now: too big-we don’t get to know each I was pining day after day for the other,” I kept on taking new men getting entirely too cious, intense, burningly sincere and calendar to turn back, in AA’s to the biggest meetings in town and “W EIRE

big,” he said. genuinely concerned about AA, he’s &’Andtoo organized. We get too almost as prodigal of words and opinhistory, and leave it where I thought it was, when I first came in-as if my feeble first glimpses of AA were the to an annual dinner in which thousands of members joined-so they much publicity. We’re in danger of ions as he has been, for ten years or could share the inspiration I found losing the blessings of intimacy, the so, of his heart, time, money and whole reality, or the way things there. I didn’t give a thought to the person-to-person touch. We forget energy in personal Twelfth Step should be! fact that each year at the dinner there that this outfit is based simply on one work. Memories, anyone? Is anybody were more and more faces I knewdrunk talking to another. We don’t Almost everyone would agree, I here reading his own story? old and new. need any fancy headquarters and big think, Al’s a fine and useful AA While saying, “it is necessary for You know what? None of AA’s conventions and TV shows.” member, doing a good job. God bless me to grow as a person to maintain new growth or procedures, I see My friend-I’ll call him Al-went him. I can never hope to match him my AA sobriety,” I had tacitly denied now, have ever interfered during that on: “Why, when I came in nobody in energy output, time spent in AA the inevitable corollary: AA grows, delicate moment when I talk face-totalked about conferences, and public activity, number of persons helped, too. Who wants to stop it? Shall we face with a scared new member. In relations: That sounds like Madison or in’spirituality. eliminate the last 100,000 or so fact, it seems to me the opportunities Avenue, not like a spiritual move- I was surprised to hear him across members who came in-and close the are now enhanced, and are greater ment. All this organizing for informa- the table echoing the very words I doors, except to a screened minority, than ever. And so are the responsition and fund-raising is contrary to had once said. He was articulating for the future? bilities, of course. the spirit of AA. my own feelings of some years ago. Saying, “I must continually accept During my “there’s too much or- “And another thing: why are That this man whose AA life had the facts and truths of life as they ganization” period I was delighted doctors and other outsiders asked to inspired me so often should sound are,” I had quietly, grudgingly re- to see a local central office opened speak at our meetings? They need us, this way was disappointing. I’m sorry fused to accept the fact that AA is so we could be surer that each prowe don’t need them.” this sounds smug. I had discarded the a world-wide movement which has spective member who inquired got I think you have to listen, respect- views he held and thought that caused international reverberations, individual attention. fully, when the man who talks like everyone else had changed to my new and has influenced the non-alcoholic Oh, the human beings on its staff this is a guy whose quality of sobriety views too-or should! world immensely. It was world-wide and guiding committee do things of commands your admiration. Loqua- I had spent ten years nursing the when I found it (in 1945), so what which I disapprove, to be sure. So?

Because it isn’t all run as I think it I gather it was ever thus in AA, should be, am I to be a disgruntled and we’re going to live over and over “go it aloner” and refuse to help in again the hard struggle that began the the over-all job of carrying the with the writing of the book, “Alcomessage? No thanks. Instead of pick- holics Anonymous.” As I understand ing up my marbles (bottles?) and it, some members (conservatives?) going home, I prefer to stay with my opposed the idea. They thought it people, and help where I can. Maybe smacked of promotion, might give I can improve the operation, or at wrong impressions, would be “selling least learn why it’s done the way it the program.” Others (radicals?) is. The other fellows just may be felt deeply that such risks should be right. run to make the message more widely Sometimes I don’t like a Grape- available-especially to those who vine article, or I feel that something could not be contacted in person. which should be printed is censored I’m selfishly glad the book got out. I know two people who say they published. It and some subsequent , resent being reminded their subscrip- publicity about AA saved my life. tions are running out! They deplore I’m glad, too, for the TV shows, “promotion.” But all three of us get movies, books, and articles about too much good out of it to stop read- AA; also for the many doctors, ing it or to stop passing copies and clergymen, and public officials who subscriptions along. learned all they could about AA and I think it’s now my duty to do as a result pushed a score of my best everything in my pawer to make our AA friends in our direction. message available to everyone who I’m equally glad that the “conservhas me for it. To whom can we say atives” pointed out the dangers of no-narcotic addicts, neurotics, pros- promotion and firmly reminded the titutes, excons, homosexuals, people promoter types, like me, that we’re of other races, doctors, psychiatrists, essentially a spiritual movement. or government officials who deal with Their wise words of caution helped alcoholics? preserve much of what I now love It’s scarey to realize how many best about AA. people such “playing God” could I hope my friend A1 becomes as condemn to death. From the ranks happy and unfearful about today’s arrayed above, have come some of Alcoholics Anonymous, all aspects the best AA people I know. I need to of it, as I am now. There are signs. do all I can to support my local serv- He’s been elected to do a General ice office, our world service office, Service job. He says, “I don’t like and the Grapevine. it, but here I am, so I’ll do it.” That’s But my friend A1 felt quite differ- A1 all right. ently. ( Anonymous, New York City

February 1961 . . … . . .

,/ i

-0 .. AA’stwenty-five quarter-century is now history. Our next FIRST years lie in prospect before us. How, ‘ believe that AA’s recovery Steps and Traditions do rep- G resent the approximate truths which we need for our parthen, can we make the most of this new grant of time? ticular purpose. The more we practice them, the more we Perhaps our ver-7 first realization should be that we can’t like them. So there is little doubt thar AA principles constand still. Now that our basic principles seem established, tinue to be advocated in the form they stand now. now that our functioning is fairly effective and widespread, So then, if our basics are so firmly fixed as all this, what it would be temptingly easy to settle down as merely one is there left to change or to improve? The answer will more useful agency on the world scene. We could con- immediately occur to us. While we need not alter our clude that “AA is fine, just the way it is.” truths, we can surely improve their application to our- Yet how many of us, for example, would presume to de- selves, to A A as a whole, and to our relation with the world clare, “Well, I’m sober and I’m happy. What more can I around us. We can constantly step up “the practice of these want, or do? I’m fine the way I am.” We know that the principles in all our affairs.” price of such self-satisfaction is an inevitable backslide, As we now enter upon the next great phase of AA’s life, punctuated at some point by a very rude awakening. We let us therefore re-dedicate ourselves to an ever greater have to grow or else deteriorate. For us, the “status quo” responsibility for our general welfare. Let us continue can only be for today, never for tomorrow. Change we to take our inventory as a fellowship, searching out our must; we cannot stand still. flaws and confessing them freely. Let us devote ourselves Just how, then, can AA go on changing for the better? to the repair of all faulty relations that may exist, whether Does this mean that we are to tinker with our basic principles? Should we try to amend our Twelve Steps and – And above all, let us remember that great legion who still Twelve Traditions? Here the answer would seem to be *, suffer from alcoholism and who are still without hope. “no.” Those twenty-four principles have first liberated us, Let us, at any cost or sacrifice, so improve our cornmunihave then held us in unity, and have enabled us to function cation with all these that they may find what we have found and to grow as AA members, and as a whole.+Of course -a new life of freedom under God.

– AA GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1961 d i

the difference. The average English- conferences with other AAs from man will co-operate fully with the their states and provinces, and that officer and sees him as his friend and there was a national organization to guardian. The American is reluctant do in their name the things which to help the policeman and very fre- they could not do alone. quently regards him as a foe rather Hence, the problem of the relation- W e are all anarchists at than as his protector. heart. Resentment ship of Alcoholics Anonymous to can carry over into Be that as it may, we Americans authority has been worked out in the the Fellowship itself have this dual approach to our living terms of Tradition Two quoted at together; we are meticulous in setting the head of this article. up methods of government, then What I am particularly concerned reluctant to submit to them. with is the second sentence, “Our This trait, which is erroneously leaders are but trusted servants . . . described by some AAs as the result they do not govern.” This is an acof alcoholism, is reflected by the AAs curate description of responsible not so much because they are alco- government at its best, provided it holic, but because they are products is always understood that, while the i of our American culture. It may be “For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority . . a . true that since some alcoholics have chosen leaders are not to be governors or tyrants or despots, they still loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. failed to develop emotionally as rap- remain leaders. Our leaders are but trusted servants . . . they do not govern.” idly as other people, their attitude To consider the leader as a “servtoward authority may be somewhat ant” in the normal sense of the o reads Tradition Two of Alco- Americans have approached life on S holics Anonymous, the group’s answer t o the difficult problem of this rational basis, we have been in a most irrational way violently opimmature. But in the main they reflect not an alcoholic view of authority but rather an American view. word, blindly obeying the orders of those in authority over him, is to deny the concept of leadership which leadership. posed to authority even when it has ‘ Consequently, throughout the AA AAs recognize as having basic valid- It is notable that, ever since our been set up by us. The great English movement in its early days we have ity. earliest days, we Americans have had lawyer, Blackstone, described the seen violent opposition to the exer- In the days when AA consisted of difficulty in coming to terms with American Constitution as one of the cise of authority within the local a handful of men in two cities clusauthority. We have seemed to the greatest documents ever struck off by group, by the AA intergroup, at the tered about the co-founders, the outside world to present a dual and the hand of man. Yet, from the days state level, and in relationship to the question of leadership was not a contradictory approach to the prob- of the adoption of the Constitution General Service Headquarters and problem. There were obviously two lem. we have resisted the very authority the General Service Board function- leaders-the founding fathers-but as O n the one hand, we have been that we have created. ing in their name in New York. AA grew and continues to grow, as it orderly, methodical, and so prone to We Americans have insisted on Yet at the same time, the AAs in spreads around the world, as its organization that people laughingly law and order and yet have been a the local groups have welcomed the affairs require more careful scrutiny remark that whenever three Ameri- most disorderly and lawless people. fact that there was an intergroup and management for the protection cans get together they immediately One has only to compare the attitude structure which enabled them to of its basic interests, as all this growth adopt a charter, pass a set of by-laws, of the average Englishman toward serve the people of their areas better, goes on, an anarchistic program is elect officers and appoint committees. the policeman with that of the aver- that there was a state or provincial impossible. On the other hand, while we age citizen of the U.S. to recognize assembly whereby they could have No member of the group would

wish to close down national head- thority. Just as it is difficult for those quarters. I am sure that no person of us who are not leaders to follow, who has been in AA for longer than so is it extremely difficult for the five minutes would suggest that we leader in AA to know how he shall could do without those we have properly exert his influence. chosen to positions of leadership. In any system where representa- Consequently, as we mature in AA, tives are chosen as leaders, there are we must recognize the basic problem two types. One is the leader who tries which confronts every living person: to discover what his constituents are we must learn how to deal with au- thinking about, what their feelings times these views will coincide with the states and provinces which the thority. For this, like death and taxes,are and what they would like to do, his own and he will express them. delegates represented, and from the is a universal law of life: everyone and who then weighs this against There are other times when he may concerns of the General Service has somebody in authority over him. what he conceives to 6e the basic feel his own views are mistaken Headquarters which the staff and needs of the whole body, and acts and he will then express the views of board members represented. accordingly. The second type ex- the group. And sometimes he will Through the four days of the Conpresses no opinions of his own, exerts say that, while his group feels so and ference, there was a strong, pointed, no leadership of his own, but blindly so, he believes that the wise thing to and effective debate; there was sharp obeys the will of those whom he thinks he represents. The latter is the worst kind of leadership and, if followed in AA, I do would be the contrary. The basic point is that in all matters he acts act xding to the best information, accolding to the dictates difference of opinion. But there was also recognition that people in AA can differ without destroying the movement, that arguments can be would be surely destructive. of his own conscience and according fruitful, that opinions can change, This is another area where the It is almost impossible for people to his concern for the welfare of AA. that decisions can be reached on the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer is in a local group to know what is This kind of leadership is not basis of what is good for the whole valuable. The fact of authority is one going on throughout the whole tyranny, it is not despotism, it is not Fellowship only after all views are of the things we cannot change. Not country and the world and get a governing in the bad sense of the only do we ask for the serenity to broad view of what is good for AA, , word. presented and conflicting opinions reconciled as far as possible. accept authority, but the wisdom to including themselves. The great value It is the exercise of leadership in its highest form. It is my hope that Tradition Two recognize its value, and the courage of the system which has been de- will never change. It is my ardent to work with it. veloped in Alcoholics Anonymous One of the most encouraging things to some of us who have been desire that leaders will continue to Only as men and women learn to through the General Service Con- be trusted servants. accept authority and work with those ference is that it provides a national around AA for a long time is to see who have been chosen as leaders, and an international viewpoint for, the growing maturity of the move- It is equally my opinion that they can they hope in their own turn to people coming out of local situations. ment in its relationship to authority. must continue to lead, and it is my become leaders of others. There is Hence, their decisions are made on The last session of the General Serv- profound hope that AA will continue no more difficult position to assume the basis of the total good of AA ice Conference, for example, was to follow its leaders just so long as than that of leadership. All of us rather than the specific needs of a marked by a high order of respon- they prove worthy of the leadership know people who have been perfectly small locality. sible leadership expressed from two which has been entrusted to them. splendid in subordinate capacities but This does not mean that a leader points of view: from the concerns of I . P. L.,North Haledon, N.J . who become extremely difficult, if in AA is blind to the wishes and not impossible, in positions of au- desires of the group he represents. At ‘

November 1 9 6 1

. the love of God and of each other. crucial decision is required of me. Thus we have been taught to choose And here it is: those principles and practices by I t is my conviction that I should . Again at- the Crossroads which we can surely survive and now retire from all active managegrow. This is the spiritual climate in ment of A A World Service aflairs, which we AAs are today privileged and that my leadership in these matto live. ters should be fully transferred to the Even our sometimes erratic be- Trustees of AA’s General Service The substance of Bill’s remarks at the closing havior since sobriety has never Board. changed this all-pervading climate of This is not at all a new concept; it session of A A’s 1961 General Service Conference humility and love. This, we think, is is simply the last step in a plan which the spiritual condition which has in- has been in development for more vited into our midst so much wise and than ten years. It was in mind when, Providential guidance. We say this in in 1948, Dr. Bob and I jointly wrote no conceit; it is an obvious fact of an article for the Grapevine which our experience. We only need to was called, “Why Can’t We Join AA which had ruined so many of us in. ponder the long series of apparently Too?’It was even more in mind E AAs arc everywhere devel- W oping a keener sense of our the drinking days. With those fearful history and,the meaning of its turning experiences vividly before us, it is not correct choices that we have been en- when our first General Service Conabled to make over the past twenty-‘ ference was experimentally assemsix years; choices respecting our bled in 1951. And when, at St. Louis points. Moreover, I believe that we strange that AA’s Twelve Steps con- principles and right methods of com- in 1955, the full authority and reare getting a right sense of our his- tinually remind us of the stark need municating them. Not a single one of sponsibility for the maintenance of tory; something of the utmost impor- for ego reduction; that our Twelve these major decisions has yet shown World Services was transferred to tance indeed. The world’s past rc- Traditions warn heavily against. the the slightest sign of being a mistake. our Conference, my retirement from veals that many societies and nations perils of concentrated wealth, the Up to now AA seems to have taken active service leadership was defihave fallen victims to fear and pride, vain pursuit of fame and the ever- the right turning at each new cross- nitely foreshadowed. or to their aggressive designs. Thus present temptation to controversy road. This could scarcely have been Yet a vestige of my old-time status they lost their sense of meaning, pur- and attack. pose and right destiny, and so they We did not come to such wisdom our doing alone. Our Fellowship has remains, and this should be exdisintegrated and vanished. Neither by reason of our virtues; our better afforded a convincing proof of that plained. Following the St. . Louis power nor glory nor wealth could in understanding is rooted in our for- wise old adage which declares that transference there were a few tasks I the least guarantee their long-time mer follies. In the nick of time, and “Man’s extremity is God’s O P P – that still required my full attention. by God’s Grace, each of us has been tunity.” This being our record, we 8.1 these are now virtually camsurvival. There is little on the record of AA’s enabled to develop a growing sense Can surely face the next hour of de- pleted. During the last six years I cision in confident faith. have, respecting these particular matfirst quarter-century to suggest such of the meaning and purpose of his a fate for us. In our personal lives, own life. Because this has been the The fact is that AA does now stand ters, exercised a joint leadership with and therefore in our Fellowship it- essence of our individual experience, at a new turning point in its affairs. our Trustees. This sustained activity self, we have steadily striven to lay it is also the essence of our experi- This has to do with the future World has no doubt tended to confirm me, aside all those vainglorious clamors ence as a Fellowship. We have suf- Service leadership of AA as a whole. in the minds of many AAs, as a confor prestige, power and possessions fered enough to learn something of Therefore, we shall have to take a tinuing fact and symbol of AA leadnew look at the shape of things to ership world-wide. This is the last come. At this particular crossroad a remainder of my service leadership.

For this action there are excellent age of responsibility, has unquestion- future visit or two overseas, and my write it, such a volume might be of and even compelling reasons. The ably forsaken his trust. But the parent attendance at whatever international permanent value. basic one is the present need to who far overstays his time can’be ex- conventions there may be, I think that There is another factor that bears strictly apply AA’s Tradition Two to tremely damaging, too. If he insists my days of traveling and speaking arc upon my decision. Like every AA every area of our World Service op- on continuing his parental authority over. Practically speaking, it is no member I have a definite rcsponsieration. This means that I should no and the protective custody of his: longer possible for me to respond to bility to become a citizen of the world longer act in service leadership for wards well after they have reached the hundreds of invitations that now around me; to channel into it the ex- , the group conscience of AA. This the age of responsibility, he is simply come in. It is very clear, too, that perience of living and working which must now become fully the function robbing them of the priceless privi- continued appearances would in- has been mine in our Fellowship. of our Trustees, as guided by the lege of facing life on their own. What crease my prominence in AA at the Therefore, I’m already exploring cer- Conference Delegates. Consider, too, was perfectly right for their infancy very time when this should greatly tain arcas of outside activity in which AA’s very healthy tradition of rotat- and adolescence becomes strictly no diminish. There is much the same I may be ablc to makc a hclpful, and ing leadership. Everywhere today this good for their maturity. So the wise situation respecting my very large possibly a meaningful, contribution. is a strictly applied principle-ex- parent always changes his status ac- correspondence which has grown so For the first time, I now feel at liberty cepting to me. This is a left-over in- cordingly. Of course he is still one far out of hand that I can no longer to follow the constructive example consistency that ought to be elimi- who, if asked, will lend a hand in seri- do it justice. already set by uncounted numbers of nated by my own retirement to the ous emergencies. But he knows that Nevertheless, one primary channel my fellow members. But of course si’delines, where practically all of he simply must let his heirs make and of communication still stands wide my principal reason for taking this AA’s old-timers now are. repair most of their own mistakes, open-my writing for the Grapevine. new direction is the deep and confi- But this is not all. My continued live their own lives! and grow up. This I would certainly like to con- dent belief that this will prove to be activity at AA’s Headquarters may Tradition Two of the AA program tinue. Just now, for example, I’m do- in the best long-time interest of Aldeeply recognizes this universal truth ing a series of articles entitled “Prac- coholics Anonymous. be covering up unforeseen flaws in when it declares “There is but one ticing These Principles in All Our It scarce needs be said that I a p our organizational structure. These ultimate authority . . . a loving God proach this new crossroad for AA should be given an opportunity to re- as He may express Himself in our Affairs.” Maybe these pieces can later and for me with a lump in my throat, veal themselves, if they exist. More- group conscience.” be expanded into a full-sized book and with a hcart very full of gratiover, the excellent leadership that we Of course I am not suggesting a which would try to deal with the tude for all those unexampled privinow have among the Trustees and in complete withdrawal; I propose only whole problem of living, as seen by leges and gifts with which I have so the Headquarters should be allowed to change my relationship with AA. us AAs. If it turns out that I can long been blessed. to operate without further collabora- For example, I expect to be available tion with me. We know that, in the at Trustee and Conference meetings. long run, double-headed management Should marked defects appear in our is highly unsound. My retirement present service structure, I shall, if from active service would cure this asked, be very happy to aid in the defect. work of repair. In short, I expect to There are also psychological rea- be “on tap” but never again “on top,” sons of the deepest import. AA is this being precisely the stance that very much a family, of which we AA hopes all its old-timers will take. elders have surely been the spiritual My coming shift to the sideparents. Now the parent who quits lines will necessarily involve other before his family has arrived at the changes. Save for the possibility of a

November

not in AA’s position. They are free ago. Our open meeting is on Monto do whatever they wish about their day, and he had read a story about alcoholic employees-and more and AA in the Sunday New York Times, more of them are coming to see that the day before. It mentioned that we .it pays off for them when a well- now have large numbers of young Let Others Beat the Drum trained, valuable worker is rehabili- members. Johnny hadn’t known this, tated. In fact, many such firms em- and he decided to see if there was ploy AA members for this purpose, anything here for him. He’s doing and have company AA groups. just fine, thank you. (Ironically “Attraction rather than promotion'” Many AAs have been pressured enough, the night Johnny found AA into sobriety. I think of Bill, whom I was in another part of town with a is bringing us powerful allies I first saw at a meeting held at a group of members all of whom were in the battle for life and sanity mental hygiene clinic. Or Jack, who blasting the article. You see, it wasn’t first saw the light at a meeting in laudatory enough to suit them. Lord prison. Or Ray, a sailor, who came help us, they almost wrotc the Times in through meetings at the Seamen’s a letter of protest!) Church Institute in New York. In all So it goes. As AA grows in age these cases, an outside enterprise (a and numbers, more and more outside N E of the greatest things about a or so she thought. B L ~she found oc- 0 couple of our Traditions is that the rest of the world is not bound by casional moments of peace in a church, and one day a priest said, clinic, a prison, an institute) lent its name and its endorsement to AA’s program by scheduling regular meetenterprises and kindly friends are lending their names, their endorsements and their powers of promotion them. Tradition Six, for instance, “Will you let a girl I know come and ings on its premises. We are glad to our program of recovery. And counsels AA, as a movement, not to talk to you?” Drained of all will of they did. thousands of alcoholics, still out there endorse outside enterprises; but her own, Anne said yes. The girl be- Margaret makes me think of an- in the dark today, are going to come thank Heaven, scores of outside en- came her sponsor, and Anne has been other promoter of AA. Margaret is a to us as a result. Often we ourselves terprises endorse us! And Tradition sober six years. The priest supplied professional person, an executive. are not the only–or even the best- Eleven limits our public relations a gentle nudge that led a sick, fright- When she found her drinking begin- carriers of our message. policy to one of attraction rather than ened alcoholic to A A recovery. In ning to “get a little out of hand,” as I am eternally grateful that AA itpromotion but in no way prevents our doing so, he lent his name and his she put it then, she went to a psy- self is forever non-affiliated and nonbved ones, or our friends in the pro- calling’s endorsement to our message. chiatrist. He helped her to stop promotional. Few things could be fessions and the publicity media, Frank is another example. He drinking for quite an extended worse for our movement than largefrom promoting the rewards and worked in a large factory where the period. But one day Margaret said scale violations of these Traditions. blessings of our program for all management has a policy of pushing she was not happy in her sobriety, But we should be ever grateful that they’re worth. the AA program on employees who and the psychiatrist smiled and said, Anne’s priest, Frank’s company, Many of us would be dead if this the management thinks need it. In “Guess you’re ready for AA now.” Bill’s clinic, Jack’s prison, Ray’s inwere not true. Take the case of Anne. Frank’s case, it was “Go to AA or Margaret says this is the only way she stitute, Margaret’s doctor and the Her Greenwich Village drinking had you’re fired!” So Frank went, discov- could have come to us, and she’s New York Times are free to beat the her inexorably headed for suicide or ered that he did have a desire to stop eternally grateful to the psychiatrist drum and blow the trumpet for us insanity, and in a strange and terrible drinking, and sobered up. for gently promoting her in our di- even though we can’t, as a movement, way she was quite resigned to this- Business concerns, of course, are rection. reciprocate. Johnny came in just a few months S. B., New York City

How to avoid mistakes From San Mateo, California: There was a period in the earlier the Traditions there is a growing days of AA when selfishness, intoler- concern among the older members ance, and dissension threatened to of AA because of the apparent lack destroy our Fellowship while it was of interest in them on the part of the newer members as well as their inin its infancy. The writer recalls com- difference to the importance of strict mittee meetings which were little adherence to all of the Traditions at more than brawls, for the simple rea- all times. son that every one of us concurred The writer shares in this concern in the opinion that there are two and reluctantly admits that he also sides to every dispute-our side and shares in the blame for the attitude the wrong side. of the new member toward the AA This unhappy state of affairs gave Traditions. If we had taken more birth to the idea of formulating a pains t o impress upon the minds of uniform set of standards, which later the newer members the important came to be known as The Twelve role that the Traditions played in Traditions of AA and it was strict bringing order out of chaos in the adherence to these Traditions which past and how extremely essential the eventually reduced dissension to a Traditions are to the perpetuation of negligible minimum and established AA for the benefit of the alcoholic of unity which is essential to AA growth tomorrow, there would be a little and dcvclopmcnt. cause for concern today. By the same Today, with a few exceptions, the token, if the newer member of today AA Traditions are accepted through- will avoid the mistakes of yesterday, out the AA world as a standard guide there will be even less cause for confor group procedure and it is no ex- cern tomorrow. I). s. aggeration to say that the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous owes its very life to those who maintain and conform to the Traditions to the best of their ability. Despite the general acceptance of

April 1963

“Bill’s Views

Our Critics Can Our Benefactors

A recent magazine article criticizing certuin aspects of A A reminds us and education. We should endorse On thc other hand, let us never be of the need to review our relationships to medicine, to religion and to none especially but hold ourselves in a closed corporation; let us never the world at large. When the Grapevine editors consulted Bill W . on the readiness to cooperate so far as we deny our experience for whatever it matter, he suggested a rereading of relevant portions of “Alcoholics can with them all. Let us constantly may be worth to the world around us. Anonymous Comes of Age” (published in 1957) and “Twelve Concepts remind ourselves that the experts in Let our individual members heed the for World Service” (published in 1962). Here, Bill suggested, members religion are the clergymen; that the call to every field of human endeavor. and friends may find helpful guidance. Bill has directed particular attention to the excerpts quoted below.-Ed. practice of medicine is for physi- Let them carry the experience and cians; and that we, the recovered spirit of AA into all these affairs, for alcoholics, are their assistants. whatever good they may accomplish. There are those who predict that For not only has God saved us from s A SOCIETY we must never be- alcoholism; the world has received A come so vain as to suppose that we have been the authors and in- Nothing, however, could be so unfortunate for AA’s future as an attempt to incorporate any of our per- Alcoholics Anonymous may well become a new spearhead for a spiritual awakening throughout the world. us back into its citizenship. Yet believing in paradoxes as we do, we ventors of a new religion. We will sonal theological views into AA When our friends say these things must still realize that the more the humbly reflect that each of AA’s teaching, practice, or tradition. Were they are both generous and sincere. Society of Alcoholics Anonymous as principles, every one of them, has Dr. Bob still with us, I am positive But we of AA must reflect that such such tends to its own affairs and been borrowed from ancient sources. he would agree that we could never a tribute and such a prophecy could minds its own business, the greater We shall remember that we are lay- be too emphatic about this matter. well prove to be a heady drink for will be our general influence, the less men, holding ourselves in readiness Then, too, it would be a product most of us-that is, if we really came will be any opposition to us,.and the to cooperate with all men of good of false pride to believe that Alco- to believe this to be the real purpose wider will be the circle in which our will, whatever creed or nationality. holics Anonymous is a cure-all, even of AA, and if we commenced to be- Fellowship will be likely to enjoy the Speaking for Dr. Bob and myself for alcoholism. Here we must re- have accordingly. Our Society, there- confidence and respect of men. I would like to say that there has member our debt to the men of medi- fore, will prudently cleave to its -Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, pp. 23 1-3, by permission. never been the slightest intent, on cine. Here we must be friendly and, single purpose; the carrying of the his part or mine, of trying to found above all, open-minded toward every message to the alcoholic who still Now let us suppose that AA does a new religious denomination. Dr. new development in the medical or suffers. Let us resist the proud as- fall under sharp public attack or Bob held certain religious convic- psychiatric art that promises to be sumption that since God has enabled heavy ridicule; and let us take the tions, and so do I. This is, of course, helpful to sick people. We should al- us to do well in one area we are des- particular case where such prothe personal privilege of every AA ways be friendly to those in the fields tined to be a channel of saving grace nouncements happen to have little member. of alcoholic research, rehabilitation, for everybody. or no justification in fact.

purely informative. These communications should also be private. If made public, they will often be seized upon as a fresh excuse for controversy. If, however, a given criticism of , AA is partly or wholly justified, it may be well to acknowledge this to our critic, together with our thanks. -Twelve Concepts for World Service, pp. 71-2, by permission. Almost without exception it can be confidently estimated that our best In the years ahead we shall, of defense in these situations would be course, make mistakes. Experience no defense whatever-namely, com- has taught us that we need have no plete silence at the public level. Un- fear of doing this, providing that we reasonable people are stimulated all always remain willing toSconfessour the more by opposition. If in good faults and to correct them promptly. humor we leave them strictly alone, Our growth as individuals has dethey are apt to subside the more pended upon this healthy process of quickly. If their attacks persist and trial and error. So will our growth as it is plain that they are misinformed, a fellowship. Let us always rememit may be wise to communicate with ber that any society of men and them in a temperate and informative women that cannot freely correct its way; also in such a manner that they own faults must surely fall into decay cannot use our communication as a if not into collapse. Such is the unispringboard for fresh assault. Such versal penalty for the failure to go on communications need seldom be growing. Just as each AA must conmade by the Conference officially. tinue to take his moral inventory and Very often we can use the good of- act upon it, so must our whole Sofices of friends. Such messages from ciety do if we are to survive and if us should never question the motives we are to serve usefully and well. -Alcoholics Anonymorrs Con~esof Age, of the attackers; they should be p 23 1, by permission.

6 r

AA Grapevine, November 1963

E R E IS the original version of the “preamble” as s first introduced to AA in the June, 1947,

by the then editor to describe AA to the Grapevine’s non-AA readers, it has become a part of AA literature. It came to be called the “preamble” because it is so often read at the opening of AA meetings. Much of the phrasing was borrowed from the foreword to the original edition of “Alcoholics Anonymous,” where “an honest desire to stop drinking” is described as “the only requirement for membership.” In the September, 1958, Grapevine, the preamble was first published in its present form. It now appears in much of our literature to tell what AA is and does, as well as what it is not and does not. The Twelve Traditions present a fuller development of most of these ideas. The current version of the preamble appears on the inside front cover of this issue.

November 1963

wonders of its works. The First and in so saying, this Tradition es- Tradition (because it is in this Tra- tablishes and preserves my right dition that a group is created) is and yours to live our program as it the one in .which I found new faith. suits our needs. So it fulfilled for My need for something in which to me the need to find my own way. believe was met-a basic require- It is another of the paradoxes of ment for my sobriety. alcoholism that, just as we are de- Recipe for Sobriety The right of an AA member to work the program as he or she fiantly and ruggedly independent, so we have a great need to be wishes is fiercely defended. At the accepted. Also, having spent the I found at least “three parts Tradition” to end of my drinking, rebellion drinking years putting myself in a against authority was so deeply position to be rejected by the world be necessary as secret ingredients in mine rooted in me that I could not and having with such cost and pain knuckle under to anyone. Had the built a wall between myself and the AA program been a “directed” pro- rest of mankind, when my bottom gram, with some one in charge, I was reached, one of my most urgent seriously doubt that I could have ac- needs was to be accepted for my- I first came to AA, 1 carded by men and shaken in faith, self. Much of my drinking was W HEN thought there was nothing the matter with me that about ten thou- I set myself against society, rejected authority, and became a rebel. cepted it, despite my past troubles. I needed the opportunity to find my own way into and through the prostarted in the subconscious attempt to find acceptance in the society of sand dollars wouldn’t cure pretty Any chance for my recovery de- gram to such an extent that I be- drinkers, but this eventually could darned quickly! Now, with the gift pended on the following needs in lieve my sobriety was contingent only result in more rejection. of insight that comes with the pro- me to be met. First, the need to upon being given the chance to In AA, no one asked to see my gram, I can see that my real needs have something in which to believe, make my own mistakes. I had to credentials. I did not have to prove were, and are, quite different. I can then the need to determine my own discover for myself the wonders of how much I had drunk. Because I see, too, that the Twelve Traditions path by my own authority, and, sobriety and spiritual growth. said I wanted to be sober, I was have had at least as much to do thirdly, to be accepted, solely for Some of the most tragic and vio- accepted, and in such a heart-filling with my sobriety as the Twelve myself. lent upsets in the early groups were way. It is the Third Tradition, which Steps. In AA, there has been, long be- caused by members, who, consci- states that the only requirement for My drinking years robbed me of fore the Traditions were written, ously or otherwise, attempted to membership is a desire to stop the ability to have faith. I became a spirit of unity in which the com- deny each other the right of self- drinking. Here the spirit of AA acseparated from mankind because I mon welfare came first. Because of determination in AA. Their expe- ceptance is found. could neither believe in other peo- this, there was a group, strong and rience and my own response tells These first three Traditions are, ple nor in the things in which they well-founded, which, when I came me that self-determination is a right to me, the atmosphere of sobriety. believed. Despite a thorough ex- seeking, gave me something in every member can demand. So the In the practice of them, the group posure to religion as a child, liquor which to believe. This group gave Second Tradition came about, in becomes the place where sobriety became my god almost from the me release from loneliness because which human authority is elimi- is not only what I need, it’s what I first drink. I removed myself further it showed me there were others like nated from AA. We are given only want, and perhaps for the first time and further from society. Behind me. It gave me something real and God’s authority, with the group in my conscious memory, within the my protective veneer, in my own tangible upon which to build new conscience as our guidepost. “Our encircling warmth of the group, I world of dreams, having been dis- faith because I could see the living leaders are but trusted servantsw- am at peace. I have become aware

or die), it will be because, whether me. I expected my wife to be both I am so grateful that the group that I’ve found something in which mother and father to our children. I can really believe without reser- or not I am aware of it, I make a to which I first came in AA, so lived little spiritual progress each day. If I needed the favorable opinions of the spirit of our Twelve Traditions vation. I’ve found something in others to support me in my self-juswhich I am given the dignity of I am growing spiritually enough to that there was, in ample quantity, maintain my sobriety, it is because tification. the atmosphere of spiritual growth. being able to find my own way. I’ve Having become sober, through found people who are just like me AA has met the needs in me for The older members of this group growth. having my most immediate needs showed the humility to merge their and who accept me. For me, the met, the problem of staying sober first three Traditions are the atmos- During the drinking years, when personal desires into the common everyone and every circumstance resolves next into finding within welfare, and instinctively realized phere, the sight, taste, smell and myself a degree of humility and the magic touch of sobriety. in my life should have clearly shown how dangerous their egos could be me I was on the wrong path, it was self-sufficiency. While it might at in any collective involvement of the The combination of time and will- first appear that these two attributes ingness in AA is sufficient, alone, a resilient, unconquerable and ut- group in problems of money, propterly irrational ego which so twisted work against each other, since hu- erty and prestige. Because they, by to bring us ultimately to the reali- mility is really nothing more than a their actions, placed principles b e zation that, having been withdrawn my thinking that I believed myself right and the world wrong. Success happy combination of self-knowl- fore personalities in both individual from alcohol, our first insurance edge, faith and compassion, they in anything rarely results from such and group conduct, they were all against return is that we change the are completely complementary to an attitude and I was forced to lean the things I hoped most to become. personality that leaned on alcohol. each other. Only when my ego has As 1 read them now, each of the We are forced to know ourselves on everything and everyone just to maintain my status quo-and of ceased to twist my thinking out of Twelve Traditions requires humility better, purely to avoid the mental shape, and only when I have ceased in its! practice by individuals, betraps that lead us to take a drink. course, did not succeed even then. I leaned on the finance companies to be a leaner and a sponger, men- cause each Tradition calls upon us Almost without realizing what is tally, physically and spiritually, can happening to us, we have embarked to pay my bills for me. I depended to recognize within ourselves some on associates to do my work for me, I contemplate, without fear, the limitation. on a voyage of spiritual growth. If prospect of continuing sobriety. I am to stay sober (and I must- and on my bosses to cover up for If we as individuals try to achieve

humility and self-sufficiency, the according to our needs. Even more group will contain these qualities important is the underlying tone of which it in turn can offer back to humility in all our Traditions which its individual members. These two teaches us that we are but channels qualities are the basic ones upon for the power of AA. Our business ‘ which spiritual growth depends. in carrying the message is just to Each Tradition, in my belief, make the effort-to try, to the best meets a specific need. 1 have not of our ability. Any results which listed them categorically because it may be involved are God’s business. may be your pleasure, if you have Just a little of AA’s traditional hunot already done so, to list them mility in carrying the message reyourself. However, there is one final lieves us of the burden of taking the need. It is in the satisfaction of this credit, and leaves us only the reneed that the wonders of rebirth in ward of deep, quiet and inner sat- AA are brought within our sight isfaction. and reach. And now we have come the full Before my AA life began, I had circle-or should I say triangle. completely lost a sense of purpose When I can see that the Traditions in life. Our program has kindled in create the atmosphere of sobriety, me the faith that man’s purpose on spiritual growth and service, then I earth is to love God and serve man. can see that the total program of 1 think it is instinctual to want to AA, the personal application of all serve, and one of the great tragedies three legacies, is the perfect seof alcoholism was to realize, in the quence of logic.When the awakening drinking times, that nothing I had to our message (which is wrought to offer was acceptable to the world. in us by the Steps, and tempered AA’s greatest gift to me is that now by the compassion and humility en- I have something to give. My worst gendered by the Traditions) is put liability has become my greatest to work in the practice of our Third asset in that I have (as do we all) Legacy of love and service, then are a message of hope for alcoholics. we given a glimpse and a touch of This is something of real worth. serene sobriety. When I get it, I’ll The Tradition which states that our let you know. primary purpose is to carry the St. Paul wrote it: “And now message to the alcoholic who still abideth faith, hope, charity, these suffers is the one which assures us three; but the greatest of these is all of the opportunity for service, charity.” K . P., Calgary, Alberta

AA GRAPEVINE, M A Y 1964 Tradition 9: AA, us such, or& never to be orgunized; but ~c-emay create service boards or cotnmirtees directly responsible to those they serve.

The over the world. Check out the latcst developments in AA’s General Serv- Deacon ices.” “I suppose,” said the Deacon, “that we have both been in AA long and the enough not to get resentments over ci~ch other’s hobbyhorses. But, Delegate you know, 1 find my hackles rising at the suggestion of so much organization and centralization. Is everybody in this great fellowship

T tia Dcacon and the Dclcgate eventually going to sound like a had been sitting for some little committeeman and say things like while, chatting and sipping coffee ‘larger picture,’ and ‘latest developwith great civility, when at last the ments’?” Deacon broached the subject upper- The Delegate pondered his anmost in both their minds. swer for a moment. He knew where “I hear by the grapevine,” he the conversation was headed. The said, “that you are off to New York Deacon’s position on conferences for the great Conference soon.” and committees and the like .was “Ah yes,” said the Delegate. “A well known to all in the group; why chance to see a bit of the world, cilrry coals to Newcastle? and AA in action, too.” “It’s only my own opinion,” said “AA in action?” queried the Dea- the Delegate, “but I think there is con. “I thought we managed to have more to AA than leaping out on a some action right here.” Twelfth Step call at the drop of a “Of course,” the Delegate re- tifth of whiskey.” plied, “but, you know, it’s im- “There is. . .” the Deacon started portant to see some of the larger to say. picture. Hear what’s new in AA all “There ore,” said the Delegate

with it smile itt the Dcacon as if to centralized communication func- fashion. spending money on any pleasurable that his juniors thought forgive him for getting the verb project at ail it fancies.” he was worth educating. tions for that. The General Service “First,” began the Delegate, “let wrong. “There crre the services our Conference is the annual Big Effort “Patience,” thought thc Dclegatc, AA groups provide through all our of all-AA communications. It’s but aloud he said: “The question of me draw on the board the beginnservice headquarters and AA een- ‘sharing expcricnce’ on a grand budnets is precisely one of the ing-point in AA: the group. tcrs as well as the Gcncral Service scale.” things submiited to (he annual Gen- Office in New York. “The groups kccp in touch with . eral Service Confcrcnce. Thc head- “That’s what gives me thc fidgets, thc groups?” demanded the Dcacon. quarters budgets arc prescntcd in cxactly.” said the Dcacon. “All this “What about Intcrgroup?” complete detail; the delegates havc talk of headquarters. Let me tell “Surc cnough,” said the Dele- plenty of chancc to swing away at you. the real headquarters of AA is gate. “lntcrgroup at the local lcvcl, anything they don’t like. The groups right here on the group firing linc for our own small area. But the express themselves through thcir where we stand reitdy to receive the Confcrcnce is for all the U.S. and delegates to the General Service individual suffering drunk, with lov- Canada, and Gcncral Services cov- ~onyerence. The Conference del- There are, as you know, about ing kindncss of course, and hclp ers the wholc world.” egates hear reports from the Trus- 1 1,000 groups all ovcr the world. the poor miserable slob get sober – “What I’ve always failed to tees, from everybody involved in Each one is as good as the next one. if he wants to, that is. This palov- grasp.” said the Deacon, “is just General Services at headquarters, Thc group is the cornerstone of AA, ering at New York. not to mention how onc piece of the AA jigsaw re- from the Grapevine, from their own right?” junketing thereto and from, mily committees of delegates who have The Deacon put his finger to his lates to another. Intergroup is ‘local serve uscful purposes ( I say Incry; area.’ Okay, we’ll put it to one side been working throughout the year.” lips indicating that he would keep I find I have not come to believe for this discussion. But what about “All right,” said the Deacon, “I quiet. The Delegate warmed to Pis it). but it’s very much secondary to was only stirring you up.” task. the rest of it? You’ve got GSRs, “Each group may elect a Genhitting the individual drunk locally assortcd kinds of conferences, Trus- The Delegate wondered if he with the help he needs.” tees, General Services, World Serv- should go on. Or retreat. No, he eral Service Representative (GSR). “A brave speech. I do not dis- ices, and, presumably, headquarters would take the bull by the horns. 1 say may because they don’t all see agree with ;I word of it,” said thc stafl. All, I should guess, stepping “Do you,” he said to the Deacon fit to do so. In my personal opinion Dclegatc. “You are ;tbsolutely right. all ovcr one another. How do they . who was smiling slightly into the groups are missing the boat if they The organization of AA services, keep things straight? Who runs the smoke of his cigarette, “see that don’t participate in General Service, genertrl services, world services, blackboard over there?” but that’s their privilege. Now the show?” camc offer the first alcoholics so- “Nobody does except the groups. “I do,” said the Deacon unen- GSR carries his -or her group’s bered up in the first group. But it thusiastically. ideas to the Area Assembly. Here’s You rcally can’t say that even the camc soo~rafter, and has bcen im- Gcncral Service Board, which has “Can you spare me a quiet half- a GSR carrying an idea to the Area portant since. The whole point of hour?” Assembly. legal responsibility for hcadquarters having it hcadquarters supported by and thc General Service budget, “Why, yes, I think so.” the groups is to see if we can usc it rrtrls AA. The groups run it.” “I mean,” said the Delegate, “will to help us do a better job at the “I’m awarc that the groups run you keep quiet for a half hour? individual group level.” I ~ C ~ S C I V Csaid S , “the Deacon, “but In other words, I wish to talk while “It’s rcitlly a mirttcr of communi- I fail to see that the groups run you listen.” ci~tion~,”thc Dckgatc went on. cvcrything clsc, so I submit that “Fire away,” said the Deacon, “The groups need to keep in touch headquarters runs itsclf and no settling back in the chair. After with the groups; there have to bc doubt does so in a high-handed fourteen years in AA he found it

“The Area Assemblies of GSRs, be- True representative democracy.” “And the GSRs in turn reporting “The Grapevine corporation’s sides meeting annually (sometimes “I trust that you represent us to their groups.” sole function is to put out the qui~rterly), work in committees with the utmost judiciousness?” said monthlv AA magazine. which throughout the year to study area the Dcacon. problems and ncctls.” “1 try, although I can’t deny that “l’l~isis great artwork,” thc Dcii- an occasional human crror might con intcrruptcd. “Tell me, what crccp in.” kind of idcas do the GSRs carry in “Wcll, that,” said the Dcacon those suitcascs?” hindly, “is one of the perils of The Dclcgatc decided to rcniain tlcmocriicy.” .. unrulkd. “I’m glad you asked that l’llc Dclcgatc started to answcr, “Or fellow alcoholics,” the Dclquestion,” he said. “Commcnt, thought better of it, and turned back “Vcry effective,” the Dcacon commentcd. “Is that thc story?” cgatc iinswcred. criticism, suggestions for change in to the blackboard. “Thank you,” said the Dclegatc. “You win that round,” sighed the AA policies and general services, or He drew a picture of himself (or “It’s only about half the story.” Dcacon. objection to any changes. Just about any of the other eighty-four deleanything on the subject of AA you gates) carrying ideas to the annual Thc Dcacon groaned. The Dclc- The Dclcgatc went back to work. can think of.” General Service Conference. gatc went on unperturbed: “Sincc “AA World Scrvices is thc corpo- “Proceed,” the Deacon ordered. He then drew in the Conference. we are embarked on this descrip- ration which conducts most of what “Now the U.S. and Canada are He put in the Trustees (The Gen- tion of AA structure, let me show we consider Gcncral Services. Its divided into eighty-five geographical eral Service Board of Alcoholics you how headquarters providcs dircctorate is madc up of seven .

areas; thus there are eighty-five Anonymous, Inc.) . scrviccs for groups.” The Dclegatc AAs, onc of whom is a staff memdelcgi~tcs.(Eventually we hope other skctchcd rapidly, talking ils he her, and another the manager of countries will have thcir own Gen- drew. “Thc General Scrvicc Confcr- Gcncral Scrviccs. It includes the era1 Service set-ups paralleling this encc, reprcscnting the groups, itnd entire AA publishing operation, the North Amcrican one.) Each Area the Trustccs who arc thc custodians AA books and pamphlets, you of AA’s legal corporiitions and of know. Assembly clccts ;I delegate and an altcrnatc for two yciir terms. Dele- AA funds, together guide our AA “Lmts of money in thiit,” the gates are chargcd by thcir Area service functions. Dcacon suggested. Assemblies with ideas to carry to The Trustees (Thc General Scrv- “Not a lot. Somc. Not enough to “And now,” he said, “let me ice Board) nominate and elect thc support the show by a long shot. the annual meeting of the General show the Area delegates returning Directors of AA World Scrviccs, Thus the appeal to groups that can Service Conference. In other words, from the Gcncral Service Confer- Inc., and the Corporatc Board of iifl’ord it to contribute $3.00 per the delegate represents all the ence with ideas to report to the thc AA Grapevine, Inc. member annually to General Servgqoups of his areit at thc big annual Area Asscmblics. nlccting of the ConTcrcncc; hc carric\ to it their hopes i d problcms. k ‘ h u r ~Iic ccmc\ 11trc.A from the Gcncr;tl Scrvicc (‘oril’crcncc, Iic’s cxp.ctcd to rcport o n it lo the (;Sl<s of I l l \ Arc;r ;rnd to ;IS many of tllc incl~vitlu;rl groups ;is will hear him, and t l ~ i i t he can physically get to.

‘ baffles me. You just now men- fer) performs. They are in touch “Is that all there is to it?’asked “Yes,” said the Delegate, “but tioned “General Services,” and a with groups in the United States the Deacon. “That’s the structure?” they get a whale of a lot of work moment ago you were talking and Canada and all over the world, “Well, I’ve left out . . .” done for the 350,000 members of ttbautJ’World Services.” How do with groups in prisons and hos- “I knew it,” sighed the Deacon. AA. A lot of AA communicatior you keep one separate from the pitals, with loners and sea-going “Go on.” reaches some of the umpteen milother or are they the same thing?” Internationalists. Besides, they serve “I left out the fact that the Con- lions of still sufTcring alcoholics in “Really they’re the same. AA as secretaries of the various Trus- ference delegates divide themselves the world. The whole thing wouldn’t World Services, Inc. is responsible tee, World Service, and Conference into committees in order to cover make sense unless it was building to The General Service Board. But committees, and work on the big their work more eiliciently. toward more active AA members, AA World Services conducts what every-five-year A A Convention. “And the Trustees have commit- sober drunks. i give you my perwe call Generul Services, or what (The next one’s in ’65 in Canada.) tees, made up of some of their own sonal word that’s why I’m going to we call The General Service Ofice They work on AA publications, put members and additional AA vol- New York: to see if we can, workin New York. Matter of names. It out the Exdwnge Bulletin, the unteers, to make studies and recom- ing together, reach more and more might simplify it if we gave the World Directory, the Internutionul- mendations. alcoholics.” different parts numbers. You know: ists’ Romd Robin . . . I think we’ve “And we haven’t shown the ac- “I remain not entirely convinced The Trustees could be GSI. World material for another whole lecture counting, records, shipping, and about it all,” the Deacon responded Services would become GS2. The like this to do a fair job describing clerical departments of AA World gently. Grapevine, GS3 …” World Services.” Services.” “That’s your privilege,” said the “stop. You’d make it worse; you “Another time,” the Deacon “Spare me that,” the Deacon Delegate. “1’11 be checking with you would all be up for being spies.” commented. waved his hand. when I get back from New York, “Maybe so, anyway, let me fin- “Another time,” the Delegate “And the Grapevine has a busi- and will fill you in on what tranish. It’s really impossible to pin agreed, stepping back from the ness department.. .” spired.” down in a drawing or a few words blackboard to survey his design of “A veritable Versailles of depart- “I’d like to know, at that,” said the varietv of services AA World the way headquarters provides serv- ments and committees,” the Dca- the Deacon. I Services (br GSO Staff, if you pre- ices to the groups. con drawled. Anonymous

June 1 9 6 4

(From the June 1%4 Grapevine)

June 1964

HOW I LOST MY PERSONAL ANONYMITY

S EVERAL years ago one of the clients of the ad agency I work for was sponsoring a weekly draclients, and TV producer, or help let twenty million people be persuaded that alqoholism can be matic TV show -one of the top caused by personal problems ten shows of that season. Part of my rather than vice versa. job was representing the client at After a rough debate with myself, sessions with the producer of the I went over to see the client, told show; the client held me responsible him I was a member of AA, and for the quality of the dramatic fare cited Chapter and Verse on what I he sponsored on the nation’s screens. believed to be the fallacy of the One day I received from the pro- script. ducer a proposed script for a show He agreed that the script should which would star two glittering be changed. I called the producer. Hollywood personalities. The story The script was changed. ‘ was about a marital rift which Here’s where the selfish part of caused the husband to drink alco- our program comes in. Of course 1 holically. When the rift was re- was relieved that millions of people paired, the husband returned to would be spared a misleading treatnormal drinking, and the happy ment of alcoholism. But far more couple walked hand-in-hand into the important than that to me, I found setting sun. that by telling my associates that I Up to this point in my AA career, was in AA, I had given myself the I had warily guarded my anonymity. astonishing gift of freedom from 1 was now faced with a dilemma. furtiveness. Either level with fellow workers, B. P., Manhattan, N . Y .

August 1 9 6 4

nd The 2 Tradition . fir a/r group purpose here is but one ultimat~authority, .a loving God as He may express Himself in our group corwience. Our leaders are but trusted servants.. .they do nor govern,

“Now that I’ve been “There’s only one way elected Secretary, a to do it and 1’11tell you …” establish a fund.. . 1 show this gmup m ep a J leddership!” what i t is about wrking the

tirvice it1 AA cat1 be very goixl for our humibty.. . When we have finished Eventually we become “elder statesmenN one job we may be (if we dont choose to be *bleeding deama4f elected to another.. .

but ultimately we will make way for AA leadmhip? The group mscime, aided, newcomers who must advised and abetted by the wisdom, experience We are paid off in sobriety, respect and love. a d humility of the elder statesmen. hm their turn.

(From the August 1964 Grapevine) 335

AA GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1964

T HE more AA birthdays I celebrate the greater becomes my sense of wonder and gratitude for in the other Legacies we have hope for all the suffering alcoholics in the world .Bill W. describes them as need better communication. Millions more would come in if only we knew how to cooperate with the insight that enabled our founders “25,000,000 men and women in other agencies. Let us therefore and their collaborators to write the the world who are still engulfed in perfect our communications.” Big Book. I am just as profoundly A impressed by the language of the alcoholism.” In our three-sided insignia with Unity is again a theme in Bill’s series of articles entitled, “Let’s be Traditions and the Legacies. The the words Recovery, Unity and Friendly with Our Friends.” “We writings of Bill W. and the late Dr. Service, we have another example must remember,” he writes, “that a Bob provide further proof for me, of inspiration in the choice of great many of these condemned life-saving if any were needed, that they and the movement they began were not words. Take Unity, for example. It is (the 25,000,000) are perhaps not amenable (or responsive) to Alcothe product of chance, but were nor parochial, provincial, insular, holics Anonymous. Therefore I rather inspired and guided by a nationalistic, isolationist, or ex- think we ought to cast aside our Higher Power. clusive. Unity is nor just a word to early fears, however justified they commodity This same guidance has, I be- apply to our own little groups, as were at the time, and try to increase our friendly cooperation lieve, enabled our trusted servants members of our own little moveand the General Service Confer- ment, great though it is. Unity must with whomever is trying to tackle ences through the years to avoid the relate us to all alcoholics every- this field. A lot of.people are trying pitfalls that have claimed so many where. What does Bill W. say? in different ways to make a dent in other movements with similar mo- “And of that 25,000,000, we have this huge problem. . . . I think we tivation and objectives. fished one out of every 100. We can go a little overboard on the In our Traditions we have the blueprint for the survival of AA;

are others, and these are many, comers could not help being imfriendly side, because these people confused mind this sounded sen- who are not yet ready for AA, but pressed by his air of sincerity and are in touch with drunks who may sible. . whawlll go to a clinic because of authority. Unfortunately there are approach them, but won’t approach Others, who had been helped by the professional, clinical atmos- still many who would withhold sous.” the clinic, advised me to go there. phere. These men and women, in briety from a suffering alcoholic The old saying, “Only an alco- One man, to whom I quoted the their hundreds and thousands, do rather than see him go to a ‘proholic can help an alcoholic,” is ‘bear’ illustration, said, “Look, frequently find themselves in AA, fessional.’ utterly false and can, I believe, son, if you are ever chased up a long before they would otherwise The Silkworths, the Tiebouts, the even have tragic consequences if tree by a bear, and a man comes have made it, having been intro- Shoemakers, the Clinebells, the held to. When I first came to AA along with a rifle, able and ready to duced to AA members and en- Jellineks, and all those hundreds 1 was made aware very soon of save your life by shooting that bear, couraged to join AA by a clinic of others, are nonalcoholics who conflicting views. Some said, “Don’t are you going to tell him to run staf?. have helped alcoholics. There are go near the -Clinic (an of- along and not come back until he Bill says, “Some of us AAs de- thousands of highly-trained, dedificial program). They will fill you himself has been chased up a tree cry every attempt at therapy, save cated professionals who have never up with a lot of psychological clap- by a bear?” Only then did I see the our own.” How tragically true. so much as had a hangover, but trap and they don’t know what they utter absurdity of the argument, Just last week I heard a man who can and do, every day of their are talking about. Not one of their and to this day I have good reason declaim pontifically, “There’s only lives, help alcoholics to recovery. counselors is an alcoholic.” to thank God for that clinic as well one hope for us drunks. There’s Let me quote once more from Bill One man told me earnestly, “If as for AA. only one place where you will find W.: “More and more we regard all you haven’t been chased up a tree We all know (Bill and others by a bear, you can’t possibly know have said so, and the Big Book understanding and acceptance – who labor in the total field of al- AA. There is no other hope.” Most coholism as our companions on the what it feels like to be chased up a says so) that there are some for of us at the meeting knew that man march from darkness into light. We tree by a bear.” To my sick and whom AA does not work. There as a chronic slipper, one who knew see that we can accomplish toall there is to know about AA, ex- gether what we could never accomcept how to stay sober for more plish in separation and rivalry.” than a few months. But the new- C. R. D., Edmonton, Alberta

October 1 9 6 4

bb We aren’t a bit afraid

(From the October 1964 Grapevine)

February 1 9 6 5

(From the February 1965 Grapevine)

April 1965

‘Outside issue?’ From Sarnia, Ont.: These few moments of writing God, my sponsor, the Twelve Steps come as a ‘time-out’ during my and Traditions. R. B. reading of the February Grapevine. The reason for this pause during From Phenix City, Ala.: the ‘meal’ is to offer a large pat-on- In reply to the gripe of J. .D., the-back to J. D. of Trenton, Mich. Trenton, Michigan February, 1965 for the article “Color Bar?” Page issue of the Grapevine -1 think fourteen is a valuable part of this J. D. is silly. E. C. issue, and speaking of issues I agree with the writer that this is not an ‘outside issue.’ Our Fellowship should surely be one place where we all are one. Let’s hope it will help all of us to put a little more of our talk into action. D. C. M.

From North Attleboro, Mass.: After reading “Another Gripe” February, 1965, I should like to suggest that if there are segregated groups in certain areas I hope that . they reread the Twelve Traditions. Tradition Three: The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. , Tradition Five: Each group has but one primary purpose . . . to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suflers. The freedom of this program has much to do with my sobriety. No one said when I came in, “What is your race, religion, or background?” At every meeting I am happy with my new lease on life. Thanks to

M a y 1965 ber in it, and everybody knows it, it’s hard to persuade newspapers and magazines that his participation is not a vital part of the news about that person. In a way it is. It’s just How Anonymous Should You Be? that we in AA feel it’s news that isn’t fit to print. But we haven’t any soul he is flirting with AA is usually power except the power to keep our nursing a reservation and wants a mouths shut so that the other fellow door back to drinking. Tennessee a

It m a y look easy has as good a chance as we have goes on to say: t o practise t h e s e c o n d A in AA, of being anonymous in his participa- “Not long ago one of our newer tion in the sobriety that refreshes. members approached me and said b u t it doesn’t always work out t h a t way Certainly one of the great disad- that he had been talking to a friend vantages in the loss of anonymity, about his drinking problem. I said either by a celebrity or by an entire- that was good, as I knew the man You know how it works. We all ly unsung member, is the potential and several of us had talked to him T HE matter of anonymity is up for discussion again. Or it is still up, if you will, since we have do. You bump into famous so-andso at a meeting in Los Angeles, or damage not only to himself but to without any results. I said, ‘Of AA and other alcoholics if he has a course you let him know you were never managed, in thirty years of New York, or Washington, where slip. This is glaringly obvious in the a member?’ He replied he hadn’t AA, to agree on all the questions celebrities tend to live. When you case, say, of a theatrical personality because of our anonymity tradition. with respect to anonymity that arise get home to your group, do you who is first nobly dry and then, as Here is a good example of carrying within our Fellowship, nor have we manage to keep it a secret? Do you we read in all the gossip columns, anonymity too far! been able to get complete, one- tell one or two of the members? Do regrettably drunk. Score nothing for “In my own case it was nearly a hundred per cent cooperation with you tell your wife, who of course AA or anybody. And look at the year before I wanted anyone to all outside publicity agencies in ob- keeps in touch with other wives? If case of an ordinary fellow who know of my AA membership. Today serving our Eleventh Tradition, you do, and it all seems quite harmT sobers up and announces his par- I don’t care who knows it. I have which states that we “need always less, after all, are you aware you are ticipation in AA all over the neigh- always said that I have never remaintain personal anonymity at the helping to make it hard for that borhood, all over town. If he slips, ceived a punch in the nose, or a level of press, radio and films.” person to stay anonymous? Look at he has made a demonstration which snide remark when I have told of Let us hasten to say, however, it this way. When you are tempted can be used by other alcoholics to my affiliation. In fact, it has led me and gratefully, that AA has had ex- to say you saw some nationally help them put off facing their drink- to many prospective members with traordinary cooperation over the known figure at an AA meeting, ask ing problem who knows how long. good results. Don’t get me wrong, I years from press, radio and televi- yourself if you would tell anybody You can hear it now. Wife to hus- don’t believe in wearing an AA emsion in maintaining anonymity. Such if it happened to be your pastor or band: “Join AA.” Husband: “What blem on my arm, or shouting the an anonymity break as occurred a minister at church. Wouldn’t YOU for, look at Whoosis, he’s worse than fact from the street corner. I do few months ago in a national maga- keep his anonymity in that case? I am and he’s in that outfit. Nothing know that when I became proud of zine serves to remind us how few Then why not in the case of the well- in it. Not for me.” the fact I was a member, I built a breaks at ‘press level’ there are. known person? Can you overdo anonymity? A better AA foundation under me, And it serves to point up how very Actually, once it gets around that writer from Tennessee (name of and it helped to knock down my difficult it is for a celebrity to keep a celebrity, a statesman let’s say, is Anon.) says you can. In his experi- mental reservations about ever behis private business private. a credit to AA, and an active mem- ence, ‘the fellow who will tell not a ing able to drink again.

I can only state my feelings toward he knows one or two persons it has “My suggestion to the newer spondents.) this problem and pray for the people worked for, he is more receptive to members is to let your close friends Connecticut points out that per- who have hurt us.” having his patients try it. and business associates know as sonal anonymity has different weight F. S. of New York writes, on the “Now for the practical side: helpsoon as possible of your new way of in small towns than in big cities. But other side of the ledger, of the ad- ing doctors to use the tools of AA. life. You will not receive any gold even in small towns attitudes are not vantages of making yourself known I’ve found that doctors who have cups or medals (they are not all the same. You may find this a to doctors as an AA: had no special reason to know about handed out for being normal), but shocker: A member’s anonymity “For the past ten years I’ve made AA are hesitant to have their patient believe me you will get many a pat was broken in his small New Eng- call Intergroup or Central Service a point of telling doctors that I was on the back and it can lead you to land town where he had been ac- in AA. Then, if I found they were directly, except in the most despermany interesting experiences.” cepted as a drunk -but as a mem- interested, whether it was at a cock- ate situations. And in rural areas Too often, when you begin gen- ber of AA he is now a pariah in tail party or in a consulting room, where there is often no phone listing, eralizing about this anonymity busi- the community. He does Twelfth they don’t know whom to phone. ness, you begin to get away from Step work regularly, but warns pig- “Therefore, if a physician is inthe true facts of the problems AA eons to keep away from him in the terested, telling him you’d be willing members have with it. It is easy to outside world SQ they won’t be to talk to any patient he might refer . lay down a few rules and make a tarred with the same brush or found to you with an alcoholic problem few statements of watertight virtue, guilty by association. Despite this can be downright helpful to him. and then pack up and go home satis- detestable reaction to his known And then check with other AA fied that the subject has been ade- sobriety, this AA has accepted his members in your community and, if quately handled. Real life is differ- loneliness and continues to live the they have no objection, have them ent. ?;hings go wrong. Good inten- program. leave their phone numbers with the tions sometimes seem to land us in Another member had been active I’ve told them about my personal doctor. the soup. An easy carelessness can at group and Intergroup levels. As experience in the Fellowship. This “Calls that come from doctors’ cost somebody a lot of agony. That’s a result, her name has probably been is a kind of Twelfth Step work that patients can be the most rewarding why we should like to put before mentioned at various levels more kind of Twelfth Step work. For frequently than would otherwise has paid off. you here a number of remarks on some of them have just admitted anonymity made by AA members have been the case. “My brother is “The doctors I’ve talked to both in New York and a small village on their alcoholism to their doctors for from all over the place which were a therapist and the director of an the first time. If an AA member is carefully extracted from a large mass alcoholic clinic. Several people not Eastern Long Island, about 100 miles from the city, have all known available right then to help lead of correspondence by a loyal con- only annoyed me, but also tried to them to recovery, they may save tributor from East Norwalk, Con- ‘attack’ my brother. Fortunately, he something about AA. However, their knowledge and attitude about themselves years of misery.” necticut, who signed his name, is very well adjusted and realized “Anonymous, what does it matter that these people are sick. . I . the work of the program varied widely. I don’t believe that I’ve “I ask you,” writes another member, “if I have no regard for my own who wrote it?” (He says he bor- wouldn’t think of giving up the Felrowed this from one of his corre- lowship because of this. For now, much increased any M.D.3 knowl- anonymity at the public level, edge about AA or even changed his should the drunk at home before his attitude appreciably, but I have giv- TV or newspaper think that I will en him a personal contact and an have any regard for his?” example of personal recovery. The We believe that no one in our average general practitioner hasn’t Fellowship may rightfully object to got the time to explore AA, but if not being named. But many of us,

with very good reason, object to In common with many another being publicly identified by name, AA wife, Joe’s spouse “could never even within the closed area of our understand that my problem was Fellowship. “Let us guard our fellow drink – not women.” You can alcoholic’s anonymity jealously.” So guess what happened on several ocwrites one member who favors ex- casions. Joe’s wife answered the treme care. phone; a female voice asked for Joe; On the other side of the coin is when asked who was calling, the this: voice said to Mrs. Joe, “Oh, it’s “Some people over the years have Jane -he knows me.” Our Conexcused themselves from doing any necticut contributor says, “Ladies, Twelfth Step work on the premise please!” that it endangered their anonymity. And then he concludes: “The sec- If someone came to meetings and ond A in AA is this precious; it is embraced our wonderful program, the word in our name that sets us that was different. They were very apart from all other alcoholics. Here anxious to be asked to sponsor the are some working suggestions for very person they had refused to protecting it: make the initial call on.” 1 – Remain anonymous at the Here’s the case of a member – level of press, radio and telelet’s call him Joe Doe -who holds vision. – ‘^

an important executive post. Eight 2 – Never break’another member’s or nine years ago he was on the anonymity without his converge of losing that position when, sent. That’s his privilege, not by the grace of God, he found AA. yours. The remarkable change in his life, 3 – If you plan to break your which is a commonplace story to anonymity, ask yourself, “Is it those who know the miracles of our for personal gain or prestige, Fellowship, deferred his exit from or is it seriously and only to the company. With his growing so- help other alcoholics?” Unless briety, other problem drinkers were it is for the latter reason, leave referred to him and, with A A be- it unbroken. hind him, Joe had considerable suc- 4 – Break your anonymity with cess in helping them recover. clergymen, doctors, lawyers “My only worry on this score,” and law officers if you know writes Joe, “is that I am associated them, and know that they will with many other executives, not only use you as a gateway for other in this company but in others as alcoholics to come to AA. well, who need help, but who shun 5 – Reread the first two suggesthe thought of approaching me be- tions.” cause of my being an alcoholic.” Anonymous

June 1965

Anonymity From Reading Pa.: To me the tradition of anonymity bership in front of her friends in in AA is the basis of its durability. her house, much to my regret, since 1 don’t think the need for it is I enjoyed visits with her, I will no stressed enough or fully explained longer visit there. The curious and to new members. When I came into sometimes repugnant looks, plus the the program, I was not fully con- obviously strained conversation afvinced that 1 was an alcoholic and terwards, is more than I care to was frightened that my attendance accept. Another wife mentioned a at meetings would become known. woman member in a local beauty This did not happen through AA shop, where the member was quite members. 1 made the mistake of well known. I know that the wife tclling a rel’ation who was not re- did this unintentionally and felt liable and suffered a good deal as badly later but the damage had the result. The misery was purely been done. mental on my part and when I be- There is still another need for came convinced that I did indeed stressing anonymity, which is perneed AA for my very life, this be- haps even more important. How came unimportant. many of us have seen new members However, 1 frequently see where come in, stay dry a few weeks, get lack of anonymity has done damage on that rosy cloud and tell the world in other ways. The most frequent all about it only to show up drunk person to ignore this important tra- again? I wonder what some of the dition is the relative of the arrested non-AAs think about us then? Do alcoholic. Needless to say, their they think that the definition “The new-found happiness is a joy to be- difference between a drunk and an hold, and one can understand their alcoholic is that the latter attends desire to spread the joyous news. meetings” is true? However, in their undisguised en- All we have to offer a ‘shopper’ thusiasm, they sometimes speak of is the living evidence at our meetother members in the program. to ings, but the friends and relatives of anyone who happens to be listening., prospective members would be hesi- Twice now, the wife of one of our tant after listening to a drunk sob members has mentioned my mem- out the story of AA or, worse yet, extol1 it when sober, and then get uproariously drunk. We can’t avoid slippers (I was one and I know). However, we can impress upon them the need for anonymity at all times. ANONYMOUS

July 1965

The J& ~ r a d ition fsch g/oup has but one primary pu/pose t~carry its message to the alcoholic who sti/l suffers.

No matter how different our own personal concerns, we are al: sound together by one common RESPONSIBILIW.. .to carry the message to ,thesuffer’ing alcoholic.

.

Helping drunks is the one thing we can do supremely well. Not because we’re experts, but because, as alcoNolics, we found the key to sobriety.

And we c a n t keep i t . .. unless wegiveitsway. lkenitgmwsforalltoshare.

(From the July 1%5 Grapevine)

November 1965

The 6 Tradition An AA gmup ought newr enobtse, fin~ncew lend ~%eAA name & any mhted facility or cwtside mt4rpr/se, /em5 pmb/ems of momy prcperQ andprestige divert us fmm ourprimry putpose,

0 But if we tried to build When we found we had hospitals, or clean up politics, a program to help us some of us that or cure neurosis, or make people in masteving the bottle.. . we had uncorked a power we might commn love one another.. .our power, fbr the betterment somehow, seemed to vanish…. of all mankind.. ,

We found that there are all kinds of goals, motives and ambitions.. .

(From the November 1965 Grapevine) 3 A C

February 1 9 6 6

The 7& Tradition Every AA group ouqht to be Fu& se/f-uppor~hq, declining outside confribut ions.

I

The lure of mney has led many a s h y . It could happen to us.

In short; the ir~espnsible h v e become responsible!

April 1966

Principles before personalities From Rochester, N. Y.: a while yet. 1 just hope God will Congratulations on the choice of grant me enough wisdom and the 1966 Conference theme, Prin- strength to seek it honestly. ciples before Personaliries. It is most Time and again I have had to timely and relevant. Unfortunately knuckle under to Step Three only to it is not as simple as it sounds. tind out later that it was the only Principles do not exist in a vacuum; course I could have chosen, but they are carried and spread by per- God in his wisdom let me choose. It sonalities, so it is a pretty good idea is just possible that He knows what if I have clean hands before I grab He is about and it behooves me to off a load of principles and start be most attentive to some pretty spreading them. well-established principles because I find it most enlightening if I I have been known to get confused first take a long hard look at my at times. J. H. B. own motives and try to find out who’s greater glory 1 am trying to promote before I get off the launching pad. This saves a good deal of embarrassment later when 1 am not quite as loaded with talent and charm as I would like sometimes to think. Personalities come and go but valid principles endure. ‘:Truth was before the world was” and I expect it is going to continue that way for

June 1966

(From the June 1966 Grapevine)

October 1 9 6 6

The 9th Tradition AA, as scrh ought never be wqanized but we may c r i t e semce boads orammittees direcffy responsible to those they serve.

TIlERE ARE NO MEMBERSWIP IREQUIIIREMENTS! WE COULDN’T KICK

1 WE __ DO SET UP WM1a”lrlEES AND BOARDS e o o

– But whether they make coffee.. . or help organize qroups in deepest Africa.. . THW OmY SERVE9

Fekruary 1967

The naditicm AMofics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence i!he AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

1\ 1 want to say one thinq. …and I say AA should And 9 t k~ to AA, ,h a ~ start the ball rolling I have vna~ntaineda But befbre I sit down.. . 1 here and now to drive

1

(From the February 1967 Grapevine) 351

March 1967

derful. He only had one comment Promotion – education? know us very well through personal to make which was our inability to From Calgary, Alberta: contact or through the family or take a more realistic stand in this I think the big lag in our program friends. The rest? Blank. illness. He said we had never had is the very straight line that some of We have two worlds, the non and the faith in ourselves to trust ourthe membership have between pro- the alcoholic, and the fence or wall selves; that we still maintained the motion and education. Here we are is there in all its glory. I firmly be- majority on the Board of AA as going on thirty-three years of age, lieve that if a lot more of us don’t nonalcoholics. I informed him of and in the nonalcoholic world get off our butts and do something the ratio change. He said he was around us we are practically un- in the educational field that we will glad but also commented that it was known. I am willing to bet that if I be the same as we are now fifty about time, and I think this is true stood at one of our major depart- years hence. There is so much that in many areas. We still sit back ment stores and had a mike and we can do, but the trouble is getting with the conviction that they must tape, and asked one out of every the courage to go back after we come to us; that we are an attracten persons coming through the have been rebuffed a few times. tion and not a promotion. This I door if they knew what AA was, I was at a meeting of a church think is overdone by so many. that a good 15% of them would house for the rehabilitation of the What are the answers? I am sure call us some religious cult, about drunk, and they had a leading doc- that I don’t know. I think that 2% would have heard of us and tor ( a very good friend of ours) P.I.C.* is so very important. I often about 3% would know us, and talking. He thinks AA is just won- think that the small town or community is the best place to start. They usually have one or two doctors who are sympathetic and will work with us. In the bigger cities like ours, it is hard to find a starting point. TED K.

1 April 1967

The 11lB Tradition I

Our pubhi: ~ / ~ t i m s IS based on attraction ovather phcy than promotion; we need dways maintain pemunal anonymity ~t the level o f press, radio and films. \ \

But in AA we know t h a t the big “I am” can be disastrous t o us individually and as a fellowship.

So we established personal anonymity and hoped t h a t AA’s work would speak for itself-

Resutt: We made friends and received a with o f favorable publicitf Bese f r i d s continue to carry the messge at the public level! (From the April 1967 Grapevine)

AA Grapevj May 1967

AA is n o t . . . AA does not. .. AA is not a religious movement AA does not solicit or accept funds from outside sources; voluntary contributions from AA is not a temperance movement members and groups support AA services AA is not a social service organization AA does not run hospitals, rest homes, club- – (it has no paid social workers or houses or any outside enterprises professional field workers) AA does not prescribe treatment for alcoholics AA is not an educational agency AA does not pay for treatment for ‘alcoholics AA is not a cure or a “cure-all”

AA is not an employment agency The sole purpose of AA is to help the alcoholic who wants to stop drinking.

June1967 The 12th Tradition Anonymityisthespiritualfoundationofourtraditions, everremindingustoplaceprinciplesbeforepersonalities. Ours is not a secret society… wecarrythemessage anywherewecan- ANONYMITY Butwemusteverbeaware Sacrificing thatself-appointedmessiahs personal ambition speakingforAAatthepublic levelcandousgreatdamage! for the commongood Let us always remember that anonymity-not taking credit for our own or others’recovery-is humility atwork.

October 1967

self-supporting. Neither do AA groups try to meet the rehabilitation expenses of thousands of newcomers. Long ago we learned that that was impractical. Instead, AA offers to the new person a spiritual way of life that can eliminate the alcohol problem. With this accomplished, the new person, in the company of his fellow sufferers, can then begin AA’s Tradition of the solution of his personal problems -including the financial one. So AA groups themselves accept no charitable funds – and give Self-Support none away. At first glance, this attitude may seem to be hard-nosed, even callous. An immense experience tells us otherwise. Money gifts – as a prerequisite of getting sober – are usually worthless when made a function of an AA group. Of course, we see AA’s primary charity in the Twelfth Step activities of tens of thousands of us as we daily carry the AA mes- AA’s co-founder discusses the reasons why A A groups sage to newcomers. We travel millions of miles; we absent ourdo not seek charity arzd why they support selves from business and home. In the hagregate, we lay out very large sums. As individuals, we do not hesitate to give temporary A A cerrtral services financial aid to the newcomer, if and when he seems to want sobriety first. Here, then, is money charity aplenty, always given on a very personal, face-to-face basis. And perhaps even this cannot be called wholly charitable, since every Twelfth Step effort means A’S far-flung Twelfth Step activities, carrying the message to the A next sufferer, are the very lifeblood of our AA adventure. Without this vital activity, we would soon become anemic; we more certain sobriety and added spiritual growth for the sponsor. Both these principles we understand: that AA wants no charity; that we support our own services. We understand – but we’ somewould literally wither and die. times forget. Now where do AA’s services -world-wide, area, local -fit into our scheme of things? Why should we provide these functions with money? The answer is simple enough. Every single AA service is designed to make more and better Twelfth Step work possible, whether it be a group meeting place, a Central or Intergroup Oflice to arrange hospitalization and sponsorship, or the World Service Headquarters to maintain unity and eflectiveness all over the globe. Though not costly, these service agencies are absolutely essential to our continued expansion – to our survival as a fellowship. Their costs are a collective obligation that rests squarely upon all of us. Our support of services actually amounts to a recognition on our part that AA must everywhere function in full strength -and that, under our Tradition of self-support, we are all going to foot the bill. We have long known that Alcoholics Anonymous has no need for charitable contributions from any source. Our Fellowship is

AA GRAPEVINE, MAY 1968

‘PROMOTION’ Really a Dirty,Word? Was it ‘promotion’ when Bill called on Dr. Bob? Are we to make many kinds of moves to somebody goes out and tries to sell Did Dr. Bob call Bill W. for help? bring people into AA or to expose AA.” Did the first Akronites call Dr. Bob? being too AA to people -for fear of the Tell me, old-timer, aren’t you Did the alcoholics in Rockland State dirty word “promotion.” “selling” AA when you make a Hospital in 1939 call AA? The ‘aggressively Sure, our policy is based on at- Twelfth Step call? answer to all three questions is no. traction rather than promotion. I’m “Oh, that’s different.”. . . If we judge by the dictionary anonymous’ not going to climb on a soapbox The essence of our imaginary but definition what we know of our coand shout, “My name is Joe Jones, realistic conversation seems to be founders’ early activitics, it becomes as a fellowship? and I am here to save you through that twelfth-stepping is acceptable to clear that they did promote AA. AA!” hard-shell members when it is on a They had to; there was no other way But if I’m serious about AA and one-to-one basis -but is unaccept- to attract other suffering alcoholics

A A’S ELEVENTH Tradition says, my Twelfth Step commitment to “Our public relations policy is carry the AA message to alcoholics based on attraction rather than pro- who still suffer, I’m going to have to able when the ratio is changed by increasing the audience. And that argument does not hold except through “furtherance or encouragement” of the new Fellowship. motion; we need always maintain do something that is suspiciously water when tested. A speaker is per- Along came the first great piece personal anonymity at the level of like promotion before I get through. forming a type of Twelfth Step work of AA promotion, Jack Alexander’s press, radio and films” (and, it The new Random House dictio- at a meeting – and not on a one- famous article in the Saturday Eveshould add, TV!). Let me say at the nary gives us two useful definitions to-one basis. Is he therefore pro- ning Post. Our ranks suddenly start that this article will enter into of promotion: “furtherance or en- moting AA? He certainly is, in the swelled. Other magazine articles and no quarrel with the second half of couragement” and “material issued sense that he is furthering or en- newspaper feature stories appeared, . the Tradition. Let us all continue to in behalf of some product, cause, in- couraging it. and more membership increases folmaintain our personal anonymity stitution, etc.” “That’s regulation AA,” says our lowed. This was promotion; it was where media of communications are “But that’s not what I mean by mossback old-timer. “That kind of “material issued in behalf of” AA. involved. But I do quarrel with the promotion” is bound to be heard Twelfth Step work is okay; so is the And alcoholics were helped, not interpretation that is being put, from an old-timer. real kind, where you visit somebody hurt. more and more, on the first half of Okay, what do you mean by the who has called for help.” Together with the growth of AA the Tradition: that it enjoins us not word? “Well, you know, when Now wait a minute, old-timer. and a deepening understanding of

our disease came a startling discov- “Attraction” alone – just sitting of AA or have misconceptions con- AA literature, or catch a few words ery: An alcoholic is not necessarily passively and waiting for sick alco- cerning the Fellowship as a whole about AA on radio or TV. someone on skid row! In the very holics to find us and observe our and our members as individuals. If But what we will never know is -eWlrdays of AA, he was likely to sobriety -could not have accom- any AA member can read that state- how many other desperate alcobe. So AA changed to accommodate plished such explosive growth. ment and not have a desire to take holics there are who have not been that discovery; there was an influx of The total conscience of AA, aug- action, this is the day for him to so fortunate, who might respond to new members who had not lost mented by well-motivated persons burn his I Am Responsible wallet our program if they knew of it. Are everything; and many of them were (AAs and nonalcoholics) in jour- I card! our promotion efforts strong enough in a position to reach the public. nalism and other forms of mass Our Thirtieth Anniversary Con- to reach them, too? “Name” writers produced articles; communication and in other alco- vention in 1965 adopted as its How many potential members do radio and television “personalities” holism agencies, has snowballed our theme Whenever anyone, anywhere, we lose each year to the “incurable” furthered the cause. The Public In- Fellowship. With growth has come reaches out for help, I want the wards? How many to imprisonment, formation Committee of AA’s Gen- further knowledge, knowledge as hand of AA always to be there. And asylums, and death? Must we go on eral Service Board began to take the important as the discovery that an for that: I Am Responsible. If you losing them because AA is, as J. P. initiative in suggesting printed and alcoholic is not necessarily a Bowery accept that theme, you accept a Miller* phrased it when he spoke broadcast information about AA; so derelict. In respect to the present great responsibility, because suffer- in Toronto, too “aggressively anonydid local public-information workers. subject, the most important piece of ing alcoholics at this moment are mous” as a fellowship? All were promoting AA, and as this newfound knowledge is that vast reaching out for help – without Promotion is nor a dirty word. a result the Fellowship sprawled out numbers of suffering alcoholics are knowing where to reach. The dirty words in AA are: inacinto almost every city and hamlet in not receiving any help. No one is We all know of fortuitous cases tivity, self-satisfaction, do-like-me, the country, north to Canada, south doing anything for them. Their where the desperate alcoholic has status quo. to Latin America, across all the families, friends, employers, and “just happened” to spot a meeting W . R., South Norwalk, Conn. oceans of the world. I . P. Miller, author of Days of Wine and doctors are either entirely ignorant announcement, pick up a piece of Roses

AA Grapevine, August 1968 heap is the Saturday-night kind of reached that position (either willspeaker. He is the prime attraction ingly or unwillingly) because their at any convention. The other speak- AA talks originally did come from ers occupy places lower on the play- the heart. They gave genuinely good Are We Grooming a bill than he. A Friday-night type of talks because they were good, strong SHOW-OFF ELlTE speaker is not as good. AAs. Then they were somehow What impact does this grading caught up in the tide and carried at AA Conventions? have on the speakers themselves? to convention after convention. Perhaps they try to outdo one an- Many an elite speaker, I suspect, other – a practice that can raise has a secret desire to be just an- The emergence of p r o m i n e n t , special, red-hot s p e a k e r s hell with personal honesty. Perhaps other AA member – to get out of they try to entertain their audience, the rat race. is, according t o this m e m b e r , a contradiction thus losing the sense of fellowship, Thus, it is conceivable that conof our Twelfth T r a d i t i o n of unity, or of oneness with their ventions can be quite dangerous if fellow alcoholics. Or perhaps they handled in this way, with anonymity try to impress the audience, and continually broken and promotion come up completely phony. running rampant. If we continue to thing? It’s preposterous! Perhaps they write and memo- overstress the importance of these I LOVE AA conventions and conferences and attend every one that I can afford. But something But it is thus that a new elite is being created within AA – an elite rize “canned” speeches, use-tested for influence on audiences – either special events, do we not run the risk of forgetting how the basic, about them bothers me, and I would of convention speakers. This elite is as laugh-getters or as tear-jerkers. primary, and only purpose of AA is like to share this apprehension with being created, of course, by putting Some speakers have been known to best carried out? That is certainly in you. personalities over principles, for it practice their speeches before mir- our groups, on Twelfth Step calls, There is a great deal of promo- is not what the speaker represents rors, getting every smile and every and in a personal and sustained eftion involved in setting up and op- that matters to the promoters – it gesture just right to insure maxi- fort to grow spiritually through the erating conventions, and naturally is precisely who he is that matters. mum effect. Fine thing for an ad- practice of the Twelve Steps. those who do the work want them Often, when talking with other mitted egocentric to be doing! Conventions do play an importo be a success. They have every members at conventions, I feel they Worst of all, however, is the in- tant part in the carrying of the AA right to feel this way. However, the have come to watch a performance, tense pressure that each member of message. I am not concerned about methods used in promotion con- not to share experience, strength, the new elite must feel. When he’s them as long as we realize that they cern me. The chief technique is to and hope. Many are there to be en- convinced that he must live up to are just a part, as long as we reuse, as drawing cards the speakers tertained. Some idolize the speakers. his reputation every time he talks, member that the message, not the who have been invited. If you ques- Yes, I have been guilty of this my- naturally his talk is just mouthed for messenger, is the prime asset of tion this approach, which gives the self. effect. It does not come from the AA. God has placed this message speakers’ names and reputations – So much for the audience. Now heart, as the true AA message in our trust. If it is not kept in first and all too often their professions let’s look at the effect on the “per- should. The old desire to be “some- place, it may be lost. Then there will -the usual answer will be that it formers.” How does their status as body” has been reawakened in him; be no need for messengers at all. is necessary to have “big name” elite convention speakers affect the old alcoholic ego has been Pray for me, and understand my speakers in order to draw a crowd. them personally? First of all, let us stirred into action once more. apprehension, for I have, I suspect, Should a program based on personal understand that some are more elite The sad part of this whole matter lately become a member of the elite. anonymity have “big name” any- than others. At the top of the is that almost all of the new elite Anonymous, Charlotte, N.C.

AA GRAPEVINE, SEPTEMBER 1968 generation of able members swarms Consequently, good leadership will in. We have an abundance of men often discard its own cherished and women whose dedication, plans for others that are better, stability, vision, and special skills and it will give credit to the source. make them capable of dealing with Good leadership never passes the every possible service assignment. buck. Once assured that it has, or We have only to seek these folks can obtain, sufficient general backing, it freely takes decisions and “Our leaders do not drive puts them into action forthwith, provided, of course, that such acby mandate, they tions be within the framework of its lead by example.” defined authority and responsibility. . A politico is an individual who out and trust them to serve us. is forever trying to “get the people Somewhere in our literature there what they want.” A statesman is is a statement to this effect: “Our an individual who can carefully leaders do not drive by mandate, discriminate when and when not to they lead by example.” In effect we do this. He recognizes that even are saying to them, “Act for us, large majorities, when badly disbut don’t boss us.” turbed or uninformed, can, once in 4 leader in AA service is there- a while, be dead wrong. When such fore a guy (or a gal) who can an occasional situation arises, and personally put principles, plans, and something very vital is at stake, policies into such dedicated and it is always the duty of leadership, effective action that the rest of us even when in a small minority, to o SOCIETY can function well want to back him up and help him take a stand against the storm- N without able leadership in all i t s levels, a n d A A c a n b e n o apt to demand that AA’s leaders must necessarily be people of the most sterling judgment, morals, and with his job. When a leader powerdrives us badly, we rebel; but when using its every ability of authority and persuasion to effect a change. exception. It must be said, though, he too meekly becomes an order- Nothing, however, can be more inspiration; big doers, prime exthat we AAs sometimes cherish the taker and he exercises no judgment fatal to leadership than opposition amples to all, and practically inthought that we can do without any of his own-well, he really isn’t a for opposition’s sake. It never can fallible. leadership at all. We are apt to leader at all. be “Let’s have it our way or no way Real leadership, of course, has to Good leadership originates plans, at all.” This sort of opposition is warp the traditional idea of “princi- function in between these entirely policies, and ideas for the improve- often powered by a visionless pride ples before personalities” around to imaginary poles. In AA, certainly, ment of our Fellowship and its ser- or a gripe that makes us want to such a point that there would be no leader is faceless and neither is no “personality” in leadership what- vices. But in new and important block something or somebody. Then any leader perfect. Fortunately, our ever. This would imply rather face- matters it will nevertheless consult there is the opposition that casts Society is blessed with any amount less automatons trying to please widely before taking decisions and its vote saying, “No,. we don’t like of real leadership-the active peoeverybody, regardless. actions. Good leadership will also it.” No real reasons are ever given. ple of today and the potential At other times we are quite as remember that a fine plan or idea This won’t do. When called upon, leaders for tomorrow, as each new This article first appeared In the can come from anybody, anywhere. leadership must always give its April 1959 Issue of the Grapevine

reasons, and good ones. ought never fail to give them a care- and we can try to forget the whole if ever there was one. Of course, we A . Then, too, a leader must realize ful hearing. We should be willing business. We can think of few better shall often miscalculate the future that even very prideful or angry to let them modify our opinions or means of self-survey, of developing in whole or in part. But even so, people can sometimes be dead right, change them completely. Often, too, genuine patience, than the workouts this will be far better than to rewhen the calm and the more hum- we shall have to disagree and then these usually well-meaning but fuse to think at all. ble are quite mistaken. stand fast without losing their erratic brother members can afford The making of estimates has These points are practical illus- friendship. us. This is always a large order, and several aspects. We look at past and trations of the kinds of careful dis- Then we have those whom we we shall sometimes fail to make present ‘experience to see what we crimination and soul-searching that like to call our “destructive” critics. good on it ourselves. But we must think it means. From this, we detrue leadership must always try to They power-drive, they are poli- needs keep trying. rive a tentative idea or policy. exercise. tickers, they make accusations. Now comes that all-important Looking first at the nearby future, Another qualification for leader- Maybe they are violent, malicious. attribute of vision. Vision is, I we ask how our idea or policy ship is give-and-take-the ability They pitch gobs of rumors, gossip, think, the ability to make good might work. Following this estimate, to compromise cheerfully whenever and general scuttlebutt to gain their estimates, both for the immediate a proper compromise can cause a ends-all for the good of AA, of and for the more distant future. “If an idea situation to progress in what ap- course! Well, in AA at least, we Some might feel this sort of striving looks like a good bet, pears to be the right direction. have at last learned that these folks, to be a sort of heresy because we who may be a trifle sicker than the AAs are constantly telling ourselves, we try it o n . . .” “. . . progress is nearly always rest of us, need not be really de- “One day at a time.” But that characterized by a series structive at all, depending entirely valued maxim really refers to our we ask how our policies and ideas on how we relate ourselves to them. emotional lives and means only that might work under the several difof improving compromises.” To begin with, we ought to listen we are not to repine over the past fering conditions that could arise very carefully to what they say. nor wishfully fantasy or daydream in the longer future. If an idea Compromise comes hard to us Sometimes they are telling the about our future. looks like a good bet, we try it on all-or-nothing drunks. Nevertheless, whole truth; at other times, a little As individuals and as a fellow- -always experimentally, when that we must never lose sight of the fact truth. More often, though, they are ship, we shall surely suffer if we is possible. Somewhat later, we rethat progress is nearly always char- just rationalizing themselves into cast the whole job of planning for value the situation and ask whether acterized by a series of improving nonsense. If we are within range, tomorrow onto a kind Providence. our estimate is, or may soon be, compromises. We cannot, however, the whole truth, the half-truth, or God has endowed us human beings working out. compromise always. Now and then even no truth at all can equally with considerable capability for At about this stage, we may have it is truly necessary to stick flat- hurt us. That is why we have to foresight, and He evidently expects to take a critical decision. Maybe footed to one’s conviction about an listen so carefully. If they’ve got us to use it. Therefore, we must we have a policy or plan that still issue until it is settled. These are the whole truth, or even a little needs distinguish between wishful looks fine and is apparently doing situations for keen timing and a truth, then we’d better thank them dreaming for a happy tomorrow well. Nevertheless, we ought to most careful discrimination as to and get on with our respective in- and today’s use of our powers of pondcr very carefully what its longwhich course to take. ventories, admitting we were wrong, thoughtful estimate-estimate of time cffect will be. Will today’s Leadership is often called upon regardless. If it’s nonsense, we can the kind which we trust will bring nearby advantages boomerang into to face heavy and sometimes long- ignore them. Or we can lay all the futyre progress rather than unfore- large liabilities for tomorrow? The continued criticism. This is an acid cards on the table and try to per- seen woe. temptation will almost always be test. There are always the construc- suade them. Failing this, we can bk Vision is therefore the very es- to seize the nearby benefits and tive critics. our friends indeed. We sorry they are too sick to listen, sence of prudence-a sound virtue quite forget about the harmful

precedents or consequences that we term safety in the future. may be setting in motion. We went through this same pro- These are no fancy theories. We cess on anonymity. A few public vary greatly. The conductor of an work itself-something at which have found that we must use these breaks had looked good. But then orchestra is not necessarily good at nearly all of us most eagerly work. principles of estimate constantly, the vision came that many such finance or foresight. And it is even Every sponsor is necessarily a especially at world-service levels breaks could finally raise havoc less likely that a fine banker could leader. The stakes are huge. A where the stakes are high. In public among us. So it went-first a gleam be much of a musical success. human life and usually the happirelations, for example, we must in the eye, then an experimental When, therefore, we talk about AA ness of a whole family hang in the estimate the reaction of both AA policy, then a firm policy, and final; leadership, we declare only that we balance. What the sponsor does and groups and the general public, both ly a deep conviction . . . a vision ought to select that leadership on says, how well he estimates the reshort-term and long-term. The same for tomorrow. Such is our process the basis of obtaining the best talent actions of his prospect, how well thing goes for our literature. Our of estimating the future. Our re- we can find, making sure that we he times and makes his presentafinances have to be estimated and sponsible world leadership must be land that talent, whatever it is, in tion, how well he handles criticisms, budgeted. We must think about our especially and constantly proficient ihe spot where it will do us the most and how well he leads his prospect service needs as they relate to gen- in this vital activity. This is an l good. on by personal spiritual example eral economic conditions, group ability much to be desired, especi- While this article was first . . . well, these attributes of leadercapability, and willingness to con- ally among our Trustees, and I thought of in connection with our ship can make all the difference, tribute. On many such problems we think most of them should be world-service leadership, it is quite often the difference between life must very often try to think many chosen on the basis that they have possible that many of its suggestions and death. months and even years ahead. already proved their aptness for can be useful to everyone who takes Thank God that Alcoholics As a matter of fact, all of AA’s foresight in business or professional an active part in our Society. Anonymous is blessed with so much Twelve Traditions were at first careers. Nowhere could this be more true leadership in each and all of its questions of estimate and vision for We shall continually need many than in the area of Twelfth Step great affairs! the future. Years ago, we slowly of these same attributes, insofar as evolved an idea about AA being self-supporting. There had been “. . . we ought to select leadership trouble here and there about “outon the basis o f obtaining side gifts.” Then still more trouble developed. Consequently, we began the best talent we can find. . .” to devise a policy of “no outside gifts.” We began to suspect that they can be had, among our leaders large sums would tend to make us of AA services at all levels. The irresponsible and could divert us principles of leadership will be just from our primary aim. Finally, we about the same, no matter what the saw that for the long pull “out- size of the operation. . side” money could ruin us utterly. This discussion on leadership may At this point, what had been just look, at first glance, like an attempt an idea or general policy hardened to stake out a specially privileged firmly down into an AA Tradition. and superior type of AA member. We saw that we must sacrifice the But this is not really so. We are quick, nearby advantage for long- simply recognizing that, our talents

September 1968 I I

make a farce out of

Anonymity at the private level?

I

I HAVE been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for over nine and a half years and am continuthey pose a very real problem: If he can’t trust us with his confidence, whom can he turn to? Whenever the question begins, “How anonymous were you when . . .?”-it is a show-stopper and ingly grateful for my sobriety. I have found that certain pat intended to put you down. How Because I love AA and want to remarks are used by the blabber- dare you want to remain an active see it grow and reach those who are mouths who “inform” on other but nonpublicized member? You in dire need of our help, I am AAs, and here is one of them: should be delighted and proud to writing this questioning memo to “Well, I’ve been in AA for twenty- have the gossip-mongers (and, the Grapevine. one years and I don’t care who don’t kid yourself, every group What has become of the “Anony- knows it. I’m proud of my associ- has them) tell your nonalcoholic mous” part of our name? Why have ation.” And then they look at you friends the facts of your drinking recovered alcoholics in their infinite as though you were a disloyal in- life. Even worse, people who have wisdom decided in so many cases grate who is ready for a slip. never seen you any other way than ‘ that they are privileged to break Or take this crusher: “How sober are briefed about you, and their brothers’ anonymity along with anonymous were you when you often strangers are told that you their own? I was told early on that were falling off bar stools, or mak- are in AA before they even meet I could tell anyone I wished that I ing the hospital circuit, or visiting you. They are given a capsule case was a member of AA, but that the jails and other institutions of higher history, as it were. In small towns, right to talk about other members alcoholic learning?” This list can I find that anonymity is a myth. in circles outside of AA was not be expanded to include wife-beat- And this is too bad, for it keeps mine. ing, check-kiting, child-neglect, or away from our meetings and therapy After witnessing a number of any other demeaning behavior that countless thousands of practicing anonymity-blowing incidents, a long- we alcoholics exhibited when prac- alcoholics who desperately need our time member may become indiffer- ticing alcoholisnl and may have help. ent to them, but for the newcomer confided to fellow members. Alcohol is our adversary, and we

should devote our time and energies call ourselves ‘Alcoholics’?” I suggest that members presently Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonyto attracting those who still suffer, We have been warned in the Big maintaining personal anonymity at mous? instead of turning this beautiful Book and our Traditions that we the private level reconsider their We say alcoholism is a disease concept of selfless service into a must watch out for bickering, power stand. If there are often some valid and not a disgrace. But the AA name-dropping contest in which drives, and disunity from within, for reasons for maintaining anonymity member who wears the cloak of gossip becomes the substitute for these are much more inimical to at this level, there are as often some anonymity at the private level acts drinking. our beloved Fellowship than any very good reasons for breaking as if alcoholism were a disgrace in- What brought this all to mind outside influence could ever be. anonymity. Could you, for example, stead of a disease. was a telephone talk with a com- May I ask anyone who may read sit idly by and watch a fellow em- At this year’s General Service paratively new member, who ear- this to keep your trap shut about ployee drink himself to death and Conference, we talked about the nestly and quite rightly wishes to the other fellow? Guard his ano- not offer help? I could not. But I stigma attached to alcoholism. Yet remain undiscussed and unidentified nymity, for it is a sacred trust. have seen other AAs let this hap- most nonalcoholics I know consider outside the parish house where the Let’s not prove the truth of the pen. alcoholism an illness and will dislocal AA meeting is held. This saying that two people can’t keep This is a program of attraction cuss the problem freely. Instead, it person said: “The ‘Anonymous’ a secrct-particularly if both of and not promotion. Is attraction appears to me, it is the recovered part of AA is a farce. Why don’t thcm arc in AA. limited to the confines of an AA alcoholics who still believe alcoholwe drop it from our name and just P. G . , Eusthampton, N . Y. meeting? Wouldn’t our membership ism is a stigma, because they are increase if more members talked to secretive about their AA memberco-workers, neighbors, and friends ship and rarely discuss alcoholism about their recovery through the openly. A. K., Trenton, N.J. Do We Still Think Alcoholism r, A

Is a Disgrace? Eleventh Tradition: B ECAUSE of much favorable publicity by the communications ~nedia, Alcoholics Anonymous is Brake on Us Power Drivers? now well known at the public level. Most AA members in our area were first told about the program by BOOK Twelve Steps and a nonalcoholic who had been thus informed: employer, doctor, judge, clergyman, family member. 1 0 UR Twelve Traditions reminds us of the reason for the origin of But very few have come to our Tradition Eleven: to discourage the Fellowship because it was suggested power-driver, the status-seeker. No to them by a sober AA member. one knows this better than I do, Are we missing an opportunity having achieved a position of some here? stature in my part of the country. I do not propose that we break During my drinking days, my ego our anonymity at the public level. combined with alcohol placed me

squarely in the middle of skid row. sober and helping other alcoholics There, thank God, I received some achieve sobriety. Thus, anonymity ego-deflation at depth. I saw for at the public level assures us that myself what “self-will run riot” no individual AA member will be could do. By the grace of God and publicly acknowledged as a spokesthe principles in our Twelve Steps, man or leader. Within our Tradi- I have been able to rise to a posi- tions, members do not use their tion of dignity and service to my membership to further their careers, fellowman, both in the Fellowship to promote their products or serand outside it. The Tradition of vices, or to give weight to their anonymity has safeguarded me arguments in public controversy. from feeling that this AA outfit As our Traditions remind us, could not operate without me. anonymity is more than a denial of Maybe we could call it humility or self-seeking; it is a constant and self-knowledge based on truth. practical reminder that personal Anonymity at the public level ambition has no place in AA. I feel is our assurance to newcomers that that any digression from the original their membership in A’A will not be motive for this Tradition cannot be disclosed by others, nor will they justified on any grounds, least of all ever be required to disclose it them- that we must keep abreast of changselves. It will be up to them to tell ing times. The active alcoholic of those they think should know, when today is the same as the poor, and if they choose. More impor- suffering alcoholic of yesterday. So tantly, in the long run, the princi- I believe we should safeguard a ple of personal anonymity helps Tradition which has been tried and discourage drives for power, profit, proven good. It may well be the one and prestige, which could divert us principle that can prevent us from from our primary purpose: staying becoming wheeler-dealers. P. A . G . W . , ~ukvi’lle,Ont.

September 1968

Promotion: dirty word? From Houston, Tex.: Hasten to write to say “Amen” to all that W. R. of South Norwalk, Conn., has to say concerning “Promotion” in the May issue (page 28). I’ve made some sort of a nuisance of myself (as I did this past Wednesday night at a closed meeting which I led) by stating loud and long that so far as I could see the only reference in all AA literature as to “attraction rather than promotion” was in Tradition Eleven, and this reference was restricted to public-relations policy solely and exclusively. F. H.

From Chicago, Ill.: For years I have heard the expression “attraction rather than promotion” lifted out of context and misquoted. Obviously, when read in context the expression warns against personal promotion by the anonymity-breakers. It is absurd to allow this tabu to stop AA from carrying its message through advertising. Why not ask the Advertising Council to present the story of AA as a public- service? G. O.

February 1969

Dr. Bob on Tradition Eleven “We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.” Dr. Bob, co-founder of AA, commented on Tradition Eleven as follows: “Since our Tradition on anonymity designates the exact level where the line should be held, it must be obvious to everyone who can read and understand the English language that to maintain anonymity at any other level is definitely a violation of this Tradition. “The AA who hides his identity from his fellow AA by using only a given name violates the Tradition just as much as the AA who permits his name to appear in the press in connection with matters pertaining to AA. “The former is maintaining his anonymity above the level of press, radio, and films, and the latter is maintaining his anonymity below the , level of press, radio, and films -whereas the Tradition states that we should maintain our anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.” D. S., Sun Mateo, Calif.

c.~-r U f i n r c v I N E , , MAY 1969 a meeting for the inmates of the .. state mental hospital. If anything is special about Big City AA, it hasn’t appeared yet. Now the leader mumbles a few – – having to remarks about the group’s pay rent and provide coffee and doughnuts. T h e familiar collection Cracking the ‘Secret9 of Big City AA basket is passed. Then Joe mingles his own “Amen” with the others’ at the end of the Lord’s Prayer. It is Joe, from Littleville, didn’t spot it, but one minute past ten o’clock, and the meeting is over. the telephone book was the first Most of the crowd heads for the coffee and refreshments. The room clue to the mystery is vibrant with happy, excited chatter. Joe looks around expectantly; people look past’ him and rush up to acquaintances. Joe ruefully elirnisize would have to import a speaker. nates another possible Big City L ET’S take a good, active member from the mythical town of Littleville and whisk him to Big City, the help you?” Joe explains he’s a member from out of town, and would like to go to a meeting. He is told You’d think there’d be enough vari- secret-cordial greetings to strangety right here. His talk is great, Joe ers. imaginary equivalent of my Los there is one just two blocks east of agrees, but great speakers can’t be Glancing over the literature table, Angeles area (or Detroit, New his hotel, but he’d better hurry; it’s any great secret. Besides, the guy is Joe notes the Big Book, “Twelve York, St. Louis, or any urban center nearly 8:30. from a town not much larger than and Twelve,” a few copies of the that has a hundred or more groups). He reaches a church meeting Joe’s own Littleville. Grapevine, and various pamphlets Joe S., of Littleville, is justly room and finds a seat just as the After the applause dies down, from GSO. All this, too, is familiar proud of his local brand of AA. His meeting begins. About four tirnes there are several announcements. to Joe. friendly group is a community cross- as many people are present as at- Joe listens carefully, but there’s no A heavy-set woman snatches up section, and he feels sure that no tend Joe’s home group, but he isn’t secret here. Members wanting to do several pamphlets from each stack, group anywhere can offer better about to be impressed by mere Twelfth Step work are to give their making a shambles of the neat ar- AA. But he is curious about Big quantity: The leader conducts the names to the secretary. The Insti- ray of the remaining leaflets. Glar- City AA. If they have any secret meeting somewhat differently from tutions Committee needs some ing reproachfully after her, Joe recipe o r formula unknown to his the Littleville chairman, but not dis- grateful alcoholics to go to hospitals automatically begins straightening group, he will ferret it out. turbingly so. Here in Big City, they and prisons. the display. “Live and let live,” a After checking in at a city hotel, have two speakers, instead of three. Nothing new in that! Back in voice says pleasantly in Joe’s ear, Joe picks up the thick Big City That can’t be very important, Joe Littleville, Joe takes a few members and he’ finds himself talking to the phone book. Sure enough, AA is thinks, except that the second speak- once a month to the nearby sheriff’s local secretary as they both restack listed. I Joe dials the number, and a er comes from Snide Palms, sixty detention camp. And for years the pamphlets neatly. moment later a pleasant voice says, miles away. “Miss Sh-h-h-h!,” the librarian, has Joe pays an honest compliment “Alcoholics Anonymous. May I Joe marvels that a group this regularly taken a carful to put on about the meeting and asks when

the next one is. “Not till next Wed- he might say to me, “You city guys munication. There would be so staring me right in the face all week nesday for this group,” says the are no different from us whis:!~:stop many ways of working the program long!” secretary, “but we’ve got over 300 guys. You don’t have any spuial and conducting meetings that a Joe was right. As soon as he hit meetings a week in our metropolitan secret at all. Every one of your member from the other side of town, he had been given the first area. Here’s a meeting list.” hundreds of meetings is b;lsicidly town, wandering into a meeting, clue: the listing of AA in the phone He hands Joe a small, neatly like our one little group back in would feel uncomfortable and book. He took it for granted that it printed directory giving the time Littleville!” strange. He would see no resem- would be listed, just like an airline and place of AA meetings in the “Exactly!” I would exclaim. blance to what he considers AA.” ticket office, the fire department, or city and environs. One week later, “They are supposed to be. That’s At this point, Joe might interrupt a pizza parlor. Joe was a stranger Joe has attended twenty Big City the idea, Joe, so you’ll feel right at impatiently, “But AA couldn’t sur- in an area containing several million AA meetings. He has gone to noon, home wherever you go. It is a won- vive if that happened. There would people, but he was not even amazed night, and midnight sessions. He has derful thing-but it’s not natural.” be no feeling of fellowship or unity. when a voice on the phone directed been in shabby basements, rehab “Not natural!” Joe is flabber- Groups would collapse, dry up, or him to an AA meeting only two houses, a skid-row mission, and gasted. more likely wet up.” blocks from his hotel. various churches. He has noted “Right,” I say. “You see, it would “Right, Joe. The question is: Long before Joe got sober in many of the same people at different be natural for AA groups in a city Why hasn’t it happened? You’ve Littleville’s solitary group, Big City meetings, and several of them now to spring up in isolated little been to twenty meetings this week had also had its AA beginnings in smile at Joe or speak to him. But patches. Then, if they split through here in Big City. You’ve seen the one group. Members came many the more meetings he has attended, internal dissension to form new same people at meetings miles apart. miles from surrounding communithe more Big City AA has come to groups, rivalries and resentments How do you account for this healthy ties to attend the only available resemble AA back home in Little- would widen the breach between the circulation, this comfortable feeling meeting. Then individuals started ville. The differences seem less; the factions. Through competition and of being in AA community?” new meetings in their own neighborsimilarities, more pronounced. defiance, there would be almost as A wondering light comes into hoods, sometimes in serenity, some- Finally, Joe decides to go back many varieties of AA as there were Joe’s eyes. Quietly he sighs, “I guess times in resentment. home to Littleville. If I were to run groups. We would have ‘clan’ or the answer is the secret I’ve been In any case, the most active mem* into Joe as he leaves for the airport, ‘tribal’ AA, with little or no com- looking for, and I suppose it’s been bers needed to communicate with

members of other groups, both socially and in regard to Twelfth Step work. Pigeons (or babies) had to 66 For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority. .. 99

be taken to many meetings; sick alcoholics had to be placed in hos- only, or for women only. Service Office in New York. But tions. It can often discourage the pitals willing to give them treatment. Today, of course, I can be he didn’t realize that it would be breaking of anonymity at the public This growing need for communi- amused at our visitor Joe as he wasteful for each group to deal level. Thanks to the staffs work, cation multiplied with each new looked for the secret of Big City separately with GSO. Long before every AA benefits through the ingroup, yet the increasing confusion AA, and I can be aware of all that Joe and I got sober, the first thirty creased likelihood that our Fellowtended to slow down AA growth in he was missing. Joe was puzzled or forty groups in Big City hit upon ship will be described in an accurate Big City. Some members, discour- that a Big City group would import a better method: They had their and favorable light, and that the AA aged by the situation, sealed them- an outside speaker, but he wasn’t CentraI Office buy in quantity at name will not be invoIved in controselves off psychologically and the least bit curious about how the bulk rates and keep the literature in versy nor linked with any other physically within their own group.. man was located and imported. He stock. This means that a group institution, cause, or facility. But others set up information cen- wasn’t alone; very likely, half the secretary can obtain literature by Our own personal recovery in ters manned by volunteers. Individ- people in the Big City groups are making a phone call to the Central AA began when we learned from ual AAs and a few enterprising unaware that many of the speakers Office or by dropping by in person. the experience of other alcoholics groups pitched in to pay the office they enjoy are obtained and sched- Although Joe was impressed by through hearing their stories at rent and the phone bill. AA in Big uled through the help of their local the various means through which meetings and reading the Big Book. City now had an address and a Central Office and the cooperation members in the city had found AA, In group survival and in matters listing in the phone book. of other large communities’ Central he didn’t realize that almost all of affecting AA as a whole, AA Comes By the time I came to AA, the Offices or Intergroups. these methods exist solely because of Age and other literature are the Big City information center had Joe had observed that Big City of the Central or Intergroup Office. source of shared experience. To developed into a workable Central groups do institutional work, just It is that Big City AA service that ignore this information is to risk Office or Intergroup facility. I was like his Littleville group. But Joe assigns informed and capable AA mistakes that might cost the life of given a meeting list with the sage didn’t go on to wonder how so members to speak at schools, col- a fellow alcoholic. When I was first advice “Get to as many meetings as many groups, sewing so many dif- leges, and civic organizations, and drafted into service at our Central you can; there are dozens a week, ferent institutions, avoid duplication supplies information to interested Office, I became aware of another and they’re all listed in this direc- of effort or a worse calamity-no- doctors, government officials, and vast source of information. Our tory.” body at all showing up for a hospital industrial counselors. By calling that Central Office has been in operation How did I think the meeting list or prison meeting. Through trial office, newspaper editors and re- twenty-four years, and the monthly came into existence? I didn’t think. and error, and possibly through porters and radio and television minutes of its committee are an But now I know that today, in my observing the experience of AA in writers, producers, and newscasters invaluable record of local cooperacity, three hundred group secretaries other communities, Big City mem- can be certain of getting qualified tion, including both hits and errors. -have to contact someone at Central bers learned to use their Central and sober AA members to tell their As George Santayana, the American Office and report the time, date, Office to convey plans and schedules experiences on the air and in print, philosopher-historian, said, “Those and place of their meetings. The worked out by their Institutions thus making AA attractive to others who do not remember the past are office staff must remind forgetful Committee. in need of help. condemned to relive it.” secretaries, and keep informed on When Joe stood at the literature At the same time, a responsible AA’s Second Tradition states, the nature of the meetings, whether table, he knew that the literature and informed Central Office staff is “For our group purpose, there is but open, closed, discussion, for men came from AA’s main General in a position to guard AA’s Tradi- . one ultimate authority . . a loving ,

God as He may express Himself in Offices serve not only the AA memour group conscience. Our leaders bers in urban areas, but the whole are but trusted servants . . . they do community as well, As individuals, not govern.” Since we are deter- we cannot grow in the program by mined not to be “governed,” doesn’t remaining spiritual parasites, conthis impose upon every member the tributing no service to our group. responsibility to be informed about We are so proud of saying, “There , AA services on every level? are no big shots in AA.” If we Without an informed group con- really mean that, it follows that science for a loving God to express there is no one to pass the buck to. Himself through, we face these al- Like it or not, the theme of the ternatives: (1) decay through de- 1965 International Convention in fault, ignorance, and indifference at Toronto is literally true: “I am rethe individual, group, or Intergroup sponsible.” And in this area I have level; or (2) survival through the the responsibility to learn about chance emergence of strong dicta- AA’s services, group, Intergroup torial personalities who will in fact and worldwide, and the responsi- “govern” our group or Intergroup, bility to pass that necessary knowlbecause the general membership edge on to the members of my chooses to remain indifferent and group. uninformed. Over 130 Central or Intergroup L. H . and D. J., Alhambra, Calif.

June 1969 :j:-.-. >; : ; . -kg;.6 ,a;:*. 6′ b ~ t ,;*:-,-:7t ? , I – , . A facsimile reproduction of Bill W.’s – . wive8 first Grapevine editorial. Vol. 1, No. 1, June, 1944 . ‘: !. ?,$., *: .;. . ‘ , moat -1 Point 1 ..$

. . . and twenty-five years later. Vol. 26, No. I 0. , 8 ,

.-hTheShapeof Things to Come – , .F b. catch ‘ $’. pletcl

.- !tIn the $bookAlcoholics Anonymous there is a chapter called “A Vision for kdu ‘- $YOU**.,Wandering through it recently, my eye was caught by this startling .!&aph written a short five years ago. ”Someday we hope that euery T HIS is the three-hundredth issue of the AA Grapevine. Without a single publication failure, the GV has been rolling off the presses twelve times a year for each of the past twenty-five years. ‘I. ,*~.boholict*o journqa will jhd o Fellowship of ;l&oholics Anonymous at 11.11. Remembering that the early Grapevine was staffed entirely by volunteers, ‘.’:hh ‘ ,-* .destination. To some extent this is already true. Soma of us are saks- an* that even now they serve in a considerable majority, that many AA mem- ‘j .man and go about. Lit& clusters o f twos and threes and fives of us have bers have freely contributed their valuablc professional skills, year in and t Sprung up in other communities through conroct with our two large cen- Dror ,.I.

and a year out well, we must all agree that this record of devotion is something . for our greatest inspiration. . .i.&rs-*’ Rubbing my eyes I looked again. A lump came into my throat. last, ,( I recall an article I wrote years ago for the July 1945 Grapevine, com- “,!!’Only five yeam,**I thought. “Then but two large centers-little clusters wmtec memorating its first anniversary. On rereading that piece, I found much

1,; – #

!of twa and th- travelers who hoped one day to find us at every about interest in statements expressing the hope that we AAs might be able to pretty deainati~d*~ develop certain “traditional principles,” principles that could help us to ta bc ; b d d it be that only yesterday this was just a hope-those little clusters or liV: live and work together. 5;f;, In this period, our growing Society was having plenty of trouble. The :,I.:! of twos and,threes, those little beacons eo anxiously watched as they flick- dietort crucial tests of whether AA could survive and expand were very much in the ere& but never went out. Now, with us. Would the forces for disunity, then so rampant, do us in after all? their warm illumination upon Providentially, AA’s Twelve Traditions were already in embryo, and dark shoals where the stranded and and p l some of them had actually begun to emerge. In the last few paragraphs of fingers of light already stretching to our ‘ i O y i my 1945 piece there were, for example, allusions to “paid workers,” “selfrpcntli support,” “no endorsement of commercial undertakings,” etc. Then followed a strong recommendation for the discussion of anonymity, leadership, comes another lighted lamp-this little newspaper called “The Crape. public relations, money in AA, and the like. The article closed.on the its rays of hope and ex-perience ever fall upon the current of theme that the Grapevine should try to become a “true voice” of AA. and one day illumine every dark comer of this alroholic pur It was not very long afterward that the Grapevine did actually publish Thank AA’s Twelve Traditions, and the magazine then continued to be a principal of its editore, contributors and readers could well be voiced did. R forum for the years of discussion that followed. Among the many GV of “A Vision for You”. “Abandon yourself to Cod as you lireha accomplishments, this was a service of incalculable value to our entire Fellowship -then, and ever since. ‘ Admit your faults to Him and your fellows. Clnr away exprriq hap. . As we visualize that early time against the world scene of AA today, let past. Give freely of what you find, and join us. We of nm’ us remember to give thanks for those twenty-five years in which the the Fellowship of The Spirit, and you will surely meet WIN Grapevine and its people did so much to make AA what it now is. A came “true voice” indeed! o f Happy h t i n y . May Cod bkss you lei A

sohcr Rill and 1 rxlrn I a… .

July 1969

Dual nroblem? R AA plus NA ~ r o m ‘anh hat can ~ e a c h ,Calif. Finally, finally, I get to the point. Well, here I am, after almost As an active member of NA, I eight years since I first promised would like to inform you and your myself to write you a letter. This readers about it (if you don’t alletter will have uncorrected misready know). takes, as, between working and We have fourteen meetings a getting a belated college education, week in Southern California, and I need all the sleep I can get. there are others in other parts of (Enough excuses! Get started!) the U.S. The majority of our dope For a couple of years, I was going fiends are also alcoholics and atto tell you what a miracle I was. tend AA. A good percentage of After a while my ego went down our members are pill-heads and just a little (not much, just enough have never even seen so-called hard to keep me sober and clean). Any- drugs. (We call them “drugstore” way, I’ve been busy doing other – i.e., legal – addicts.) things. Reading the letters in the March issue of the Grapevine, I thought this was finally the time. I am an alcoholic: hospitals, jail, neurosurgery, getting shot, getting cut, etc. I am a drug addict: weed, ‘most all pills, morphine, heroin, etc., with Most of our meetings are open to basically the same results as with anybody, though only addicts speak. booze. We carry the message into two state Came to AA at twenty-six, start- institutions, one penal and one hosed staying clean and sober at pital-penal. twenty-seven. I’m almost thirty-five We wish to welcome anybody years old now, and it’s been good. with a drug problem, whether they After a few months sober in AA, be junkies, pill-heads, grasshoppers I knew I had to find someone to (antiquated term -I’m getting old, talk to about my “other” problem, you know), or what-have-you, as drugs. At the time, there was one long as they have a desire to stop active Narcotics Anonymous group using drugs. We have all ages in in Southern California. I went to it our fellowship, from sixteen to aland found there many other AA most seventy. people who had the “dual problem.” J. L. W. I know (from reading A A Comes of Age) that AA is for alcoholics. NA is for drug addicts.

OCTOBER 1969

Me and M y Traditions tools to help me fullill the last part 5. To take whatever extra time is of the Twelfth Step: trying to prac- needed to keep the primary purpose tice these principles in all my affairs. primary -to put first things first. Sometimes Together with the Steps, they 6. Not to be beguiled into activihave helped me learn what little I ties and involvements, no matter passed over all know about staying out of the way how worthy or how attractive, that

too lightly, our M OST OF US tend to slkle over the Twelve Traditions, because we feel they have to do with – my own and other people’s. They have taught me: 1. To try to put the common welmight undermine the primary purpose. 7. To carry my own weight in Twelve Traditions “organization.” Since our primary fare first, rather than just my own economic matters, and to support concern is our own sobriety, most -by being willing to yield, even those things in which I believe. are designed of us couldn’t care less about “or- when I may heartily disagree. 8, 9. To rcniind myself that 1 am ganization.” If we take a really good 2. To put faith in the group con- simply one of many trusted servants, to protect look at the Traditions, however, it with no special training or talent science, and to try to believe that it will be revealed to us that the struc- represents God’s will for us today beyond my desire to serve, respon- YOU, ture they set up has but one ultimate – if not forever. sibly and to the best of my ability, the individual objective – the welfare of the in- 3. To remember that the most those people who have trusted me. dividual AA member. significant experience of my life was 10. To be aware of the fact that, member o f In the past few years, I’ve had the becoming a member of AA, that as an individual, I am entitled to feeling that for me the Traditions AAs had room for me even before hold any opinions which seem right AA are really an extension of the Steps. I wanted to join, and that they gave to me and to defend them in the They affect, not only my activities me the time to develop the desire to appropriate places. as a member of an AA group, not stop drinking, though at first 1 didn’t 11. To try to be prudent and not only my daily work in an AA have one. promote or oversell cvcn my most service job, but also my efforts as an 4. T o remind myself that nothing cherished beliefs and ideas. If they individual to relate satisfactorily is really good for me unless other are all I think they are, they will with other people. In other words, people are considered, too. have made sufici-nt. difference in I feel the Traditions are additional

my own life and performance to respecter of persons; it strikes the carry their weight in that way. I am famous and the obscure, the rich reminded not to seek personal and the poor, the cducatcd and the credit for anything that I may do, ignorant, male and female, black and not to feel that I deserve it. and white, young and old alike. No 12. T o remember that the prin- matter what our position in lifc niay ciple expressed is the important be, in our Fellowship we participate thing- not the person who is ex- as equals in sharing our experience, pressing it. strength, and hope with one an- The wonderful thing about our other in an atmosphere of love imtl Fellowship is that we are a society caring. In my book, that is a spiritof equals; the famous, the hand- ual idea, and the Traditions that some, the wealthy, the articulate, keep us united therefore must be the glamorous arc no more rcprc- spiritual, rather than merely orgnniscntative of us than is the most zational. obscure member. Alcoholism is no C . L. B., Manhattan, N.Y.

NOVEMBE The author says: “AA’s Twelve T r a d i t i o n s have, in my experience, o f t e n p r o v e d vital in keeping m e sober, and helpful otherwise in all m y affairs.1′ T h i s is t h e first of a series of articles 4 \ Our common welfare should come first; sharing t h a t experience. 7 personal recovery depends on AA unity.

M Y AA HISTORY C O ~ S ~ Sof~ StWO extended slips during an otherwise sober quarter-century. J havc laws, either, since we have none. In fact, our Twelve Traditions had not that came with my drinking. I had been terrorized by blackouts and a not taken or wanted a drink since even been written yet, the first year searing fear that I was really losing May 1952, but I have learned much I spent dry, sittingaround in New my mind. I had been sick with about alcohol and AA, and a little York City’s old 41st Street club- shame at the way I had treated my about myself. For instance, 1 no house, glum and stiff in one of the family and friends, even if I did longer have quick, simple answers musty pews of that barnlike old think they often deserved it for for staying sober, although at times church building where meetings some of the things they did to poor I sound as if I had. For example, I were held. me. I had been unemployable, have said 1 had sobriety of the head, I made a few mechanical gestures hopelessly in debt, and sure that jail not sobriety of the heart, in my first that year, doing my turn at desk or or an insane asylum was deserved year, and I’ve been so proud of this telephone duty, reading the AA and inevitable, unless a suicide ateloquence that I was deaf to the publications (very few then), and tempt worked out some time. vanity revealed: the implication that speaking at meetings. I even typed The vanity which so often had my own superior ability at rational copy for the early, tabloid-size propped me up had given way to thinking kept me from drinking. Grapevine. But none of this was self-loathing. I was a dirty, gaunt, More honest thinking suggests based on any real desire to change unshaven, quaking wreck. I was no that what kept me sober those first myself. good. The world would be better days was not any of my doing at When I came to AA. I had not off without me. all. Obviously, it was not rules or wanted sobriety so much as I The state of AA dryness I found wanted to stay out of the trouble in that old clubhouse in 1945 was

highly desirable, every precious 24 possible, was simply sticking to- into that old building that first day, About five years after my last hours of it. It did not promise any gether. 1 was greeted with a gentle invita- drink, I found myself pretty sick rosy future, but it was beginning to The first AAs fast got the notion tion: “Come on in. Let’s talk it one day with an illness not related exorcise the past. that we need each other if we are over.” And everyone assured me I to alcohol. At home alone, scared, 1 kept going through the AA mo- to survive. As has bcen said well was not alone and need never be I needed help. The natural thing tions, relieved enormously by the and often, we may not all like each d o n e again. was to call an AA friend, right? knowledge that I had a disease, that other, but we have to love each All the suggestions I heard then Who else would come to help? To it was not my fault, and that others other. Communicate or die! When were based on our sticking together. whom else could I unashamedly adlikc nic, or worsc, werc rccovcring. put into action, thc powcr of that “Conic to mcctings” nlcant that I (Didn’t I see hopc sitting row on onc idea alonc can keep a guy would be with other AAs, fulfilling row at every meeting?) I was mem- sober, to his own surprise, a very the purpose for which meetings had orizing AA statements and not long time. It did that for me, I been started in the first place. w h e n the c h i p drinking, more because AA seemed know. “Don’t get lonely; telephone before you take a drink; talk to another are down we to expect it (and my family ap- Then someone got the idea that proved) than because I really AAs ought to put down in writing member and get your troubles off forget our diflerences . . . wanted the AA way of life. just how it was they were staying your chest.” All these powerful It is, of course, a miracle that I sober. Many agreed; others were tools of sobriety assured me that tostayed sober at all. Those wonderful fearful. The real crunch was agree- gether we could get well and stay AA people, when I first came for ing on what to put into the book. well. mit I was afraid? Who else knew the help, certainly had far more to do What a miracle that those early Less than a year later, there were inside of fear? with keeping me sober than my own mcmbers, despite misgivings, dis- so many meetings in the New York But the only nearby AA member reluctant efforts. I believe now that agreements, distrust, and fierce de- area that those of us who answered I could reach on the telephone at votion to high principles that were the telephone had difficulty remem- that time of day was a fellow I did poles apart, could agree, not only bering which groups met which not like. Never had, and the feeling on the Twelve Steps, but on enough nights and where. So we typed up was mutual; he had no use for me, material to fill a whole book! If the a list we could refer to. Where either. Yet he came at once and got the notion that early AAs had not stuck together would I be now without my meeting helped me through the day with inat that point, if they had broken up list and the central office that pub- credible, tactful kindness. we need each other lishes it? These two things are in hopeless disagreements, there That is no: an unusual AA story, if we are to survive. absolutely necessary if we AAs in I know. Almost always, when the would be no book, no Twelve Steps, no AA, and no me. New York or in any large city want chips are down, we forget our differ- Ancient history? Not for me. I to stick together. T o remove the last ences and observe our First Tradithose sober members acted out turned myself in to AA on a bitterly traces of loneliness, there is the tion. We may not quote its words twelve specific ideas of AA be- cold January day during World War World Directory, assuring me that very often, but apparently each AA havior, and I want to celebrate in 11. AA members had already de- we are now a worldwide fellowship realizes, deep down, that if it were Grapevine ink those twelve ways, cided to have a publicly listed tele- with the shared strength of hun- not for the “we” of AA, there would because they saved my life and still phone number. The simple act of dreds of thousands. And now the be no “I.” do, over and over. getting in touch with AA that first General Service Conference, many The Tradition has also made a Chronologically, one of the first time washed out in an instant the GSO bulletins, and the treasured difference in the quality of my AA things AA members ever did, which dark loneliness that had encompass- Grapevine, of course, make it easier life beyond sobriety. One sleepless eventually made my own recovery ed my life. When I fearfully crept for all of us to keep in touch. night some years ago, I was again

vate, who wrote from Normandy, we made a decision, and we tried to “Even thousands of miles away, I carry the message. “AAs . . . d o not reach know I am not alone, since all of This beautiful we, this sticking todown to help us; you are always with me in spirit.” gether in our brotherhood of love they reach out.” Maybe those isolated members – -which can heal my individual perhaps because they have to dig sick soul, as well as cementing toso deep into our literature – sense gcther our Fellowship – is set forth better than some meeting-goers like for all of us in the words “Our feeling lonely and isolated, although unsolved problems, the shameful me the meaning and valucs of fel- common welfare should come first; I had been as regular as ever in secrets of today, admitting thcm lowship. They are constantly re- personal recovery dcpends upon going to meetings and participating fully to no one. minded that the Twelve Steps say AA unity.” in other AA actions. I felt sur- I was furious at the old AA we admitted, we came to believe, B. L., Manhattan, N.Y. rounded by AA, but insulated friend who punctured the vanity against it. Somehow, I was wrapped balloon, but she was right. I had in a cool cocoon that kept the warm been so busy giving fellowship that First Tradition Checklist AA spirit from getting to me. I had forgotten to accept any. And Again, it took the experience of she finally goaded me into doing M y sobriety depends on unity with you. begging another AA member for something about it. I began to spill What am I doing t o help build that unity? help to melt away the chilly walls. it all out, at last sharing the other Here are some questions I ask myself This time I reached a dear AA parts of my total experience, includ- when I take my First Tradition inventory: friend, and the help I got was any- ing the bad and the embarrassing. thing but tactful. I was told bluntly Believe me, it was a liberating ex- 1. Am I in my group a healing, participating in this or that aspect where the trouble was. It was self- perience, and the help was enor- mending, integrating person, or am of AA? importance again! It seemed that I mously strengthening. I divisive? What about gossip and 6. Am I informed about AA as a had subtly and unconsciously come I no longer feel like an insulated taking other members’ inventories? whole? Do I support, in every way to think of myself as somewhat of wire set apart from all around me I can, AA as a whole or just the 2. Am I a peacemaker? Or do I, an exampie, if not a font, of AA by the protective, concealing, non- parts I understand and approve of? with pious preludes such as “just for wisdom. My AA talks pointed out, conducting sheath of plastic egotism 7. Am I as considerate of AA memthe sake of discussion,” plunge into not only how stupid I had been, but which can keep me out of touch. As arguments? bers as I want thcm to be of me? also -and mostly -how much an early Grapevine corrcspondcnt smarter I was now. In discussion once wrote, “AAs, unlike some 3. Am I gentle with alcoholics who 8. Do 1 spout platitudes about love meetings I never asked questions; I other people, do not reacIfutiown to rub me the wrong way, or am I while indulging in and secretly justijust answered them. I overflowed help us; they reach out.” abrasive? fying behavior that bristles with hoswith AA know-how, and insidiously I still marvel that our Loners and tility? 4. Do I make competitive AA re- 9. Do I go to enough AA meetings it put me out of touch. Secretly, I Internationalists, who hardly ever marks, such as comparing one did not mind at all when someone get to meetings, stay beautifully or read enough AA literature to group with another or contrasting really keep in touch? once referred to me as an oracle. sober. But I also remember that AA in one place with AA in an- True, I was sharing my experi- originally the Grapevine began as a 10. Do I share with AA all of me, other? ence, and what I revealed was hon- message from the AAs back home the bad and the good, accepting as est. But it was not the whole truth. to the AAs overseas in World War 5. Do I put down some AA activi- well as giving the help of fellow- I kept hidden from others the yet- 11. And I recall a letter from a pri- ties as if I were superior for not ship?

DECEMBER 1969

“AA’s Twelve Traditions have, in my experience, For our group purpose there is of ten proved vital but one ultimate authority.. . in keeping me sober, a loving God as He may express a7zd helpful othe~wise Himself in our group conscience. i72 a11 rny aflairs. ” L_–__JwOur leaders are but trusted

This is the second TRAD!r\@# servants.. they do not govern. . of a series of articles sharing that experience

after I returned to the quickly. we used as a clubhouse for AAs in S 110RT1,Y oflicc from lunch, the phone on my desk rang. It was a late autumn Well, how about me? I had been a club president a couple of times Manhattan in 1945. 1 carried with me about as much sense as a flea day during my first sober AA year. in school. Surely, my ability would plotting to run a kennel. ” D i d y o u k n o w J- be a great boon to the Fellowship. Surprisingly, everything seemed B got drunk?” asked the “But he’s so young!” I could hear calm when I arrived. No doubt AA acquaintance on the line. someone exclaim. (I was chron- some committee somewhere was al- S u c h m o m e n t o u s news over- ologically twenty-seven, enlotionally ready, privately, trying to find somewhelmed me. J was the minus one.) one who could save AA. How could chairman of our group. I had con- “Yes, but he’s really brilliant,” a I let them know I was willing? Even sidered hini Mr. AA himsclf. Now wiser voicc’ would reply. if it was a tough job, with low I felt that the whole movement By this time, I had tidied up my salary, I’d make the sacrifice out of would soon totter under this dis- desk, made some excuse to the boss, gratitude and love for AA. 1 could a s t r o u s blow, unless s o m e o n e grabbed my briefcase, hat, and coat, already hear my inaugural address rushed to the rescue. A brilliant new dashed to the subway, and ridden after the swearing-in ceremct:ly: leader would have to be found, halfway to the old church building plenty of laughs, plus enough h. .:rt

stuff to bring tears to the eyes of the The idea was so breathtaking, I sign up, no formal rite to initiate or tion and the new rules that I was old folks (cvcrybody over thirty); just shut up. mark mc as a “member,” 1 had setting up. And in a fcw days I got then a ringing peroration of rededi- But my mentor continued, “You asked with puzzlcment, “But how drunk. cation that would bring ’em to their see, we’ll get somebody else to do will you know if I stay sober?” In fact, I remember the preparafeet roaring, as I turned modestly J ‘ s job. We rotate chores “We won’t,” I was told. “But you tion of written bylaws for four from the rostrum to take my seat of around here, you know. There’s will.” separate groups in New York City honor. (Just as in drunken days, I really no honor connected with AA My first AA conversation had in the 1940’s. We just did not trust could still out-Mitty James Thur- offices or titles, just work. And it’s been an ever-increasing series of each other or our successors. Each ber’s Walter M.) often dirty work at that.” shocks, but this was almost too of those “business” sessions for At the clubhouse, though, all I Although our Twelve Traditions much. No one would check up on framing such documents, as you no could do was smile graciously at had not yet been put into words, whether I had a drink or not! I felt doubt suspect, was a comedy that everyone around, cheerily reassure the truth, the spirit, and the sense of relief, coupled with mild twinges of could have been titled Full Moon some new wretch from my lofty em- our Traditions was guiding those panic (Was it possible for me not Over the Madhouse. The records of inence of ten sobcr months, and who hclpcd n ~ c . to get drunk unlcss sonlctl~ingor our labors havc long since disapchin a bit with other seedy states- The shattering of my fantasy of sonleone forcibly prevented it?) and pared, but the groups did survive men. I even, for the first time, eminence in AA was one lesson in wry anger (Dammit, this was a and now flourish beautifully without dirty trick! Why wouldn’t “they” such appurtenances. Also surviving give me some magic thing to keep is a lesson that can be drawn from me safe?). this experience: Those who did not There’s really no honor “No one in AA tells us what to get their way in the squabbles over do, or scolds us for not doing it,” laws frequently got drunk, and some connected with A A ofices my first AA friend had cxplained. of them did not survive. or titles, just work. And it’s Now, twenty-five years later, I I truly believe that our Second am convinced that, as much as anyoften dirty work at that. thing, that truth about AA heated up my dctcrmination to belong to the Fellowship. T o stay sober. sprang for several cups of coffee. what was to become our Second But appreciation of the truth did I had to learn Throughout the afternoon and Tradition: that AA has no bosses. not spring forth full-grown. To whittle down an egotism like mine that I could not evening, however, no one mentioned And that fact, only slowly learned, the vacant chairmanship. So, finally, even more reluctantly accepted, but takes years (It still sprouts unex- be a boss in A A I brought it up over coffee after the finally embraced, is greatly respon- pectedly, sneakily) and many exmeeting. “Isn’t it too bad about sible for my sobriety. To stay sober, periences similar to my short-lived J ? ” I brightly blurted. I had to learn that I could not be dream of the AA “presidency.” If I Tradition, like all the others, is im- Only one old-timer paid atten- a boss in AA, no matter how much never became a power and a glory portant for my individual survival, tion. His look seemed to probe un- I wanted to or tried to. in AA, it wasn’t for lack of trying. as well as for that of every AA comfortably close to my deepest There had been an earlier lesson Just a few months later, I actually group and our Fellowship as a secrcts, but his voice was kind as on the obverse of that truth: that did bccome chairman of a new, whole. he s a i d , “Well, just because no one in AA could boss me, either. small group. I summoned “my” At still another time in my life, I J – got drunk . doesn’t mean Upon discovering, my very first day other officers to a meeting and in- was again chosen to be chairman you have to drink.” in AA, that there was no place to formed them of the new organiza- of a group, after serving some ap-

prenticeships. On the night of the election (No one else wanted the job), dcspite my prcvious expcri- ‘ T t has t o be love, rot government, that keeps AA stuck together.” ence as a chairman, I was enormously moved. I felt very happy us all. The Third Legacy Manual (now re- surely I can support, with loving and even proud to receive from my Suppose it were otherwise. Sup- vised and titled The AA Service trust, those at Intergroup and GSO group something that felt like an pose we had layer upon hierarchical Manual). If we had been better in- who do help to make AA’s reach honor. layer of drunks scrambling for formed, our group decisions would citywide and worldwide. The com- Big deal! At the very next meet- higher and higher rungs of AA probably have been wiser. mittees that arrange conventions or ing, the entire group turned on me. power and fame. Suppose we had to The other thing about group con- banquets, meeting programs, or It was not personal, you under- elect representatives to sit in some science that has given me trouble is group anniversaries also deserve stand. It was just that the coffee was governing body (instead of the the discovery that it does not always confidence. If I am not doing any of too weak that night and the meeting strictly advisory councils which our agree with me. After quite a few the work, the least I can contribute had run overtime. Intergroup comn~itteesand the Gen- such ego-wounding differences, I is trust in those who are. In evcry single AA job, I have cral Service Conference are). Or had to admit that the group con- Vice versa, if any AA job is enreceived gripes and criticism; yet it what if we had to choose a national science could manage without me, trusted to me, especially a Twelfth has been rewarding to learn to lis- president! but that I needed it – just as we Step call, I will do the best I can, ten to criticism, to evaluate it, to Can’t you just hear the nominat- say about AA. especially if the person is a sick use it or reject it, and then to go ing speeches and electioneering Finally, one more thing about this newcomer who has just come to us. on doing the job the best I could. slogans? Can’t you just hear the de- Tradition troubles me, and that is For in this way I maintain my own In all honesty, I can say there were bates? Can’t you just hcar sobriety the word “trusted.” I cannot do all recovery. If we cannot trust each some pats on the back, too. But I groaning under the strain, then the the Twelfth Step jobs that I’d like other as our Second Tradition sugdid learn that, no matter what AA ice in thc glasses, the cans and to do and that need doing in my gcsts, who on earth can we trust? title I might hricfly hold, I had ab- corks popping, and thc sound of town and around the globe. But B. L., Manhattan, N.Y. solutely no authority over any AA mass dt’s that would surely result? nlcmbcr. And, of course, no AA Fortunately, AA ncvcr puts us member, group, comnlittee, officc, under such stress, thanks to our Second Tradition Checklist or board has any authority whatso- Second Tradition. Two things about 1. Do I criticize or do I trust and support my group officers, AA ever over me or any other member. the group conscience, however, still committees, and office workers? Newcomers? Old-timers? (It has to be love, not government, bother me. One is the fact that the that keeps AA stuck together.) This Tradition does not say an informed 2. Am I absolutely trustworthy, even in secret, with any AA has the effect of keeping us all on group conscience. Once, we discuss- Twelfth Step job or other AA responsibility? one level in AA, and makes broth- ed all evening just what kind of 3. Do I look for credit in my AA jobs? Praise for my AA ideas? erhood easier than it would be if quarters our central office should some of us werc higher, others 4. Do I have to save face in group discussions, or can I yield in move into. Not one of us had ever good spirit to the group consensus and work cheerfully along lower. I have at last come to like the searched out or tried to lease office fact that for AA purposes the final with it? . space. Another time, we went on authority is a loving God (whatever and on about procedures for clect- 5. Although I have’been sober a few years, am I still willing to concept of a benign Greater Power ing regional members of AA’s Gen- serve my turn at AA chores? that word may represent to each of eral Service Board, but only two 6. In group discussions, do I sound off about matters on which I us) as expressed in the consensus of people in the room had ever read have no experience and little knowledge?

FEBRUARY 1970 “AA’s Twelve Traditions have, in my experience, of ten proved vital ‘7 The only requirement in keeping m e sober, for AA membership and helpful otherwise is a desire to stop drinking. in all mu affairs.”

w HO CAN measure what is in the heart of another? No one presumed to measure the sincerity or quality of my motivation to get well few employers would have warncd anyone not to let me insidc the door. My estranged family would have agreed. I had no religion, no pretended were deliberate, if weird, gestures. My mouth was cottony; I had not had a drink for about thirtysix hours. I knew from gloomy past job, no clothes except those I was experiences that I must just hold on when I first approached AA. Our for one more minute, make my legs wearing. I could not have paid a Third Tradition is based on group take one more step, try to think of experience, and its wisdom has truly penny for entertainment in a penny arcade. From my past behavior, I some great happy moment in the been proved to me in personal ex- past (or invent one), steel my will could not prove that I deserved any perience. It is a powerful weapon just one more time, and sooner or kindness or help. I was dirty, and I for safeguarding my own recovery. Ii~tcr 1 could gct a drink, aftcr I When i lirst ofTcrcrl mysclt’ to stank. I had only a highly undcsirablc sickness to olrcr AA, and tha1 llad investigated this AIc~liolics AA, some twenty-five years ago, 1 Anonynlous business. Or, nicrcifully, was all AA asked of me. met almost no requiremcnts for join- I was so chilled inside, so bleak I would suddenly die. I had no ing any decent gathering. The prcand numb that, although I had no strength to ask for help. I was takceding months had been nothing overcoat, I did not notice the bitter ing this dangerous risk -getting but drunkenness, accompanied by a wintry weather on the January day near strangers who, I was told, did sickness at heart which few but alwhen I first. walked, zombielike, up not ask for names and had been coholics can fathom. I could have complctcd no questionnaire or ap- thc steps into the old AA clubhouse pretty bad drinkers themsclvcs on New York’s West 41st Street. just to see whether 1 could observe plication blank. 1 had no address, What shakes I could not control, I while being unobserved. no telephone, no references. My last

and, in a kind but not over-gooey then I already was. of us would be alive? Think of all voice, she said, “Are you having I hope I never forget the floods of the wonderful people, including trouble with your drinking?” I was relief those words brought. I partic- the nonconformists, eccentrics, and thunderstruck. It was the one query ularly need to remember them when kooks who make such valuable ad- I had not prepared a lie for. Before I am disturbed or inconvenienced by ditions to our number, who would Although 1 did not know what to I knew what was happening, I told “improper personages” who some- have been kept out of AA if we had expect, I was prepared – with lies, the truth. I nodded yes. times intrude on nice, clean, sober, any requirement for membership naturally. I had to be. If anyone “Well, I’m a drunk myself,” she orderly AA meetings these days. A other than a desire to get well. asked me how much I drank, I said. “Come on in and we’ll talk i group near my home has “banned” Although I know it is impossible always lied; the quantity was irrele- it over.” two alcoholics from its premises. to judge what is in anyone else’s vant to how drunk I got or what She spoke easily, with no emo- Impossible types, I heard. Most un- heart, and arrogant even to try, I happened to me. If I was asked tionalism. I had thought I was be- cooperative, very undesirable. still find myself trying at times. I what I would do to get a drink, yond surprise, but I could only stare I was not in on these exclusions, have heard myself on the telephone I would have to lie, because if I in disbelief. She seemcd so serene, but during my early AA days I at Intergroup screening would-be admitted the truth, I would surely so content, so clean, so rcspectablc. sometimes Icd the pack in verbally mcmbers, as if judging whether or be punished. If I was asked how How could she say she was a drunk? stoning an alcoholic out of the one not thcy were worthy of our help, I behaved when drunk, I would lie, We sat down, and my education place where he could have found whether or not thcy merited our partly to cover up the blackouts, began. She asked no questions, so help at that time. We had many love. partly to hide the bits of shameful I did not have to be cautiously alert; rules of membership then. They 1 have even asked it drunk such truth that I did recall. I could just listen with full, intense were a nuisance, because we had to an awful question as “Do you really Since this was in 1945, before our attention. I heard about her disease, keep changing them almost weekly want to stop drinking forever?” Or Third Tradition was written, the AA alcoholism, and her recovery in AA. to keep the “wrong” people out and “Have you had any AA contact bewoman who spoke to me first had It was more comforting, more nour- let the “right” people in. Sometimes, fore?” – as if prior membership no formal printed guidance for de- ishing, and more enduring than any one week’s sergeant-at-arms was were a requirement, or perhaps ciding whom to admit to AA for drink had ever been. Probably my himself excluded the next week, be- grounds for disqualification. Or help. But she had compassion. She face remained frozen, but my heart cause he was drunk. Me. “What kind of pills do you take?” did not begin with a blunt “Are you thawed, and I had to keep blinking Perhaps today’s would-be rule- I have been impatient with a slipper, an alcoholic?” If she had, I would rapidly and blowing my nose. Fi- makers for AA membership, or too, forgetting that this binge could h ~ i esaid, “Certainly not,” with my nally, warm inside, 1 began to feel guardians of the premises, are those be his last, as one of my own finally usual nasty aloofness. Nor did she the cold I had come in out of. whose drinking lives had such virtue was (so far). ask, “Do you want to stop drink- Dreading the answer, I was afraid as to earn for them the “privilege” In fact, just today I found myself ing?” In my state, the question to ask what was in my heart: “Will of AA assistance. But no member I dcciding that 1 do not care for sowould have seemed absurd, if not you, please, let me join?” I knew I know claims such deserts, and I and-so’s brysque and hypocritical insane. The one thing in the world did not deserve it, so, with a disdain know I do not. As you see, I am now brand of AA; nor do I like what I needed and wanted that minute often practiced, I tried to sound cas- as intolerant of rule-makers as they that fanatic such-and-such says so was a stiff drink. But I was afraid ual while managing to murmur, as if are of the sick alcoholics they find rudely about spiritual matters; and to take one. That fact glued my only impersonally interested, “How undesirable. I can’t stand the phony-sounding feet just inside the door of the old does one join?” Honestly now, if, in order to get piety of still another fellow AA. building, where I pretended to be She said that my simply coming into AA, we had had to meet any I fear that in my heart I am ruling reading a handy bulletin board. there meant I wanted help, and if I standards more rigid than the one out of my AA anybody who does not But she spied me lurking about, just wanted to be a member of AA, given in the Third Tradition, who meet my own high and mighty re-

quirements for membership. It is as was assured that AA people kept if, each time I disdain an alcoholic themselves sober by trying to benefit for whatever reason, I add another. me. It was also a great rclief to be brick to a wall supposedly safeguard- told that I could, in a sense, pay off ing my recovery, or at least keeping my debt simply by talking to someit cozy and comfortable for me. And one else, some day, as 1 had been if I keep on adding rejection bricks talked to. It was not suggested that or exclusion bricks to my wall of 1 help only the clean, the proper, and safety, you know where I’ll wind up: the unpilled, the nonbrusque and unisolated behind the wall I have built; hypocritical, the nonfanatics, the piright back where I was before AA; ous, or the impious. alone. Apparently, for me, the price of One of my own first AA contacts our AA brotherhood (First Tradidid suggest that, later on, 1 could tion) and of our fearless trust of earn my AA membership if I wanted cach othcr (Sccond Tradition), if I to. And I wanted to despcrately, want them, is learning unstinting because I was already feeling smoth- acceptance of others – a love which ered by the enormous debt of grati- can be claimed by anyone who tude that 1 felt I owed to AA. I do wants it. He may not say he wants not think I could have survived the it, or act as if he does, but if the deburden of owing so much if AA had sire is in his heart, even unknown let me go on thinking it was all being to himself, that is enough. done only for unworthy me. But I B. L., Manhtrttan, N.Y.

Third Tradition Checklist 1. In my mind, do I prejudge some rity? By a doctor, a clergyman, an new AA members as losers? ex-convict? Or can I just treat this 2. 1s there some kind of alcoholic new member simply and naturally as whom 1 do not want in my one more sick human, like the rest AA group? of us? 6. When someone turns up at AA 3. Do I set a bdge of needing information or help (even whether a newcomer is sincere or if he can,t ask for it aloud), does phony? it really matter to me what he 4, Do I k t language, religion (or does for a living? Where he lives? lack of it), race, education, age, or What his domestic arrangements othcr such things interfcrc with my carrying thc mcssagc? ,,,? whcthcr hc has been to A A bcforc’? What his other problems 5. Am I overimpressed by a celeb- are?

APRIL 1970 The author says: “AA’s Twelve Traditions have, in my experience, often proved vital in keeping me sober, and helpful otherwise in all my aflairs. ** This is the fourth of a f \ 1- Each group should be autonomous t-7

series of articles – [ I U ] except in matters affecting sharing that experience. Ln] other groups or AA as a whole. D URING my first sober year in AA, I heard that a group in the TlABlTlQI next state was awarding poker chips to members who stayed sober for various lengths of time. They even gave a party at the end of a new- So I went to an older member, who And those exasperating old-timers I comer’s first year, with a candle on a had patiently listened to me before, talked to didn’t seem to mind one bit. cake, and everybody singing “Happy and I complained again, “Something They just kept on serenely staying Birthday.” ought to be done!” sober. Apparently, it bothered them I was horrified. Scandalized! I “Well, do it, then,” he declared, not at all that other groups and other declared that such childish behavior grinning, and walked away. (No Tra- members were going their own indeled people to stay sober only for ditions had been written down yet. It pendent ways. I didn’t know then rewards, rather than for their own was 1945.) what the old-timers realized: that lives’ sake. Besides, it violated the Shortly thereafter, through the getting distressed about other mem- 24-hour plan of trying to stay sober Grapevine, I began to learn shocking bers and groups was dangerous, not one day at a time, not for a month or facts: In Chicago, Minneapolis, St. to those others, but to the AA who a year. I shook my head and mut- Louis, and Miami, lots of groups did got upset about them. tered, “Something ought to be things “wrong” – which meant, of There was the rub: If 1 was undone.” course, not the way we did them in willing to grant autonomy to others, Soon after that, a speaker at our my group. the one likely to get drunk was me. meeting told some off-color stories. And yet those faraway, seemingly So finally I had to learn, once more, (Like many “reformed drunkards,” 1 benighted AAs seemed to stay sober that there are no bosses in AA (as had become quite a puritanical prig.) just as well as we did. Besides, with our Second Tradition says) and that He also revealed that he had been their anniversary parties and sobriety nobody in the outfit would take ordrinking the day before. This was too tokens, they seemed to have a lot of ders, anyway. outrageous to be ignored, of course. fun that my group missed out on. In my opinion, there is additional,

give us the different kinds of help we and my rigidity. And who knows specific guidance on this in the now- – is wonderful. need at various stages of our sobri- what wonderful new ideas are yet to written words of our Fourth Tradi- If each of us is expected to arrive ety. Thousands of us have had our come if members like me will be ‘ ‘ . tion: Each group should be auton- at his own understanding of a Great- lives saved by such hospital ar- flexible enough to accept them and omous except in matters ajjecring er Power, I cannot believe that any rangements. (Mine was, twice.) Who use them? orher groups or A A as a whole. And other member – or a committee of says the Fourth Tradition does not The closing words of our Tradition I don’t think I am distorting the us – is meant to decide how he shall apply to sobriety for an individual? do suggest, however, that the autoospirit of those words when I say to do it. But I have found that grudging So I am glad that group autonomy omy is not unqualified. My group myself that not only each group, but tolerance of others’ ways is not gives us the right to experiment if we has the right to run itself any way it also each member deserves auton- enough. Learning to respect the posi- wish. Otherwise, all meetings would pleases, but only so long as it does omy. Besides, respect for the inde- tive values of these different ways has be alike, all held at the same time, not mess things up for other groups, pendence of others is to my own contributed much more to my recov- and every one of us who has ever or hurt our beloved Fellowship as a advantage. ery. benefited from a daytime discussion whole. If there were no Fourth Tradition As AA now grows into its thirty- or a midnight Eleventh Step meeting Each time I recognize the value of (first in the old-timers’ experience, fifth year, I feel that our Fourth would just be out of luck. my group’s autonomy, I am rethen in written words), what would Tradition has grown in value. Be- Quite recently, I found myself minded of my personal responsimy own AA story be? cause of it, we are helped to avoid a back on a group Steering Com- bility. For example, when those all- If, during my first AA months, rigidity which might destroy the use- mittee. I had been chairman of the important newcomers arrive at a one way of doing things had been fulness of AA and hinder its ability group many years before, but no one meeting where I am present, whatforced on all groups, I might not to take in more and more of the else on the committee knew that. I ever I do or fail to do may indeed have stayed around to get well. If the various kinds of sick alcoholics. sat in quiet horror as the Young affect other groups. If I am not poker chips and anniversary parties Early in my own AA life, I was Turks discussed what kind of sand- friendly, if I am overzealous, if I am had been mandatory in my group, all fortunate enough to encounter mem- wiches seemed to go best at the hypocritical, if I am dogmatic, if I of us who shrank from such sociabil- bers who wanted to try daring AA beginners meeting. Sandwiches? am frivolous, if I am humorless, any ity could easily have found A*A not experiments. They started types of I smirked inwardly. They couldn’t one of these may be the quality which for us, and gone away to drink again meetings that no one in AA had get anybody to make them, I was a newcomer ascribes to all AA. He and to die. heard of before: closed discussions, sure. Besides, the group treasury may go away saying, “Those AAs On the other hand, if some AA open discussions, and Step meetings, would be depleted by such fancy are clannish” or “fanatical” or laws had absolutely forbidden such among others. Some even persuaded food, and our rent would go unpaid “dreary,” and he may never come practices (as I had wanted to do), a general hospital to open a ward for until our church landlord was heard back to that group – nor try any many AAs who have found sobriety alcoholic patients, run in close coop- from. other. tokens o r key chains, birthday cakes eration with our AA Central Office, At our beginners meetings, we now What can I do about it? Well, and anniversary parties helpful in and to allow meetings on the prem- have the biggest crowds ever, happily whenever I lead or speak at an open their recovery would have been de- ises. munching away, sober. Instead of meeting or participate in a discussion prived of these aids in staying sober. You can guess what a ruckus these barely scraping up the rent, we now meeting, it is probably important for , I think the autonomy Tradition innovations kicked up. “Heresy!” have a treasury full enough to pay it me to say clearly that no one memmeans that any help – whether it is a one faction cried. Because a certain and then make generous monthly ber speaks for AA as a whole or for poker chip, a piece of jewelry, a approach had never been used be- gifts to our local Intergroup and the any AA group, that each speaker book, a prayer, a cake and candle, a fore, they said, it would not work. It AA General Service Office as well. expresses his own .opinion only. In Slogan, a clinic, one particular kind might even ruin AA! Thanks to that Fourth Tradition, my AA, we seek diversity of opinion, not of meeting, a psychiatrist, a sponsor, Of course, thousands of us now group could be independent of me uniformity, because i n that way we or any other means of staying sober know that different kinds of meetings

can help more and more people. (I communication and free exchange of is coming up in Miami Beach July trinal uniformity imposed on all especially need to remember this, of experience somewhat difficult. 3-5 this year; some, to be sure, have groups and members. That altercourse, when opinions I do not like If we had the kind of chain of not been told about any of the Tradi- native would threaten my sobriety, are voiced.) command most organizations have, tions, only about the Steps; and a t a dangerously. But I am not sure that such an- helpful information might travel bet- meeting I attended last night, I met Instead, I am free to continue nouncements are totally effective. In ter or more quickly. If we had ech- one young man who had been around learning and growing at my own rate fact, as an AA member, I can do elons of authority, ideas could be AA over three years before anyone (or to stand still). That Fourth Tradivery little that does not reflect on my forcefully passed down to all units. suggested to him, “Have you tried tion offers true independence to me, group or on AA as a whole, whether News of a new pamphlet would auto- the Steps? They were helpful to me.” the individual, as well as to every AA I like it or not. To the non-AA world, matically be disseminated by govern- This seems a heavy, if not a dan- group, so long as we accept some we individuals are AA. It is an awe- ing units to those being governed. gerous, price for AA to pay for group responsibility along with it. But I some responsibility. Once I spoke Results of new kinds of meetings autonomy. Is it worth such a risk? don’t mind. Who ever said that freesharply to a fellow worker, not in could be instantly transmitted to all The answer is yes, 1 believe, since dom was for free? AA, and he responded acidly, “All groups and members. the alternative would be rigid, doc- B. L., Manhattan, N . Y . you AAs are so damn rigid!” Since I As it is now. thousands of AA was the only AA he knew, I repre- members are deprived of knowledge Fourth Tradition Checklist sented to him our entire Fellowship. which they would happily use. For 1. Do I insist that there are only a few right ways of doing things in AA? My AA freedom to do or say as I example, fewer than half the AA 2. Does my group always consider the welfare of the rest of AA? Of nearby please does indeed need to be groups in the world take the Grapewatched. groups? Of Loners in Alaska? Of Internationalists miles from port? Of a vine. And, because each group is group in Rome or El Salvador? On the group level, the widespread autonomous, no one can force on 3. Do I put down other members’ behavior when it is different from mine, or autdnomy so fiercely practiced and them the knowledge that this won- do I learn from it? cherished sometimes brings with it a derful (in my opinion) magazine 4. Do I always bear in mind that, to those outsiders who know 1 am in AA, I severe handicap to our Fellowship exists. I am continually being sur- may to some extent represent our entire beloved Fellowship? over-all – or at least a disadvantage prised, as I visit various groups, to 5. Am I willing to help a newcomer go to any lengths – his lengths, not mine which we have to work hard and learn that many members have never – to stay sober? ingeniously to overcome. I mean that heard of Bill’s new book, The A A 6. Do I share my knowledge of AA tools with other members who may not autonomy sometimes can make free Way of Life; some have no idea what have heard of them?

..:7.— JUNE 1970 Each group has but one primary purpose.. .to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

hope so. You see, I need to borrow things. So I put my gradually cleartwo thousand dollars.” ing mind to it, remembered a cousin His silence was total. I had not tapped for months, scnt n But finally he spoke. “You’re in wire, and got some dough. the wrong place,” he said firmly. To my astonishment and sorrow, “We don’t lend money here, my I almost instantly found mysclf friend. That’s not what this place is drunk. for.” Within a few hours, my new AA 1 froze, but he went on and on. benefactor had given me in very 0 N M Y FOURTH sober AA day, I was sitting alone in one of our musty old meeting rooms, very sad “We won’t help you with a money problem. We won’t help you with a blunt words a sharp summary of Traditions Five, Six, and Seven. and very broke. All the AAs had family problem or a job or clothes And, by getting drunk, 1 had illusseemed very kind in their desire to or a medical problem or food or a trated perfectly the special sense behelp, but none of them had men- place to spend the night. All we hind Five. What 1 needed most was tioned money. And, like thousands will do in AA is help you stay not money, obviously. After getting of other new members, I believed sober,” hc explained. “Then you can it, I still had the rlrirrking problem my biggest problems were financial. take care of these other problems that had made me think of ap- Yet not one person hiid offercd n yourself. You crm take care of your- proaching AA in the first place. loan. sell’, can’t you, if you’re sobcr?” This happened in January 1945, Then, suddenly, one of those I hated that word “sober.” But and the lirst hint of the Twclve Trabig, handsome, gray-templed, well- what could 1 say? “Certainly,” I ditions was not to appear anywhere dressed old-timers strode in with a snapped, humiliated that, in my ig- in AA until the July 1945 issue of friendly smile widening his face. He norance of AA’folkways, I had been the Grapevine, when Bill W. wrote, stuck out his hand and squeezed caught in a faux pas, as if someone “I would like to discuss in coming mine. “If 1 can help you any way had found me eating peas with my issues such topics, as anonymity, at all, just say so, and 1’11 do it!” he fingers. leadership, public relations, the use declarcd heartily. What the man had said made per- of money in AA, and the like.” Trying to sound as if I were fectly good sense. I had been sober Therefore, what I encountered in merely asking for a match, I said, “I a few days and coiild take care of AA during my first few months, be-

fore the Traditions were formalized, too, expecting long hours of unpaid to the alcoholics who are still out up in our Traditions. But I have were customs of AA behavior fol- work simply because I was a fellow there drinking, sick, scared, com- recently discovered something else lowed by members who had learned AA. We began to concentrate on pletely unaware that we want them, quite wonderful about the Fifth: It that some AA ways would work, what we were owed, not on what and completely wrong in their no- does not say that AAs should help and others would not. we as AAs owed each other. Neither tion of what our sober life is like. I only newcomers. That is the authority of the Tra- of us got drunk, but our friendship can be on our hospital- and jail- I do not agree that the newditions in my personal life. I honor did not survive. visiting committees. I can serve on comer is the most important memthem, not solely because of their Another time, I tried to use AA my group’s hospitality committee, to ber at any meeting. In my opinion, authorship or their having the mysti- for romance, and really did find welcome the ill-at-ease new man. I equally important are those oldcal number twelve or their being balm for a lonely heart with an AA can attend or lead beginners meet- timers who showed me the way, and adopted by the Fellowship at the partner. We found romance, all ings. I can help support our local any middle-timer who may today First International Convention in right, but we lost our sobriety. Intergroup office and the AA Gen- be suffering. If newcomers are in- Cleveland in 1950. I cherish them Years have gone by since 1 had eral Service Office, which reach deed the lifeblood of AA, old- and because they work. They enable me AA infancy as an excuse for my drunks in places I cannot get to. I middle-timers are its skin and backand my fellow AAs to stay sober, gimme tendencies. Today, I try to can have coffee with the new man bone. What a bewildered mess we together, and to carry our message look at the Fifth Tradition as a after the meeting, instead of run- would be in without them! to other alcoholics. giver, not as a taker. But the picture ning off to chin and gossip with my So in your next meeting, when But I did not like the Traditions is not pretty enough to brag about. old friends. that Tradition about carrying the at first, especially when they con- It isn’t always easy, even now, to Yes, my group (made up of in- message “to the alcoholic who still flicted with what I wanted. I was a keep my personal wants out of the dividual AAs, including me) has suffers” is mentioned, please give a suspicious character, often turning way when I try to carry the message. improved a lot in its respect for our thought, not only to newcomers, but phony operator to get what I 1 want applause as an AA speaker, Fifth Tradition – in its ways of also to the alcoholics older in AA wanted. During those first weeks, 1 compliments as a Grapevine writer. carrying the message. My own AA who are sitting there. One of them kept wondering what “those AAs” I want to be a “success” as a spon- history has lengthened considerably might be me. I still suffer, somewere really up to or out ofter, and sor – that is, I want to be the one since I first caught glimpses of the times. I still need to hear the meswhat I could get out of them. who sobered somebody up! sobriety-preserving wisdom in the sage, always. The real miracle is that most of I have found I prefer to carry the AA ways of doing things, summed U. L., Manhattun, N.Y. them acted with extraordinary kind- message to pleasant, attractive, ness. No matter what I tried to grateful alcoholics who do what I Fifth Tradition Checklist maneuver out of them, they tried say and give me full credit for their 1. Do I ever cop out by saying, “I’m not a group, so this or that Tradition just to give me the message. sobriety. Sometimes I wish I did not doesn’t apply to me”? In subsequent years, I tried to even have to carry the message at 2. Am I willing to explain firmly to a newcomer the limitations of AA help, misuse AA in two ways; that is, I all; I wish I could just wait where I even if he gets mad a t m e for not giving him a loan? tried to get more out of it than the am for people to come and pick it 3. Have I today imposed on any AA member for a special favor or consobriety message. Once, I wangled a UP. sideration simply because I am a fellow alcoholic? part-time job from a fellow member, On the other hand, I rejoice that 4. Am I willing to twelfth-step the next newcomer without regard to who then took advantage of him. Com- I can now participate in so many he is or what is in it for me? ing in late, I would excuse myself good ways of fulfilling our primary 5. Do I help my group in every way 1 can to fulfill our primary purpose? by thinking, “After all, we’re both purpose. 1 can help put on public Does my group carry the message, or do we expect people to come get it? alcoholics; he ought to excuse my meetings and other public-informa- 6 , Do I remember that AA old-timers, too, can be alcoholics who still little weaknesses.” He exploited me, tion activities to carry the message suffer? Do I try both to help them and to learn from them?

AUGUST lp70

) ‘ An AA group ought never endorse, finance or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from out primary purpose.

B EFORE I understood even dimly what AA was, I was sure I could improve it. Looking back, I pose) talked a bewildering mklange of facts, guesswork, inspired wisshould change laws relating to alcoholics. (The North American Asrealize now that my pure gall was dom, gossip, and nonsense. Yet I sociation of Alcoholism Programs appalling, since it was rooted so assumed that what I heard was the and the National Center for Control firmly in ignorance. I knew almost whole AA truth, and, armed only and Prevention of Alcoholism were nothing about the externals of the with my small collection of quick then impossible dreams.) Fellowship and much less about its impressions and misinformation Detoxification centers, vocational spiritual principles. Since I was too rehabilitation, and other services, about AA, I wanted to change it. proud to admit that there was any- Surely, for example, AA should improved understanding by social thing I did not know, I almost never workers, school kids, psychologists, . be informing the medical profession asked questions. Practically nothing in the very about the facts of our disease as we and cops all these and more were understood them. (The Yale – badly needed. Why, I carped, was skimpy AA literature we had then now Rutgers – School of Alcohol AA not getting busy? (in 1945) explained how AA or its Just suppose for a minute that Studies and the National Council component units functioned, so my our Fellowship had indeed been knowledge was based on what I on Alcoholism had barely got started, and this was nine years misguided right smack into all those heard and saw in one group. Then activities. What a tangled web we as now, we AA members (like other before the American Medical Association established its alcoholism could have woven! How many human beings everywhere, I supcommittee.) drunks would have been ignored, The government, I was sure, left to die, as we mounted our

political and fund-raising cam- much wiser than I as an individual, drunken chef, typewriter repairs, needed such business enterprises paigns! How many enemies AA and my group just plugged along, club dues, revising bylaws, a tem- were, an AA group ought to stay would have made for itself if it trying to do its own thing. Even peramental janitor, and deciding out of them, because discussions of had tried to dictate to the medical, without such complications, we had who could and could not use the money, property, and prestige kept clerical, and legal professions! trouble enough just trying to figure phone or which brand of coffee to us wildly distracted from the Twelve If my AA group had had pres- out what our own thing really was. buy. Steps. tige, money, and power at stake, I The Traditions had not been written We made it almost impossible for As an AA group, we decided to fear my own sobriety would have yet. newcomers to tell the difference carry the message, period. So we found little support at our meetings. At first, we felt we had to do at between joining a club and simply dropped the food business and real- There would have been no room for least three things: ( I ) provide a becoming a sober AA. 1 know. I estate management. Some individuit on the agenda. Many of us would place where members could play was one of those newcomers. als formed separate nonprofit have left, I fear – sic trunsit glori- cards, eat, and have coffee any time; People who did not get elected corporations, outside AA, to run ous sobriety, and maybe AA itself. ( 2 ) maintain an office with tele- to boards or did get demoted from clubs or day centers for AAs who I am certain now that if any phones as a central clearinghouse jobs proceeded to get drunk. Criti- wanted such amenities. As for the AA-run governmental programs on for Twelfth Step work and informa- cism of the cafeteria cashier’s report local central office (or intergroup), alcoholism had been set up and had tion about meetings; (3) keep our became resentments of “AA’s finan- it was eventually operated and supgone bust, my resentments would own AA meetings and Twelfth Step cial structure,” yet! Two fellows I ported by all the groups nearby. have burst through my tender, new work going. liked were displeased by the cafe- This arrangement has worked sobriety. Suppose we had started The first two involved us in legal teria food, blamed AA, and left. beautifully ever since, both in New an official AA club and it had been corporations, finances, real-estate (No wonder! They had heard little York and elsewhere. And now, of raided because of gambling, or AA- management, building maintenance, else except the food discussed at course, other services seriously run retreats for alcoholics had be- cafeteria operation, a paid secre- their first three meetings. They were needed by alcoholics are at last become subjects of gossip. What then? tary, and, naturally, rules and offi- dead within a year, of alcoholism.) ginning to get under way – but not I would have gotten either emotion- cers. As a result, newcomers who The solution my group finally under the auspices of AA. Food, ally embattled or, more probably, just needed the message often got found, nearly a quarter-century ago, clothing, shelter, and medical asalcoholically embottled. shortchanged because we were too was quite simple. We decided that, sistance are often necessary for the As always, AA as a whole proved busy with serious problems like a no matter how exciting and how alcoholic’s recovery. But other or-

ganizations, efficiently operated and thought it was just an extension of professionally experienced in these AA and would not come near it! I matters, can handle them better know. I was the guilty one.) than an AA group. Adherence to our primary pur- Nevertheless, let’s not overlook a pose makes AA unique – and also fact seldom recognized, in conver- gives us a special responsibility, it sation or in print: Many of the great seems to me. We are the only peoimprovements in the treatment of ple who have our own personal exalcoholics during the last thirty-five perience to share. And we are the years have bccn brought about only people who try to do nothing quietly, behind the scenes, by except help the individual alcoholic anonymous AA members, acting as because we have to, to stay sober private citizens interested in a pub- ourselves. We help him, not for the lic-health problcm. The Sixth Tradi- sake of society or of science, but for tion leaves every AA member the the sake of our own sobriety. freedom to do that, if he cares to, As a result; other programs in the so long as his actions do not con- alcoholism field have come to destitute A A endorsement ( o r pend heavily on AA’s continuing criticism) of any enterprises, nor integrity. At every single profes- “lend the AA name” to them. sional meeting, it is a conspicuous (There’s another side to this coin, fact that nonalcoholics count abtoo. Once upon a time, a non-AA solutely on the aid of sober, conalcoholism program tried to create scientious AAs who remember the impression, falsely, that it was When anyone, anywhere, reaches endorsed by AA. But the attempt out for help, I want the hand of A A backfired. The professionals at always to be there. And for that: whom the program was aimed I am responsible. B. L., Manhuttan, N.Y.

Sixth Tradition Checklist I . Should my fellow group members and I raise money to endow several AA beds in our local hospital? 2. Is it good for a group to lease a small building? 3. Are all the officers and members of our local club for AAs familiar with “Guidelines on Clubs” (which is available free from GSO)? 4. Should the secretary of our group serve on the mayor’s advisory committee on alcoholism? 5. Some alcoholics will stay around AA only if we have a TV and card room. If this is what is required to carry the message to them, shouldn’t we have these facilities?

OCTOBER 1970

Every AA group ought to be self-supporting, The author says: declining outside contributions. “AA’s Twelve Traditions have, in my experience, often proved vital N MY FIRST approach to AA,

in keeping me sober, 0 the movement was just ten years old. The Traditions had not have not even a dime for it that I might have stayed away if the leader had not made a little speech one other portion to keep the big world central office (the General Service Office) going. yet been written, but already AA night. He said it was perfectly all Interlocking with Tradition Seven, and hetpful had effectively declared itself inde- right for those of us with no dough Five and Six do suggest that we pendent of all handouts, thank you. at present to let the hat pass by, have no other enterprises to finance, otherwise It was managing, somehow, to pay since everyone there understood be- don’t they? The conclusion seems its own way, and I was very glad to ing broke. Visitors were asked not so simple that since then it has alin all my learn that. to contribute, also, because AA ways taken me by surprise when If it had turned out to be a gov- wanted to be self-supporting, he financial disagreements hit the fan affairs.” ernment-financed project or a char- said, and we needed only a little in AA groups. Yet I have joined itable branch of some church, my money for our purposes. my most mature, serene AA friends feelings about it could not have Later, as treasurer of a group, I time after time in acting positively been so instantly warm and com- understood more clearly those pur- demented over the clubhouse cost of fortable. The fact that it was just poses: paying rent for the meeting a cup of coffee. us drunks, paying our own way, room, providing AA literature to In fact, years ago here in New lessened my shame at having to ask carry the message outside the meet- York, almost all groups had an for help. ing room, and putting coffee into the unspoken rule: Finances were too I did, though, feel embarrassed pot. In addition, we sent a certain inflammatory to be mentioned at a the first few times the collection hat percentage monthly to our local regular meeting. 1 suppose we were came my way. I was so ashamed to central office (intergroup) and an- afraid we were too immature to stay

sober if we took the dangerous risk little harm was done. She helped -and started staying year, the institution wanted to send, of mixing talk about, say, the moral Indeed, one hung-over fellow sober. ) from its own funds, a donation to inventory with that dirty word attended his very first AA meeting, A church told a big group which GSO, to be credited to the AA m—y. by mistake, on the night we were met there that AA’s money was not group concerned. (That year, I was Instead, before the regular meet- stomping all over a new little baby needed, so the group collections General Service Committeeman for ing time each group had a separate budget for the group, shyly pro- just piled up for several years. (Free the district in which that group business meeting, usually monthly posed by a new treasurer. We use of the space was, of course, meets, so the group’s GS Represen- (when the moon was full, I guess). started at 7:30, waxed wackier and really the acceptance of an outside tative and I had many discussions Then we could madly and happily wrothcr than usual, and by 10:30 contribution. Subsidized by the about this!) screech at each other about bills never had gotten around to men- In the last case, I do not know and cash with no mention of tioning alcoholism at all, much less what the final decision was. But I “prayer and meditation” or being recovery. As soon as the meeting learned that there is far more to “restored to sanity” to mix us up. was over, however, this new pros- T h e lessons this Tradition than 1 had seen at It was as if we were supposed to pect rushed up to the somewhat kept coming. first reading. be safe, protected somehow from wrung-out, harassed chairman and The lessons kept coming. One getting drunk over financial petti- pumped his hand joyously. “I want church, the group was not autono- small group in the district I served ness, from 7:30 to 8:30 on one to join!” he exclaimed. “I can tell mous; the church treated it as if it had a GSR who made sure everyone Tuesday each month, but never you’re my kind of people, all right!” were just another church activity, in the group understood the nature after 8:30 and never on Sunday or And he never took another drink. canceling its meetings during Christ- of the message-carrying done at Monday. (Sometimes I think the 1 have sat in on many such group mas and other holidays, moving it GSO, and the fact that there was Grapevine reflects this attitude, too. Donnybrooks which were, or could from attic to basement, and so on. (as there still is) no one but us to Not for years have I seen in its have been, halted by judicious When the group treasury reached foot the bills. That group sent in a pages, along with the good recovery study and prayerful application of $700, quarreling broke out, and the whopping donation to GSO each stories and the discussions of our the wisdom of our Seventh Tradi- group died.) year, plus paying all its other obli- Steps, a frank discussion of the use tion. Such as: In one small town, local AA life gations, while much bigger groups of and need for money in AA.) Members had to sit on boxes and centers around a club, known lo- sent in only one-fifth as much. That At stake in those long-ago verbal a bench at meetings of a small cally as “the AA club.” Its officers bugged me. Somebody wasn’t paybattles were usually such paltry group I used to attend near skid wanted to pay off the club mortgage ing his fair share, pulling his own sums that a visitor would have row. So the state’s tax-supported with rames and benefit dances – weight. On my Podium of Selfthought us truly beyond help, even alcol~olismclinic offered them some selling tickets to the public. (As any Importance, as the Righteous Comfrom a Greater Power. Maybe we fancy chairs. (They declined grace- Traditions Lawyer can explain, mitteeman, I prepared to speechify thought so, too; prayers were often fully, and proudly salvaged some technically a club is not a group and about it. absent from business meetil~gs,as 1 secondhand ones for themselves.) is therefore free to do such things. Fortunately, I looked at my own recall. In another group, the meeting But is that the spirit of AA? What record first. The results were not all bad, place badly needed a coat of paint, inlpression would this give the Thanks to AA, I was earning however. Instead of disagreeing with and a rich woman member, who townsfolk – and prospective mem- enough of a steady salary to throw each other about the truly impor- had never stayed sober, insisted on bers?) a buck into the hat twice a week. tant business of helping each other footing the whole bill. (Instead of Another group I used to visit That was my share, wasn’t it? But not take the first drink today, we giving in, they waited until the meets in a charitable institution wait a minute. Some newcomers worked off our tempers by arguing treasury could buy the paint, and which does not allow a collection at were not able to afford giving anyover trivial bookkeeping details, and all pitched in to do the work. any meeting on its premises. One thing yet. When I was new, obvi-

ously someone had, without my pletely self-supporting, declining life. In this particular instance, an really were self-supporting, my new knowing it, put in enough to make outside contributions. But I often AA path of service (being GS Com- feeling about myself was quite difup my share, as well as his own. acted as if I somehow deserved mitteeman) led me right into the ferent from any I had ever known And before that, how much had I special financial consideration. inside core of me, where broad before. spent annually on booze? For example, when I first got roads of self-improvement had At last I was starting to grow up, For the first time, I took a seri- . sober, I had rather promptly paid never been traveled. When I then I felt. I was forty years old at the ous look at my group treasurer’s off most debts, and it felt wonderful began to try to behave responsibly time. report and at the GSO financial being able to hold up my head, in financial matters, to act as if I B. L., Manhattan, N.Y. statements printed in the annual debt-free for a change. Except. . . — —

Conference Report, to see where I loans a brother and a cousin had myself fitted in. I looked at my madc to n ~ eremained unpaid a long Seventh Tradition Checklist group’s total contribution to our time. I let them wait until last (and 1. Honestly now, do I do all I can year, wouldn’t it be okay to let the intergroup office and to GSO. I paid no interest), vaguely feeling to help AA (my group, my central government subsidize AA groups in discovered there was a limit (then that they didn’t need the money as office, my GSO) remain self-sup- hospitals and prisons? $100, now $200) set on the amount much as I did. They never asked porting? Could I put a little more 4. Is it more important to get a big any one individual could give to me for it; so I was buying new suits into the basket on behalf of the new AA collection from a few people, or such offices in one year. Appar- and other things I enjoyed (telling guy who can’t afford it yei? How a smaller collection in which more ently, some people had been pri- myself that I owed these to myself), generous was I when tanked in a members participate? vately making direct gifts for years long before I got around to paying barroom? 5. Is a group treasurer’s report unto help keep those places going. these two legitimate debts. Hardly 2. Should the Grapevine sell adver- important AA business? How does mature, responsible behavior! tising space to book publishers and the treasurer feel about it?

I found a faint glimmering of w h a t My analyst and I tussled with this problem for many dreary months, ending in a draw. I am still drug companies, so it could make a big profit and become a bigger magazine, in full color, at a cheaper 6. How important in my recovery is the feeling of self-respect, rather than the feeling of being always self-respect means. at it, with only occasional, thin price per copy? under obligation for charity repatches of success. I still find it too 3. If GSO runs short of funds some ceived? easy to rationalize postponing pay- T o say I began doing the same is ments of my American Express bill not immodest, because it had taken this month if there is something else me so long to get around to it. And I’d rather do with the money. guess what! That year, for the very That’s what I meant when I said first time in my life, I found a faint that AA principles are hard for me glimmering of what self-respect to practice in all my affairs. But our means. Seventh Tradition has shed light Of course, from the realization of and pointed a direction for me to my financial responsibility for see- follow, when I will and can. ing that the AA message got carried, Our Traditions have always made it was only a short step to a sharp it possible for me to stay sober, as look at my other behavior with I have tried to explain in each of money. Technically, since sobering these articles. But they also teach up in AA, I had been almost com- me lessons for the other parts of my

GRAPEVINE,

In AA we demand

Give Me Liberty! But that doesn’t give us the right to push others around

A T THE MOMENT when Ebby T. said to Bill W., “Why don’t you choose your own conception of state of negative feelings about people. My first AA mentors helped me apply the slogan to my family understood Him.” Step Four suggested that for my own recovery I force anyone to pray; but the weight of social pressure pushed everyone God?,” our Fourth Tradition began and to others I was continually find- pass judgment solely on myself, not heavily in that direction, and since to germinate, it seems to me. ing fault with, including AAs. on anyone else. Step Eight suggested that one particular prayer is identi- As page 12 of the second and Maybe this aspect of our program that I concern myself with the inven- fied with one religion, he asked the third editions of the book Alcohol- has more t o d o with the effective- tory of myself only, not with the in- group to change its custom. ics . Anonymous shows, that ness of AA than has been widely ventory of persons I had harmed or For weeks we discussed it, at question freed Bill almost miracu- recognized. Sitting in judgment on who 1 felt had harmed me. times even rationally. Two memlously from the prison of his old other people-a constant preoccu- So, despite the fact that Tradition bers, one pro, one anti, wrote GSO ideas. And I can now use that no- pation of mine while drinking- Four had not yet been spelled out, I about it, each sure GSO or the tion, as expressed in our Fourth is a temptation that keeps re- think its basic idea of liberty board of trustees would rule his fac- Tradition, as my own charter for curring. God is a heavy role to coupled with responsibility was tion right, the other wrong. Both personal freedom in AA-as long as play, and I’ve conclusively proved already operating to help me stay were irritated when they got GSO’s I behave responsibly. to myself many times that my life sober my first year. As I have since reply-that it was up t o the group t o “Each group should be autono- becomes, unmanageable when I detected other outcroppings of it in decide for itself. (I empathize. I still 1 mous except in matters affecting try. In helping to free me from many forms within our Fellowship, don’t like being told, “Grow up.”) other groups or AA as a whole,” that shortcoming, or defect of it seems to slap some new humility No formal group vote ever octhe Tradition says. character, Tradition Four has into me every time. That is a prime curred, because the objecting friend The idea got to me during my first proved priceless in my own AA life. value all the Traditions have in my and some who agreed with him year in AA, 1945, through the slo- I gingerly tiptoed around the recovery. decided to start a new group, with gan Live and Let Live. At that time, edges of Step Three during my early Once, an agnostic member began entirely different ,customs. As a I was so hypercritical of everyone AA months, not too scared of it; to object to our group’s closing the result, for years now there have that I lived in an almost perpetual after all, it did say, “. . . God as we meeting with the Lord’s Prayer. been two thriving groubs where only True, he said, the group did not one existed before-twin fruits of

!Tradition Four-and I have often course. Here in Manhattan, years been able to get from both precisely ago, we formed an intergroup asso- the framework of the last part of the its members. Because I found a few the help I needed. ciation. For a while, it was a delicate Fourth Tradition. not to my liking, I was condemning The liberty each of us has to start little thing. Its fragile life could Recently, I decided to stop paying the whole group. That reminded me new groups, experiment with meet- easily have been shattered if its my dues in a political organization. of the last part of our Fourth Tradiing formats, or change our home steering committee had tried to The fee is small, and the club takes tion: “. . . except in matters affectgroup provides a resilience in AA dictate to groups about officers, or very little of my time. I still believe ing other groups or AA as a whole.” that has been important in my meetings, or whatever. Every resis- in its purpose and generally approve Again, I saw that anyone who sobriety. AA is so flexible, it is hard tant group could have simply with- its methods. So why, I wondered, knows I am an AA member may to fight. Anything we don’t like drawn its volunteers and financial did I want to resign? just as easily judge all of AA by h e . about it, we know we are free to support-and poof, no intergroup! Examining my last few contacts If I am found unpleasant and unrechange. We d o not need anyone’s Instead, the association decided with the society, I realized why I liable, someone may easily say, permission, and no one can declare each group was autonomous, thus wanted out. I had encountered some “Those AAs are nasty and disus wrong or overrule us or read us avoiding the kind of intra-AA members (not all, just some) who honest.” out. As I and some other “slippers” squabble that could have been fatal. seemed to me unpleasant and not Each of us may be the only AA have learned, we can’t resign from Perhaps this Tradition derived entirely trustworthy. (I was better at experience some people have. The AA, because there is nothing to send from the ego-inflicted suffering finding such faults in people when I Fourth Tradition gives me no license your resignation to! We can’t break some of our first AAs had to endure was drinking, but since sobering up to behave in any way that reflects AA rules, because there aren’t any. after getting sober. Robert Thomsen I have certainly not lost all my skill badly on AA. How can I take my marbles and run shows so beautifully in Bill W., his at taking others’ inventories!) That’s a sobering thought, isn’t away from a game played without stunning biography of AA’s chief I caught myself in time. I was it? I find that’s literally true of all marbles? architect, that co-founder Bill tried judging the whole outfit by a few of our Traditions, for me. The freedom from the necessity and tried to impose various ortho- B. L., Manhattan, N. Y. of passing judgments on one an- doxies on AA, only to be frustrated other has prevented the Fellowship painfully time after time. from breaking up in all kinds of dis- One of the delights of growing putes. If the General Service Board, older can be a lessening of my com- GSO, or the Conference constantly pelling desire to make everybody refereed arguments among groups else do things right. (For “right,” or members, it would be tanta- read “my way.”) It is liberating to mount to pronouncing one side or learn repeatedly that I cannot bend the other wrong. We’d probably AA to fit just my particular shape. keep squabbling until the unhappy The pain of such struggle disappears losers went away. And this would when I can let other AAs have .happen over and over, after every things their own way. That leaves such judgment was passed. me more energy that I can devote to Instead, we are told-sometimes my number one problem: me. to our exasperation-to decide for The price I must pay for this freeourselves. dom is a corollary responsibility. I Local central offices operate have virtually unlimited indepenunder the same guiding principle, of dence in AA, as long as I act within

DECEMBER 1970

The author says:

“AA’s Twelve nf o (n \TV1 Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. T r a d i t i o n s have,

in m y experience,

o f t e n p r o v e d vital

in keeping m e sober, N E OF my fingers, all by itself,

and helpful 0 has only scant strength and skill; but when it is used with all the When 1 start ruminating about it, about nonprofessionalism, I find my thoughts wandering off into the Secmake AA unique, in my opinion. They are characteristics possessed by no other body of people I know others, it feels pretty powerful and ond (our leaders), the Sixth (non- of. They could not have been planotherwise seems to know what it is doing. A A e n t e r p r i s e s ) , t h e Seventh ned in advance, because when AA I’ve also noticed that if I cut a (financial independence), and the got started no one could then forefinger and bandage it, then try not Ninth (style of organization). see in just what shapes it would dein all my to use it for a few days, the whole It helps me to think of the Tra- velop, or which problems would hand suddenly gets clumsy and in- ditions as different facets of the come up. So the Traditions, like the aflairs.” efficient. If one finger is out of same crystal. They are, perhaps, Steps, got written down and adopted whack, they all are. even better understood as varied afrer the problems had come up and Just so, it seems to me, with AA’s aspects of an integrated, unified had been solved. The Traditions are Traditions. ‘They work best as a style of life which we call “the AA an agreed-upon distillation of much complete system, with each one sup- way.” Or as twelve different per- past experience, twelve descriptions porting all the others. Besides, I spectives on the spiritual (i.e., “of of ideal AA behavior. understand them better as a hooked- the spirit – not material”) experi- Fortunately for me, I was in AA together whole. In fact, I cannot ence which is at the core of survival while some of that experience was always tell where one leaves off and for each of us as individuals, as well being experienced. I suffered through the next begins. as survival of the Fellowship itself. some of the mistakes which the The Eighth is a good example. It is largely our Traditions which Traditions can now help any mem-

ber avoid. I often received the nourishing fruit of a Tradition, un- “. . . we wanted t o pay f o r the best, 2nd get it, whether it w a s cofiee o r secr-etarial skill we bought.” der some other name, when my sobriety was languishing a n d first two years, I could feel in my in 1945, that New York AA had to and Second Traditions, see?) spindly. bones that what my first twelfth- have someone who would be re- It never occurred to anyone, I To illustrate: The last winter of stepper and the other “real” mem- sponsible full-time for making sure believe, that we ought to hire a nonmy pre-AA alcoholism (December bers said made good sense. that our telephones got answered; member in order to keep AA non- 1944) was miserably bleak, dark, Nonalcoholics had often reached that calls for help were referred professional. It seemed perfectly and cold. Walking into that old down to try to help me. AA mem- quickly to some dependable, sober obvious that the only sort of person Manhattan AA office on West 41st bers, being just drunks like me, member near the caller; that new equipped for this job would be a Street was like suddenly finding, simply reached out to help. prospects who wandered in were member of some experience both in around the corner from the bitter My alcoholic experiences with twelfth-stepped; that information on sobriety and in local AA. No nonwinds, an unexpected, warm spring professional experts, such as clergy- times and locations of all the member could possibly understand day. Like first crocuses, illogical men, physicians, policemen, and Greater New York meetings was all that had to be done, and how to hopes unbelievably popped up to be others paid to help, had not filled kept up to date; that mail asking for do it in the traditional AA ways. Of wondered at. The woman behind nic with love or trust. But the folks help was answered; that the rent course, our secretary would also the desk was the first AA to twelfth- in this AA thing were not finger- and telephone bills were paid; and have to be someone with ofice skills step me, and she said, among many waggers, reminding me that they that the place was cleaned up oc- – able to write lettcrs, handle her other cherished words, that she was were morally superior. These AAs casionally. own typing and filing, keep some not paid to help me and that I need were my own kind, barroom kin, Unless we made one person re- primitive records, write checks, etc. not cringe in shame and ignorance and I believe that is one of the big sponsible full-time for all these Our hunt for such a person before any imagined, awesome ex- reasons I lingered on in the AA chores, all of us would suffer – brought us smack up against the pertise of older members (nor need neighborhood. especially newcomers. We wanted pay question. Practically everybody I phony up my case history to hold In retrospect, I am now certain prospects to get instant and careful around who was qualified, in both their interest). AAs were not pro- that the characteristic of AA de- help, not to be forgotten about. We AA knowledge and office skills, had fessionals, not experts, but just scribed in this Eighth Tradition is needed a central storehouse of ac- to have a job-with-pay in order to former drunkards who helped each responsible in large measure for my curate information, easily available, eat. We certainly could not ask or other stay sober, she pointed out. being alive and sober today. I was, about where a Tuesday-night meet- expect any alcoholic trying to stay That meant I could fit in, as they when I first came to AA, so child- ing might be found near the sober in AA to give up a gooddid, if I wanted to! And suddenly ishly resentful of authority, so Flatbush section of Brooklyn, or paying officejob and starve to death a long-frozen longing to belong jealous of anyone who might know somewhere in Queens or Staten in order to work for AA for noththawed inside me – a sharp, lovely, more than I, that I fear I would not Island. ing. We wanted to pay our own barely remembered yearning from have loitered around AA if it had So we agreed that we had to have way, to depend on no one’s charity childhood. I could acknowledge it consisted of “experts” paid to help a full-time secretary who would pro- (Seventh Tradition, right?) ; we now because, for once, I dared hope me. vide these services for all members wanted to pay for the best, and get for relief. Eavesdropping avidly on the of all groups in the vicinity. And we it, whether it was coffee or secre- Real recovery, the summertime “grown-ups” (then my private name decided it had to be someone who tarial skill we bought. fullness of my own sobriety, was for sober members), 1 began to could be fired if she did not do the In later years, I have spoken still some years away, but even grasp sonic of the things they were job properly. That would make her often, and with embarrassing loudfrom the fringes of AA, where I talking about. For example, it finally responsible to those she served. ness, to the effect that AA salaries, was to huddle fearfully most of my became apparent even to me, back (Oops! Slipping over into the Ninth whether at GSO, the Grapevine, or

Eighth Tradition Checklist it with someone, to make amends to those I have harmed, to admit it 1. Is my own AA behavior accurately described by the Traditions? If not, when 1 am wrong, to use prayer what needs changing? and meditation, and to show re- 2. DO I know who wrote down each one of my Traditions, and why? What sponsible concern for newcomers. would AA be like without them? In short, I have never known any 3. When I chafe about any particular Tradition, do I realize how it affects of the workers hired in our offices the others? and service centers to get paid for 4. Do I sometimes try to get some reward – even if not money – for my staying sober! personal AA efforts? Sometimes, the term “profes- 5. Do I try to sound in AA like an expert on alcoholism? On recovery? On sional AA” is used in another way medicine? On sociology? On AA itself? On psychology? On spiritual matby Traditions Lawyers I have ters? Or, heaven help me, even on humility? local central offices, ought always to known – to put down any AA 6. Do I make an effort to understand what AA employees do? What workbe at least as good as, if not better member who happens to earn a ers in other alcoholism agencies do? Can I distinguish clearly among them? than, those in profit-making com- living using occupational skills (as 7. In my own AA life, have I any experiences which illustrate the wisdom mercial enterprises, if we expect to a doctor, typist, psychologist, edu- of this Tradition? get and keep the best-qualified cator, public-relations man, fund 8. Have I paid enough attention to the book Twelve Steps and Twelve workers. raiser, or whatever) in some non- Traditions? T o the pamphlet A A Tradition – How It Developed? In 1945, the dilemma was solved AA agency concerned with alcowhen we decided to hire a certain holism. AA woman and pay her for her The term, as an opprobrious or office skills used in the service of belittling epithet, is undeserved, I AA, just as she would have been think, unless the person is being paid for her office skills if used in paid for staying sober the AA way. the service of some other agency or As far as I can see, in the Fellowemployer. ship today no sober AAs are pro- Perhaps that is why, when I was fessional AAs, no matter what jobs asked, many years later, whether I they do. In AA concerns, we are all would do a writing job for pay for just amateurs together. And an our AA General Service Board, I amateur, of course, can be defined could say “Yes” with a clear con- as “one who does something for science. Since I earned my living love, not for pay.” That’s how each by writing, I was simply selling that of us works the AA program, isn’t skill to AA exactly as I often sold it? it to various other clients. The T o reinforce and further clarify Board paid me for my professional this concept, we have the AA style service. But notice: AA has never of organization (or disorganizapaid me (nor has it ever paid any- tion!). But here I am beginning to one) to admit I was powerless over slip over into the next Tradition, alcohol, to go to meetings, to take right? That’s for the February issue. my personal inventory and discuss 13. L., Manhattan, N.Y.

FEBRUARY 1971

Good use for our Traditions series From North Burnaby, B.C.: The Vancouver Public Informa- We used questions from seven istion Committee held a Traditions sues of the Grapevine, each of which meeting last month, and we’d like published an article on a particular to share the idea with other groups. Tradition. At the end of the article Each speaker was called on to was a personal checklist to evaluate discuss two Traditions. There were one’s own interpretation of that six speakers in all. The last half- Tradition. We felt that the Grapchour or so was a question-and-an- vine was extremely helpful to us in swer period. At the beginning of the presenting our meeting. Hope you’ll meeting, we had handed out Tradi- all try it. It’s a wonderful change of tions pamphlets with a different pace for any group. question stapled to the inside cover G. C. of cach. Once the first question was asked, the ball started rolling, and away we all went. It was most stimulating!

AA Grapevine, February 1971

The Washingtonians

terms “alcoholic” and “alcoholism” at this same tavern around another self overnight and dropped out of 0 N E THURSDAY evening, April 2, 1 840, nearly 100 years before the advent of Alcoholics Anonysight. The story of the Washingtonian were not yet in general use.) The few occasions when drunkards did reform did not erase the general jug of spirits and were liberally toasting the great advantages of temperance and condemning the mous, six good drinking buddies movement brings sharply into focus pessimism over the possibility of rethe importance of the Twelve Tradi- curse of drink. Although a number were gathered at Chase’s Tavern on habilitating drunks. Since alcohol tions of Alcoholics Anonymous as of active temperance groups was Liberty Street in Baltimore, Md. was assumed to be the cause of alguidelines of group behavior de- already in existence, none was ac- The more they drank. the more coholism, many temperance movesigned to protect us against a similar ceptable to our friends. Good drunks their discussion centered on temper- ments of that day were aimed solely ance, which was one of the most fate. T o take our Traditions for that they were, they decided to form at keeping the nonalcoholic from a group of their own. They elected popular topics of the day. This granted or to ignore them should at becoming alcoholic. The rallying cry meeting and subsequent discussions least justify a check mark on the officers and drew up a pledge of was: “Keep the temperate pcople total abstinence: led to the formation and brief, spec- debit side of our inventory charts. temperate; the drunkards will soon tacular life of the Washingtonian Until the time of this meeting “We, whose names arc annexed, die and the land be free!” desirous of forming for our mutual movement, which grew in member- at Chase’s Tavern. it was the pre- On April 5, 1840, our six good ship to over 400,000 “reformed vailing opinion that nothing could benefit and to guard against a pernidrinking buddies once again gathered cious practice which is injurious to drunkards” and then destroyed it- be done to help the drunkard. (The

<! ‘ ‘ our health, standing, and families, street or drawn out from some old drunks who still suffered. This drive do pledge ourselves as gentlemen filthy shed, taken by the arm, spoken spilled over into a desire to prevent, ” that we will not drink any spiritoils or malt liquors, wine or cider.” N ewspaper editors were liberal with coverage, complete kindly to, invited to the hall, and such suffering by persuading those with reluctance dragged there or not addicted to insure their sobriety carried in a carriage if not too filthy; through total abstinence. Influential They chose the name Washington Temperance Society in honor of with names o f members. and there he sees himself surrounded temperance leaders of the day need- George Washington, and a member- by friends and not what he most ed salesmen to sell this message of ship fee of twenty-five cents was feared . . . police officers. Everyone prevention, and the Washingtonians established, together with monthly were drunkards or not, but were takes him by the hand; he begins to provided a waiting list of available dues of twelve and a half cents. also pledged to total abstinence, plus come to and when sober signs the manpower. With fond embraces they parted, thousands of temperance advocates pledge and goes away a reformed New York City beckoned. In each agreeing to bring one new who welcomed the Washingtonian man. And it does not end there. The March of the following year, Washmember to the next meeting at thc crusade. man takes the pledge and from his ingtonians and spectators gathered tavern. And they stayed sober! Enthusiastic promoters that they bottle companions obtains a number at the Methodist Episcopal church In response to membership growth were, members of the group orga- of signers who likewise become sober on Green Street. During the very and at the frantic urging of the nized and marched in a parade. It men. Positively these are the facts. first speech, a young man in the tavern owner, the group eventually flaunted bands and banners and was “Now, can any human agency gallery staggered to his feet and rented its own hall and decided to witnessed by more than 40,000 alone do this? All will answer ‘No!’; cried out, “Is there no hope for me? meet weekly. At these meetings, a spectators in Baltimore. Following for we have invariably the testimony God in heaven! Is there no hope for unique format developed. Each the parade, there was a great open- of vast numbers of reformed men me? Will you help me?” He was speaker told his own story: “what air park meeting to spread the who have spoken in public and de- helped to the platform and express- I used to be like -what happened Washingtonian “Twelfth Step” mes- clared they have broken off a num- ed his willingness and readiness to -and what I am like now.” The sage: “Drunkard! Come up here! ber of times, but have as often bind himself from that hour to total idea was greeted with explosive ac- You can reform. I met a gentleman relapsed again; and the reason they abstinence. Others followed. Some ceptance. It gave new impact to the this morning who reformed four give for doing this is that they wholly were young men; others were old entire temperance movement. Total weeks ago and was rejoicing in his rely on the strength of their resolu- and gray-headed. The Washingtonabstinence had created the miracle reformation. We don’t slight the tion without looking any higher. of the man at the podium! drunkard. We love him! We nurse Now they feel the need of God’s as- In November 1840, the group held its first public meeting. Newspaper editors were liberal with him as a mother does her infant learning to walk!” Tears flowed freely around the sistance, which having been obtained, their reform is genuine. Praise God!” M embers were sure it was within their power to coverage, complete with names of secretary’s table as hundreds moved The Washingtonian manifestation meet widespread, pressing needs. members. The audience was stand- to the platform and signed the pledge of miracles could not be contained ing-room-only. Both alcoholics and of total abstinence. The emotional geographically. Members were sure nonalcoholics – all who pledged atmosphere was saturated with con- it was within their power to meet ians embraced them all. An organithemselves to total abstinence – tagious salvation. Religious groups widespread, pressing needs. The re- zation of women within the group, were welcomed into the group. Five embraced the program. claimed drunks active in the move- known as Martha Washington Somonths later, Washingtonian mem- Samuel F. Holbrook, the first ment proved by their example that cieties, fed and clothed the poor and bership claimed over 1,000 “reform- president of the society, thundered drunkards could be helped, and they reclaimed the intemperate of their ed drunkards” and 5,000 members of God’s part in reclaiming drunks: had an overwhelming drive to carry own sex. who were not sure whether they “The reeling drunkard is met in the their message of hope to other In less than four years from the

—

Although it is obvious that this principle of anonymity created an program of the Washingtonians was atmosphere for spectacular growth incomplete and possessed only lim- -but also led to battles among ited opportunity for personality personalities competing for prestige change, as compared with AA’s and power. One hundred years later, Twelve Steps, it did provide the AA adopted Traditions Eleven and tools for at least short-lived sobriety Twelve, which guide us to base our for thousands of drunks. But it fail- public-relations policy on attraction ed to provide any standards at all rather than promotion; always to that were comparable to AA’s maintain personal anonymity at the Twelve Traditions. Because there level of press, broadcasting, and were no such safeguards for the films; and to regard anonymity as movement as a whole, it died. Most our “spiritual foundation . . . ever of the Washingtonians’ problems lay reminding us to place principles bein areas now covered in our Tradi- fore personalities.” tions: 3. Nothing can divide and destroy 1. The AA Preamble and Tradi- groups morc quickly than theologition Five advise us to protect our cal and political controversy. Tradisingleness of purpose; Tradition tion Ten states that AA “has no One cautions us to protect our unity. opinion on outside issues” and that first meeting of our alcoholic friends the movement destroyed itself com- Without these guidelines, the Wash- “the AA name ought never be at Chase’s Tavern, Washingtonian pletely and dropped out of sight. ingtonian movement developed into drawn into public controversy.” membership hit its peak. At that With it went the hope it had held a three-headed monster. First was Without this Tradition the Washingpoint, it is commonly computed, the out for thousands of drunks of that movement included at least 100,000 the program of reclaiming suffering tonians walked right into a Donnyday. “reformed common drunkards,” alcoholics. Second was the call to brook. A few key church leaders Against this brief background, it 300,000 “common tipplers” who is possible to make a limited com- the general public for temperance heard Washingtonian reformed also became total abstainers, and parison between the Washingtonian through moral suasion. Third was drunks proclaiming publicly that, untold thousands who were simply movement and Alcoholics Anony- the call for temperance through legal among other things, they were liventhusiastic temperance advocates. mous and to reflect on the possibil- suasion. Influential men controlled ing Christ’s program – not just giv- And then came oblivion. ity of AA’s suffering a sirrilar fate. the action of each head, ‘and it was ing it lip service, like a lot of pastors By 1848, all that remained of the The similarities between the earlier not long until the heads were fight- they knew. In retaliation, the Rev. organization’s spectacular power as ing each other. Hiram Mattison, minister of the movement and AA might be listed a method of treatment was its Home as follows: 2. The carnival tactics for promo- Methodist Episcopal church of for the Fallen in Boston. That insti- tion and the lack of any spiritual Watertown, N.Y., fired this theologi- 1 . Alcoholics helping each other tution has undergone a number of 2. Weekly meetings changes in name and policy, now 3. The sharing of experiences functions as the Washingtonian Hos- 4. Constant availability of fellowpital, and engages in the treatment ship with the group or its members of alcoholism by modern medical 5. Reliance upon a Higher Power and social techniques. Otherwise. 6. Total abstention from alcohol

cal blockbuster: “No Christian is at drunks was past, and that emphasis liberty to select or adopt any general should be placed instead on the imsystem, organization, agencies, or portance of laws to promote temmeans for moral reformation of perance. mankind, except those prescribed In doing the research and writing and recognized by Jesus Christ.” He this article for the Grapevine, my added that his church had been thoughts have kept returning to this chosen, together with his gospel, as question: After the movement dethe system of truth and the only stroyed itself, what happened to all system to reform mankind. It was the thousands of alcoholics who had war! Other churches reacted in the found sobriety through the Washsame way and finally closed their ingtonians? doors to Washingtonians. It becomes a personal question 4. As if that were not enough, when I add: What would have hapsome of the Washingtonians’ orator- pened to me? ical circuit riders turned professional, During the early days of the AA having no Eighth Tradition to guide program, especially prior to the them. So their one-drunk-to-another adoption of our Twelve Traditions, message lost a great deal of its AA did suffer some of the same impact. symptoms that destroyed the Wash- A final destructive note came ingtonians. The fact that we survived when influential leaders of non- those hazards is one of AA’s many alcoholic groups decided that the miracles. need for ex-drunks to reform other But it is still a 24-hour day. D. P., Ogden, Utah

FEBRUARY 1971

AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees The author says: directly responsible to those they serve. “A A’s Twelve

Tradifior~shave,

in my experience, often p r o v e d vital an “organization” – which I sup- not mean the same in AA as outin keeping m e sober, T w o FLAKED-OUT fellows were shown in a popular William Steig cartoon a few years ago. The posed AA was – for getting some- side it, but how was I to know that? thing done about .the trouble I was My confusion grew as I heard caption was something like “One having with my drinking. and saw AA people behaving difand helpful of these days we’ve got to get or- I approached AA in Manhattan ferently from each other, saying ganized around here.” twenty-six years ago in total dark- wildly disparate things, sometimes otherwise I remember expressing the same ness as to how it did things. (How contradicting each other. Some even sentiment while drinking. I not only often is it approached any other drank! in all my said it, I did it. To me, getting orga- way?) I guess I expected to find a I asked about the president of nized meant getting things arranged written constitution, bylaws, dues, AA, and they said there wasn’t any; in a highly systematic manner, in and paid sergeants of some kind yet they had a chairman, a secretary, affairs.” trained to discipline the backsliders. and elections. There was no ritual preparation t’or getting them done. (You don’t necessarily pay your After all, there was a telephone list- for joining, they said; yet the secbills, but you do make a neat list of ing, and I had been invited to come retary usually announced, “If you creditors.) During self-enforced .to an office. That sounded prctty want to join this group, see me after droughts, I would zealously over- organized to me. the meeting.” organize everything in sight in But the first members I met un- They said there were no musts, round-the-clock spurts – only to wittingly sowed confusion by using but that to do certain jobs one must blow it all, later, in a flood of familiar terms in an unfamiliar con- have been sober at least three ethanol. text. Such words as “member, join, months. They insisted they were al- And so I welcomed the idea of meeting, officer, committee,” etc. do coholics, not ex-alcoholics; yet most

never touched a drop. Obviously, I was seeing only the ‘ I tried to be bossy in AA, and I got drunk. ” lowest-grade members of this outfit, I became pretty sure. I kept nosing slipping into either the bedlam of Steps suggested as a program of re- exactly what is to be paid, and around to find the generals, so I autonomy unlimited or the trap of covery. But I had to make myself do when, and to whom, is all spelled could get the real score. I never overorganizing and underaccom- them, because no one in AA could out for you in that book.” found any top brass. plishing. Thc dilemma could easily force me to. “What book?” he asked. But, despite the vast ignorance of have overwhelmed them, in my I tried to be bossy in AA, and I “That black notebook we gave the noncom troops, AA got things opinion. Organizing can itself be got drunk. I learned to empty ash- you.” done. The telephone got answered; addictivc, my personal cxpcricncc trays for the group, and 1 began “Oh, that!” Ernie replied with mcctings wcrc hcld, with prcarrang- indicirtcs. It’s casy to gct so fascinat- staying sobcr. disgust. “l’vc never opcncd it,” he cd programs; coffcc got scrvcd; a cd with thc proccss of organizing A few ycars back, we floundering announced proudly. “Nobody in AA book and pamphlets wcre distribut- that I can lose all sight of what I fathers of a certain Greenwich Vil- is going to tell me what to do!” ed. So AA must be systematized in an1 organizing for. I marvel that lage group found ourselves about to Several chronic beginners tipsily some way, I had to conclutlc. But any of thc first ten ycars’ mcmbcrs bc rcplaced. To makc lifc easier for applaudcd. how’? Was there a secret hierarchy stayed sobcr at all. our successors than it had been for That nutty contretemps puts the of authorities who enforced the Tradition Nine describes the mas- us, we’ wrote out what each steering- AA organization problem into a statutcs by making members do tcrful solution worked out during committee member (trusted servant) beautiful nutshell, it seems to me. things? thc first tcn ycars of AA cxpericncc. had done, exactly how, when, and How, on thc onc hand, do wc avoid Such wcre thc cxpectations – Since so many alcoholics rebel where. (This was before the Gen- offending cach other with governshaped, of course, by the cxperi- against authority in human form, eral Service Office published its ex- ment – which inevitably means givences of my non-AA lifetime – with we just dispense with it altogether. cellent pamphlet “The AA Group.”) ing some members authority over which I arrived at the door of the Thc first scvcn words of Tradition We bound these information sheets othcrs – and still, on the other Fellowship. With growing delight, Nine say that we have no bosses – in a notebook for our new secretary- hand, escape chaos? As the late and often chagrin, I have learned echoing Tradition Two. treasurer. Bernard Smith so eloquently put it how mistaken I was. ~ u t – t h e last fourteen words de- About three months later, we at our 1970 International Conven- Now I am convinced that one sure scribe the system and orderliness learned that the group was behind tion in Miami Beach, the answer is way to destroy AA would be for us necessary for our outfit to get things in “gifts” to our landlord (a church) in the way our Ninth Tradition into set up a rigid organization pat- done. and had not paid its intergroup sures AA against anarchy while at terned after the non-AA societies My personal AA life illustrates pledges nor several GSO bills for the same time insulating us against wc all know. Yct wc cannot bc a both thc problcm and its solution. litcraturc. any form of AA government. Ernie, laisscz-fairc body, willing always to Like a tantrum-throwing four-ycar- Swift to find a scapegoat, we working with thc other new olficers “Let Gcorgc do it.” Instcad, cach old, I figuratively stamped my- foot turncd on Ernic, the new secrctary- of thc group, later came upon that of us is expcctcd, it sccnis to me, and refused to pay attention to the trcasurcr, and demanded, “Why answer himsclf. to assunic cnough pcrsonal rcsponsi- Twclvc Steps. I mistakenly bclicvcd didn’t you pay those things?” My fellow founders and I had bility on his own for thc Fellowship thcm to be rules for staying sobcr, Indignantly, he told us, “Because had our feelings hurt when someto get its major function (Tradition instead of a simple description of I didn’t know I was supposcd to, body had first suggested there might Five) accon~plished. how our first mekbcrs actually did and I don’t know where to pay be a better arrangement than our What giant problems our first recover. After enough slips, how- them, anyhow.” paternalistic one, and the new ofmembers faced! They had to find ever. I saw that in AA I had the In my most tolerant bleeding- ficers took over. We finally realized, ways to get things done without freedom to try out, o n my own, the deacon voice, I chirped, “But Ernie, though, that the AA custom of rota-

was representing himself as an AA it should say and not say, and on viding shelter or medical services, official and collecting money there- and on. running cafts – an entirely different by. We instantly launched into a The process would have been kind of organizational system would, discussion of what to do to him. much more efficient if some boss of course, be needed. Many AA option in office can be a healing ex- Think about that. . . . had made the decisions and given erators of clubhouses and rest farms perience for those who can take it It took us an hour or so to real- the orders. But that is not the AA have unhappily found that out. and understand the spirit behind it. ize that we had only the right to way. In order to be responsible to If we tried to organize in the con- Rotation is not spelled out in any pray for him, not the authority to those they serve, AA servants work ventional, orthodox ways, we could Step or Tradition. (Neither are punish him. It was an exciting reali- carefully, coolly, prayerfully. An well become totally disorganized. If many other good AA ideas, such as zation, and I continue to stand in AA pamphlet should be based on we had to thresh out complete the 24-hour plan, going to meetings, awe of this principle: No matter such preparation, it seems to me, if agreement on such issues as rules significance of the first drink, etc.) how much you or I may misbehave, it is to represent responsibly the and authority and power and money, But it mercifully helps solve the no matter how bad a member one entire Fellowship, as all those pub- we’d split apart. Instead, we let each seniority problem we older members of us may be, there is no one in lished by AA World Services, Inc., man hold his own ideas, discipline can inflict on newer oncs, and I AA with formal authority to fine do. himself, and march to his own think it is within the spirit of Tradi- us, censure us, or kick us out of the If AA were organized the way drumbeat. And in our joint determitions Two and Nine, if not in their Fellowship. That seems to me a other outfits are, we could move nation to do this, we stay truly wording. It is explained well on page clear implication of both Traditions faster, but would thc result be more united after all. 22 of “The AA Group.” Nine and Three (requirement for beneficial to all of us, both prcscnt It has bccn said that, if we want The genius embodicd in the Tra- membership). members and those yet to come? personal recovery, we owe this to dition Nine phrase “responsible to I’ve learned, too, that I can mis- For our simple stated purpose, our AA’s future: “to place our common those they serve” escaped my de- use this Tradition as I have several exasperatingly patient committees welfare first; to keep our Fellowship tection for a long time, because it others, to excuse my own failings. and boards are ideal, in my opinion. united. For on AA unity depend our sounded too noble and elegant to be When I foul up, I can shrug my If we took on additional functions lives and the lives of those to come.” more than a truism. When 1 worked shoulders and say, “After all, we’re – such as managing buildings, pro- B. L., Manhattan, N.Y. on some AA committees, however, not supposed to be well organized.” it came to life for me, and I now But that’s just a cop-out, I fear; Ninth Tradition Checklist consider it an astonishing and chal- Number Nine does not say we ought 1. Do I still try to boss things in AA? lenging notion. to be inefficient, lazy, dishonest, or What if those of us who profes- irresponsible. 2. Do I resist formal aspects of AA because I fear them as authoritative? sionally serve others outside AA – Of course, the lack of authority 3. Am I mature enough to understand and use all elements of the AA whether we are doclors, taxi drivers, in AA can exasperate high-pressure program -even if no one makes me do so – with a sense of personal profcssors, or Playboy bunnies – types. I think of one of our most responsibility? had to report, not to some boss or popular AA pamphlets, “What Happrofessional association with pun- pened to Joe.” The actual writing 4. Do I try to exercise patience and humility in any AA job I take? ishment powers, but instead to our and production of it took less than 5. Am I aware of all those to whom I am responsible in any AA job? clients? In effect, that is the case four months. But before that, dis- 6. Why doesn’t every AA group need a constitution and bylaws? with AA officers and con~mittees, cussions of it had lasted fourteen isn’t it? years! Interminably, committees 7. Have I learned to step out of an AA job gracefully -and profit Once, an AA committee 1 be- worried about whether to do it at thereby – when the time comes? longed to heard of a member who all, then about how to do it, what 8. What has rotation to do with anonymity? With humility?

‘zr AA Grapevine, March 1971

The Traditions n Action tees of the General Service Board of dently on guard against tyrannies, T HE LEGACY of Service affirms our faith in the democratic ideal of majority decision, the group AA, both AAs and nonalcoholics. The spirit of this Legacy can be great or small, whether these be found in the majority or minority. conscience, basic decency, and the summed up best exactly as Bill “The sum of these several atticollective wisdom of AA’s repre- wrote about it: tudes and practices is, in our view, sentatives in the General Service “We expect that our Conferences the very essence of democracy -in Conference, together with the Trus- will always try to act in the spirit of action and spirit.” mutual respect and love – one The Twelve Traditions stand for member for another. In turn, this the Legacy of Unity. The pith of the sign signifies that mutual trust Traditions is clearly expressed in Bernard B. Smith 1901-1970 should prevail; that no action ought the familiar Preamble that is usually to be taken in anger, haste, or reck- read before AA meetings (and The AA General Service Board was still called the Alcoholic lessness; that care will be observed printed on page 1 of this issue of the Foundation when he joined it, in June 1944. His advice Grapevine). And they include suginfluenced the decision to hold the first General Service to respect and protect all minorities; Conference, in 1951. Chairman of the Board and the Con- that no action should ever be per- gestions concerning common welference from January 1951 to April 1956, he was serving as sonally punitive; that, wherever pos- fare, group structure, organization, first vice-chairman of the Board at the time of his death. He was an attorney, a n author, and an advocate of Anglo- sible, important actions will be taken public relations, and anonymity. Amerlcan understanding; for his efforts in that cause. Queen in substantial unanimity; and that Bill’s reflections upon the wisdom Elizabeth I1 awarded him a decoration. our Conference will ever be pru- and humility of the Traditions are

The Legacy of SERVICE

principle do they affirm? alcoholism. None of us who are heartwarming: “Implicit throughout and they are also an antidote for For Bill, they centered on the sober today in AA could have AA’s Traditions,” he said, “is the our various maladies. The Twelve priceless value of every individual heard, in the desperate final moconfession that our Fellowship has Traditions are to group survival and human being as an image of his ments of our last hangover (while its sins. We confess that we have harmony what AA’s Twelve Steps Creator and as a potential instru- guilt, remorse, and nausea wound character defects as a society and are to each member’s sobriety and ment of His will, no mattcr how our nervous system into tremulous, that these defects threaten us con- peace of mind.” befogged his mind or how far de- sweaty knots), any words sweeter tinually. Our Traditions are a guide And our Twelve Steps themselves stroyed his body by the ravages of than Bill’s steady faith that “AA’s to better ways of working and living, – the Legacy of Recovery – what

The Legacy of UNITY

The LegacyPof RECOVERY

of AA principles to meet new challenges. “Your letter about the hippie problem, so-called, was mighty interesting to me. I doubt that we need to be alarmed about this situation, because there have been precedents out of the past. All sorts of outfits have tried to move in on us, includ- Twelve Steps are a group of princi- ples to ever-changing circumstances 1968 when a well-meaning AA ing communists and heroin addicts, ples, spiritual in their nature, which, was another of his remarkable tal- wrote to Bill, in deep concern, about prohibitionists and do-gooders of if practiced as a way of life, can ents. Day in and day out, letters an influx of youthful hippies or other persuasions. expel the obsession to drink and en- would arrive at his desk asking for flower children to local AA groups, “Nearly all of these people, who able the sufferer to become happily his “last word” on a matter of AA along with their distinctive manner happened to have an individual and usefully whole.” policy. And, in answer after answer, of dress, sexual mores, and other problem with alcohol, not only Many of us, upon first seeing Bill would fall back upon the basic unorthodox behavior, including the failed to change AA, but, in the long those words, asked ourselves the principles of AA’s three Legacies, use of druss. The writer feared that run, AA changed them. I have a question “Can it be just that sim- tempered by wisdom, humor, per- this particular invasion might be “a number of them among my closest ple?” – and then heard a voice in- spective, and regard for the feelings very real threat to our wonderful, friends today, and they are among side us answer “Yes.” of others. God-given program.” the best AAs I know. Bill’s application of AA princi- One warm example occurred in Bill’s reply was typical of his use “You also have some people who

are not alcoholics, but are addicts of young as sixteen. 1 was curious and other kinds. A great many AAs have took the whole party out to lunch. taken pity on these people, and have “Well, they were absolutely wonactually tried to make them full- derful. They talked (and acted) just fledged AAs. Of course, their identi- about as good a kind of AA as I’ve fication with alcoholics is no good at seen anywhere. I think all of them all, and the groups themselves easily said they had had some kind of drug stop this practice in the normal prob!em, but had kicked that, too. course of AA affairs. When they first came around, they “Thoughtful AAs, however, en- had insisted on their own ideas of courage these sponsors to bring ad- AA, but in the end they found AA dicts to open meetings, just as they plenty good enough as it was. would any other interested people. Though they needed their own meet- In the end, these addicts usually ings, they found interest and inspiragravitate to other forms of therapy. tion in the meetings of much older They are not received on the plat- folks as well. form in open meetings unless they “Perhaps, as younger people come have an alcohol problem, and closed into AA, we shall have to put up meetings are, of course, denied with some unconventional nonsense them. We know that we cannot do -with patience and good humor, everything for everybody with an let’s hope. But it should be well addiction problem. worth the attempt. And also, if “There has also occurred lately various hippie addicts want to form a new development centering upon their own sort of fellowship a!ong hippies who have LSD or marijuana AA lines, by all means let us entroubles – not so much stronger courage them. We need deny them stuff. Many of these ‘kids appear to only the AA name, and assure them be alcoholics also, and they are that the rest of our program is theirs flocking into AA, often with excel- for the taking and using – any part lent results. or all of it. “Some weeks ago, there was a “For these reasons, I feel hopeful young people’s convention of AAs. and not a bit scared by this trend. Shortly thereafter, four of these kids Of course, I’m no prophet. I may be visited the office. I saw one young mistaken, so please keep me posted. gal prancing down the hall, hair This is a highly interesting and perflying, in a mini-skirt, wearing love haps significant development. I cerbeads and the works. I thought, tainly do not think it ought to be ‘Holy smoke, what now!’ She told fought. Instead, it ought to be enme she was the oldest member of the couraged in what we already know young people’s group in her area – to be workable channels. In affecage twenty-two! They had kids as tion . . . Bill.”

MAY 1971

Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion The author says: on outside issues; hence the AA name “A A’s Twelve ought never be drawn into public controversy.

T r a d i t i o n s have,

in my experience, just as important to express your when drunk. These AAs were often p r o v e d vital

in keeping me s o b e r , I COULD hear them down the street, before seeing them. Outside our AA meeting room, John and Jane convictions in AA as anywhere else?” John said, “National politics has smart, too, I thought; their practice of leaving arguments outside not only prevented their accidentally were having at each other again, as no place in AA.” keeping some alcoholics out, it also and helpful they often did, in a political argu- “What if I spoke to a new mem- helped hold together those already ment – good-natured, but earnest bcr I wanted to help, and she saw in the Fellowship by cutting down and loud. It was the year of a na- my political affiliation was different reasons for quarrels. otherwise tional election, long past, before I from hers?” Jane explained. “It In retrospect, nearly a quarterhad ever heard of our Traditions. might stand in the way of her listen- century later, that incident is now in all my When I got to the door, I saw that ing to the AA message. What mat- recognizable as my first brush with one combatant wore a dankey pin; ters in AA is that we all have one our Tenth Tradition, although it affairs.” the other, an elephant. Both also thing in common – our drinking happened some time before the wore exasperated looks on their red problem. Our various disagreements Traditions were written. In 1948, faces, and neither would listen to a outside AA don’t count here.” such experience-rooted, wise beword the other said. Being fresher from the barrooms havior was just called “the AA Seeing me, they quit yelling and than they were, I remembered a way.” went into the meeting room with sign I had seen in one: “Politics, Somehow, by instinct or the grace me, apparently leaving their strong religion, and ladies’ are not appro- of God, the earliest AAs apparently differences outside. Just inside the priate topics of conversation in a arrived at this intelligent custom by door, they removed their political saloon.” The peace-ensuring wis- coping with actual dilemmas. For buttons. dom of that had impressed me even instance, though surrounded by “Why do that?” I asked. “Isn’t it

arguments following the repeal of I was soon to learn that I disagreed covery from alcoholism – is the requirement) reminds me that alprohibition, they knew enough to with many AA members on various most important part of my relation- coholics who want our help need avoid the appearance of lining AA other topics as well. ship with other AAs. not agree with us on any issues. up with either the wets or the drys If AA had tied itself up with one But outside AA, as a private Four (group autonomy) declares of the 1930’s, long before such particular Christian denomination, citizen not identified as an AA that each group can run its own wisdom was codified as our Tradi- with humanism, with Islam, or with member, I am, of course, free to affairs – as long as it does not drag tion Ten. Not only would such one particular school of psychology- act as I choose on those subjects, the rest of us into a public battle. alignment have split the then-tiny, psychiatry in the big wars begin- just as any other concerned person Number Five (primary purpose) struggling band of nameless drunks ning to brew in the 1930’s, look is. Instead of limiting my freedom, emphasizes to me the fact that my into bitterly fractious factions, but how many of us would have had this Tradition gives me complete chief AA busincss is carrying the taking sides in such a struggle additional strong reasons for refus- liberty outside the Fellowship, and message to alcoholics, not trying to would also have brought the Fellow- ing to go to AA! frees me to concentrate on recovery make the rest of the Fellowship see ship the enmity of everyone outside Among the most controversial alone while I am in AA circles. how right I am in my various con- AA who differed with whatever the matters of the 1970’s are: a war, Only when I began preparing this victions (prejudices?). Six (neither AA party line might have been. race, some young people’s behavior, series of articles did I discover how endorsing nor opposing) specifically Wet alcoholics like me (believing poverty, and pot. It is notable that beautifully many other Traditions warns me of the dangers of any AA liquor should be legal) would have AA has not divided itself into camps support this one. Number One involvement in the world’s quarrels. stayed away in droves from our on these issues. 1 would not dream (common welfare) reminds me that The words “neither endorsing nor movement if it had been dry (de- of dragging any one of them into our common bond is more impor- opposing,” you have probably nomanding national or local prohibi- an AA relationship, nor of trying tant than our various differences ticed, are from the Grapevine-origtion), and vice versa. So I suggest to find out who in AA agrecs with outside AA. Two (group conscience) inated AA Preamble, of course, not that, in a very real sense, “the AA me on those topics and who docs tells me that leaders are only serv- from the Tradition. itself. But havc way” later described in this Tradi- not. It is much more important to ants in AA, not governors with you ever noticed how well the Pretion saved my life. It made possible me to keep uppermost in my mind the power to take us into public amble summarizes many of the my belonging to AA, even though that our common endeavor – re- controversies. Three (membership Traditions – and how closely it

mine were somehow against me. No relationship. I still let such differmatter how much 1 might like you, ences stand between me and some if you were anything other than an beloved members of my own family, individual of one certain color, of instead of concentrating on the one particular denomination (es- things we have in common, the pecially one regional branch), of ways in which we do agree and are one specific political persuasion, and alike, the things most truly imof one limited socioeconomic class, portant in maintaining a loving rela- I was sure you were an enemy even tionship, as I think a good AA parallels the wording of the fifth hardly skimmed the top off thc if you did not act likc one. should. paragraph in the Big Book’s orig- deep riches of our Traditions. Writ- A lot of that garbage is now cast Oh, if only the whole world inal foreword (pp. xiii-xiv in the ing these articles is gradually teach- aside, thanks to our Steps, but I valued its common good as loudly Second Edition)? Obviously, the ing me how very far 1 have to go to have not yet learned to live com- as it pursues its individual controsense of the Traditions was being incorporate them into my own AA fortably with some people whose versies! That is the essence of expressed in AA actions back in thinking, let alone my personal life opinions are different from mine, Tradition Ten, as I understand it 1938-39, years before they were outside AA. even when those opinions are not an – and we all know whose inventory formally drawn up and adopted. If our Traditions were simply integral or necessary element of our we take in AA, right? Tradition Seven (self-support) organizational policies, or public- B. L., Manhattan, N.Y. suggests that the acceptance of any relations procedures aiplicabie only outside contributions could subtly to groups or to the Fellowship as Tenth Tradition Checklist link my AA group to non-AA a whole, it seems to me they would causes. The caution in Number be highly changeable from culture 1. Do I ever give the impression that there really is an “AA opinion” on Eight against turning AA member- to culturc, timc to time. But 1 sus- Antabuse? Tranquilizers? Doctors? Psychiatrists? Churches? Hospitals? ship into a profession helps keep pect they will outlast many other Freudianisq? Catholicism? Judaism? Agnosticism? Jails? Alcohol? Drinkus out of competition, and there- aspects of AA, because they in- ing? Psychiatrists? Other alcoholism agencies? Jungianism? Protestantism? fore out of controversy, with the creasingly seem in my view to sug- Or … medical, legal, religious, and other gest immutable spiritual principles 2. The Federal or state government? Alcohol education? Legalizing mariprofessions. for this one individual’s life. juana? Vitamins? Theories of alcoholism? Detoxification centers? Missions? Number Nine’s advice about The Tenth is an excellent illus- Research into alcohol problems? Paraldehyde? Teen-age drinking? Taxavoiding a monolithic AA organi- tration. Its sense would enormously supported alcoholism programs? Al-Anon? Alateen? The alcoholic beverzation also makes it simpler for us benefit my relationships with people age industry? Nonalcoholics? to observe Ten -we would have in or out of AA – if I used it. How 3. Can I honestly share my own personal experience concerning any of to be much more organized than great it would be if I could always those without giving the impression I am stating the “AA opinion”? How? we are in order to move the entire keep irrelevant, controversial mat- 4. What in AA history gave rise to our Tenth Tradition? Fellowship into any partisan pos- ters out of some of my personal 5. Have I had a similar experience in my own AA life? ture. The anonymity suggested by friendships, work relationships, and 6. What would AA be like if this Tradition were not in effect? Where Eleven and Twelve helps safeguard even family ties, and concentrate would I be? us against being carried into pub- instead on our areas of agreement, 7. Do I breach this or any of its supporting Traditions in subtle, perhaps licized debates by some nationally the important bonds between us. unconscious, ways? known AA figure. In childhood, I felt that people 8. How can I manifest the spirit of this Tradition in my personal life As of now, I’m convinced I have with any affiliations different from outside AA? Inside AN?

May 1971

ANONY 11 Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.

12 Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. From the Quiet Successes N E OF THE STRONGEST sources message. The danger is that if \ too The 11 th Tradition stresses anonymity explicitly “at the level of 0 of “attraction” to our Fellowship is gradually drying up, and so literal or too selfish an interpretation is placed on anonymity, the press, radio and films.” But are we the responsibility for carrying the message will not be carried at all. I, too anonymous at the private level message rests increasingly upon The public will gain its impression -with each other, and with those groups and individual members. of AA from the noisy failures, rathwe might help if we made ourselves That source is publicity. AA is er than the quiet successes. known? Or does the 12th Tradition successful, and because it is success- Worse, the potential member ful, it no longer is news. From the might easily be led to believe that imply that we are undermining our AA members mostly are bottle-fightperspective of history, AA is one of spiritual foundation if we break our the great human stories of all time. ers, weak of will and loud of mouth. anonymity at any level? In AA’s But from the perspective of yester- He would have no way of knowing 36th year, these questions are being day and today that magazines and of the existence of quiet, successhl, raised even more often than in AA’s newspapers must deal with, it sim- happy AA members; he would T e beginning. The following six pages ply is not news that a half-million little in the availabIe evidence to atpresent the views of five fellow AAs. sober people stayed sober for an- tract him. other day. The concept of anonymity has Word of mouth and example must uses and abuses. The uses: take up the slack in carrying the 1. Anonymity is the spiritual foun-1 I

membership in it can become ii dark and by sending speakers to sessions I must remember that I am engaged fact to be hidden, in shame and em- with medical, legal, service, and in- in an endless task which will be a! barrassment. Whcn this happens, I dustrial organizations. Each of these companion to me throughout my4 am in danger. opportunities for group action is a days, and I neglect it at my peril. And so is the group. For, in the sure cure for inertia! The admonition to help speaks m y best to help words of the Fifth Tradition, “Each But what counts most,,finally, is with a tongue of iron; it calls me to a suflerer, I cannot group has but one primary purposc my relationship to my Higher Pow- an adventure bordering on the night, forget that failure . . . . . to carry its message to the alco- cr, my group, and myself. 1 have and I cannot ignore it. Anonymity holic who still suffers.” The group has no anonymity at all; in fact, its been granted sobriety, and I believe I am intended to make the most of it. is mine, but my sobriety belongs to the sufferer, and I must give it to him. 1 prirrtury purpose is to milkc itself dation of the Fellowship. It insures known! If I fail to do my best to help a My reward is perhaps greater than the supremacy of principles over This purposc is not served by sufferer, 1 cannot forget that failure, any other, for I am privileged to talk personalities; it encourages the “do- these abuses of anonymity: even though I think I have. Forget- to him and to sit and watch his ining of alms” in private; and it guards I . Failure to extend the helping ting is the cellar of the mind, dim ner sunrise, against the identification of the Fel- hand – so Z C ~ I ~ O UisS the desire to and dark, but nevertheless there. So . C . H., Fairfield, Conn. lowship with the views of any indi- protect “anonymity” that it overvidual. It promotes group action. comes the need to extend help to 2. For the individual, it teaches those who ask for it. him not to seek cheap pity from his 2. Failure to respond to opporfellows nor phony admiration from tunity – this is a little subtler, but I Found It his neighbors. Dormant alcoholism often n suficrer can be approached is not a cross to be borne publicly. with a gcntle message of hope from impossible 3. For the newcomer, anonymity one who is willing to admit, without offers a safe haven. Wracked with being asked, that he knows it way release from the hospital, to return 1 fear, shame, and guilt, the newcomer out of thc woods. can be assured that his “awful” se- 3. Failure to correct misapprccret is safe with us. (He soon be- hensions -well-meaning “civilians” I AM AN ALCOHOLIC banker in a small town – population about 1,000. I have found it impossible to my work and meet our customers. Everyone knew where I had gins to learn that it is not so awful.) often have voiced gravely distorted for me to keep my anonymity. I was been and what I had been committed 4. Anonymity greases the gears notions of the AA program; if born and raised in this village and for, yet I was welcomed back and of the internal machinery. 1 am uncorrected, these distortions could have lived in it practically all my treated as though nothing had ever much more likely to share my ex- seriously damage our chances of at- life. Everyone knew that I drank, happened. For this, I am very grateperience, strength, and hope if I am tracting people who desperately need and everyone knew that I became a ful. reasonably sure that the telling of AA. drunkard and was arrested and com- I started attending AA meetin~s my story will be left to me. The group has even greater op- mitted to the state hospital by my in the hospital and have been active These are the great, compelling portunity to carry the message wife. During my seven-week con- in AA since my first meeting. Sin4e reasons for anonymity. They seem without waiting for individuals to ex- linement in the hospital, all desire everyone knows about my being an so powerful that leaning over back- press the need for that message. to drink left me, and as yet I have alcoholic, I do not hide the fact that wards in maintaining our anonymity Since its “primary purpose” is just never had that desire again. I attend AA meetings every we,ek. I seems justified. But when this occurs, that, miiny groups profit by plan- One of the most difficult things I am proud that I am sober and a AA can become a secret society; my ning and running public meetings have ever had to do was, after my member of AA and am glad the I

by saying that I didn’t drink any more people in the area know it. They all come into my office and talk to me because it made me sick. After three knew me as a drunk; now they know about their drinking – people I did months, 1 told a few close friends, me as a sober alcoholic. I also hope not know. I do not try to remain because making up dear falsehoods that I can set an example for some anonymous, but am ready to help to explain my absence from lunches other person who is having a drink- anyone at any time they so desire. and parties became too difficult. ing problem. I have had people R . B. M., Grand Rapids, Ohio After 1 had been sober a couple of years, I heard that an acquaintance, a woman in another department, was in the hospital with Precious Anonymity cirrhosis of the liver complicated by malnutrition. I went to a mutual

T HANKS to AA, I have had sixteen months of sobriety after ten years of active alcoholism. I have I have read the book Alcoholics Anonyntous Comes o f Age. In Appendix B, Bill W. writes about friend, who told me that she had been drinking heavily for some time. He said that the head of personnel had so many blessings in the past Tradition Twelve, which says: “An- had called AA about her problem, there, and I can’t say that he seemed year that I don’t feel I have the right onymity is the spiritual foundation but had not been able to get the to comprehend much. He did seem to complain. However, there’s a of all our traditions, ever reminding person who answered the phone to to understand when I offered any problem in my mind that keeps us to place principles before person- help him with it. When I told my help I could give to any other embothering me. Frequently, I hear alities.” To me, this is a very pre- friend that I was a recovering alco- ployee who had a problem with almembers say that they don’t believe cious Tradition, and I hope it is holic and a member of AA, he sug- cohol. When I left, he said that our in anonymity. maintained. gested that I might help someone conversation would be confidential. J . W . , Denver, Colu. else if I told the head of the person- Once in a while after that meetnel department. (The woman in the ing, I saw him in passing, and he hospital was beyond help, he said; was always very cordial. A year ago, she was expected to die.) he left the firm for a better job. I I Let It Be Known I told my sponsor and a few other was one of the people he sought out

w HEN I saw J. at that AA meeting some months ago, I was not surprised. He used to arrive at After receiving them, he thanked me as we passed in the hall – and never spoke to me again. A few months people in the program about this suggestion. In no way, I was assured, would I be breaking my anonymity as it is understood in the to say goodbye to, and in his conversation then he didn’t mention my talk with him. I suppose he had forgotten about it, as I had at the the office with the shakes, looking gravely spent. One day, I walked later, he was fired. Soon after that, I saw him at the meeting. AA Tradition. So I called for an moment. \ appointment with the personnel di- Two weeks ago, after I attended with him a way and told him a lit- Not many people in my office rector. We talked for fifteen min- an AA meeting during which anotle about the drinking I had done know I am in the program. When utes, and I explained a little bit nymity was discussed, I remembered and that I was an alcoholic. He 1 first got sober, 1 didn’t want about what it had been like when I the experience. It occurred to me was interested and said he wouldn’t anyone to know. It seemed at that drank and more about how my life that the new personnel directok of mind looking at the literature I said time vitally important for me to had changed since I joined AA. He the company’ had been around for a I would get for him if he wished. keep it a private matter. I explained The next day I sent him a meeting the change people noticed in me was interested in the Steps and the nature of the meetings I attended. year and that I might let h i , too, know that I was an alcoholic. Again. – I list and the pamphlet “Is AA for (from the department fool to a rela- But I felt sort of nervous sitting I was a little nervous when I spoke You?,” with the twelve questions. tively stable and pleasant person)

to him about it, but he was inter- son. I said 1 could not really discuss ested in the program. He asked alcoholism as a company problem, whether there was anything that the and suggested that he could get such company could do about the prob- information from the AA General lem of alcoholism, and whether 1 Service Office. could suggest any reading matter It may be that nothing will result that would help the company under- from this conversation. Somehow, I stand the nature of the problem. 1 feel that no active alcoholic would told him that 1 wanted to act only go to a personnel director for help. on a one-to-one basis – that if he I certainly would not have done so! knew someone with an alcohol prob- But I have a feeling 1 did the right lem who was asking for help, I thing anyway. would be willing to talk to that per- R . D . , Munhuttun, N.Y.

A Chance Acquaintance Shared the Message

A RECENT INCIDENT has really given me pleasure. I picked up a hitchhiker when I was driving to boy 1 had picked up, saying that his friend had joined AA and was now, in his words, “a completely new per- New York. In the course of conver- son” and was very happy. This was sation, he told me that he had a my first experience of delegating young friend where he lived, in Al- somebody else to carry the message bany, who was having a terrible for me. I must say it made my heart time with alcohol, and he was very feel good to know that another alworried about him. I asked this boy coholic got sober simply because a (who was studying sociology in friend of his cared enough to go to Montreal) whether he knew any- a meeting, although he had no probthing about AA. It all ended up by lem himself, and then to hand on my taking the boy to a meeting and what he had observed. This is the his going back and confronting his only form of therapy I know of that friend. could be given in this particular way. Last week. 1 had a word from the D . C . M., M D , Montreal, Que.

May 1971

A word on anonymity Developed.” Although the statement was in- From Jackson Heights, N.Y. : tended solely for our own group’s About a year ago, we held a benefit, the favorable response from closed “Group Conscience” meet- visiting members has prompted us ing, from which a number of con- to share this idea with others: structive suggestions emerged. “Anonymity is the guardian of Among other things, the members our Traditions. Experience tells us agreed that more stress should be that personal anonymity before the placed upon anonymity -particu- public is just as vital to the life of larly at our open meetings. Accord- AA as sobriety is to the life of each ingly, a member was designated to member. review the AA literature on the “Our name, Alcoholics Anonysubject and to prepare a brief state- mous, assures you that your anonymment to be read in conjunction with ity will be respected. In return, we the Preamble at the beginning of ask that any names and stories you each of our meetings. The central hear tonight be kept in confidence thoughts were drawn from Bill W.’s when you leave the hall.” pamphlet “AA Tradition -How It A. F. MCC. —

May 1 9 7 1

A plea for an open door From Fort Worth, Tex.: There seems to be so much con- had in mind was sitting around a troversy in AA lately about allowing table discussing the “good old drug addicts to share AA and the way of days,” then, yes, identifying would life which can bz obtained through be a problem. But my Big Book working the AA program. offers me more than that. I have tried hospitals, jails (in- A lot of my help when I first voluntarily), and various other came to AA was given by members means of social reform to stop tak- with ten, fifteen, or twenty years’ ing drugs. None of these methods sobriety. They said, “One day at a hdped. But I joined AA six months time, little gal. Take it easy. Ninety meetings in ninety days. Keep it simple.” Last but not least: “Call us before you take that first drug or drink.” They saved my life. There was no generation gap, nor did they feel I should be set apart from them because I was a junkie. They said they had to give it away ago, and since then 1 have not found if they wanted to keep it. I know a need to drink or take drugs. now I was fortunate to go to a meet- In this day and age, drugs and ing where there were serene, sober booze seem to go hand in hand. alcoholics who really cared. Drugs are much easier to obtain My goal in life right now is to now than they were ten or twenty stay away from booze and drugs toyears ago. That is one reason why day and to help others who are still more addicts are coming to AA with suffering. I do it one day at a time a dual problem. and work the Twelve Steps to the As for identifying, well, if all I best of my ability, and I sincerely hope AA continut%to keep its doors open to me. ANONYMOUS

June 1971

Principles and Personalities Keep your eye on the deliberation, 1 undcrstand the meaning of “principles before personaliprinciple and don’t ties.” My friend’s misfortune has let the personality helpcd me gain greater insight into the AA philosophy, I hope. bug you 1 must never again allow pcrsonalities to play so large a role in my

M Y N A M E is Joe C. I have been sober four years now, and thc last three have been happy years, sobriety. Sober AAs are the finest people in the world, in my opinion. The though the first was miserable. 1 fellowship, friendships, and acquaintnever want to live through that year ances arc a tremendous bencfit to again, and, if I don’t pick up that our program – but they arc not first drink, I won’t have to. enough! ‘There are many times when Recently, an AA friend of mine we are on our own, with no AAs to got drunk. I was crushed! He had talk with, and this is thc tinic that been sober for two years. I liked we must draw on AA principles and him. We were friends. I had a lot of teachings. People can err; timo-lestfaith in him. Too much! I took his ed principles cannot. slip personally. It really bothered I must learn that any of us can, me. He came back to the meetings and some probably always will, fall after the drunk, but his attitude had by the wayside, and that I must not changed. We spoke together after be shaken by these slips. It will not the meetings, but it wasn’t the same. be easy, but if I continuc to realize My feelings were deeply hurt. I that my sobriety is “a daily reprieve” got mad at him for letting me down. contingent on my spiritual growth I didn’t for one minute consider his (as thc Big Book says), that AA feelings – his guilt, remorse, heart- principles must continually be worksickness. I thought not of his wife, ed on, and that I must remember children, or father. I dwelled only to put Joe second, thcn and only on my own hurt. What self-centered- thcn can I replace my egotism with ness and ego! compassion and understanding. Since that time and after much I . C., Enfield, Conn.

JULY 1971

Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always The author says: maintain personal anonymity at the level “AA’s Twelve of press, radio and films. Traditions have,

in my experience, rity names to promote its cause. And surprise, that it must be afternoon. often proved vital T H E N A M E S of J o e DiMaggio, Henry Ford, Fiorello La Guardia, Mrs. Thomas A. Edison, Adthat, he told me once, was one reason hc proposed “attraction” rather than such “promotion” as the basis The evening-paper boys were delivering their wares. I bought a paper and turned to my in keeping me sober, miral Richard E. Byrd, Senator of AA’s relations with the public. favorite gossip columnist. He had a Harry S Truman, the Duke of Wind- In fact, AA had already pretty funny piece that day about a bunch and helpful sor, Earl Baldwin, and Generalis- much adopted the nonpromotion of folks in town who called themsirno Chiang Kai-shek may not seem policy as the young Fellowship’s way selves Alcoholics Anonymous. They otherwise to fit together. But they were all listed of doing things. Ex-drunks knew sounded like awful fools, or some in New York newspapers as joint from their own experience that the kind of fanatic reformers, just like in all my “sponsors” of the Oxford Group, an hard sell generally does not persuade the fellows who ran that rundown, evangelical religious movement very a runlpot (or anyone else) to give up shabby old mission next door to the aflairs.” popular in the 1930’s.* (Actually, it his pot. Tradition Eleven just put tavern I was in. They had gone ali had no ties with the renowned Eng- this idea into capsule form. sanctimonious, I figurcd, and had lish university; but pcople thought it But none of this was known to me, given up drinking and almost everydid, so the name was used because or of any use or interest whatsoever, thing clsc 1 liked to do, which the such an image had obvious prestige one hot summer day in 1942. I stood mission preachers called “sinful value. in a seedy old joint on lower Main ways.” When Bill W., who codified AA Street in Fort Worth, Tex., trying Despite my scorn for both the miscustoms into our Twelve Traditions, to get a glass of cold beer down be- sion and this AA business, I did tear first sat down to write them out (for fore my shakes made mc spill thc out the AA story and slip it into my the Grapevine), in 1946, he had damn thing. wallet. I explained to the bartender very much in mind this Oxford Three thousand years and two that I wanted to show it to some Group practice of exploiting celcb- bottles later, I had begun to get it all drinking buddies of mine, for a * You con read rhc wonderlul story of AA’s together, and I realized, to my mild laugh. great debt of gratitude lo thc Oxford Group in the hook A A Comes of Age.

organization called Alcoholics Anon- dences. It was unforgivable, and I the rest of us alone, too. By and state any other fact about themymous. am still ashamed when I think of it. large, the record is remarkably good selves. I also told my doctor and employ- Now, I consider my knowledge of on that part of Tradition Eleven. In my opinion, anonymity in the ers, when it seemed appropriate for people in AA to be very much like Even if as many as seventy-five mass media is still very important, to them to know. My friends in AA did, the privileged information confided “anonymity breaks” accidentally oc- all AA members and to all potential too. Whenevcr wc told of our own to a doctor, lawyer, or priest. I have cur ‘in, say, one year, that’s only members. It signals to sick alcomembership, we knew that it might absolutciy n o right wliatcver to tlis- about .00015 percent of our mem- holics: Come on in -we won’t tell. hclp chip away at the cruel stigma close anything about a membcr to bership. And it guards us against the temptawhich still kills too many alcoholics. anyonc clsc, in AA o r out, without One particular set of AA members tion to start bragging about ourselves Somctinlcs, 01’ course, thc I l l C S S i l g [hat nicnll~cr’s explicit pcrnlission. does run into that problcm, howcvcr, . . . but I’m ahead of myself again. was carricd to othcr alcoholics, in- I<cspcct of this privileged informa- and 1 especially admire the way they That’s Tradition Twelve. directly, through these doctors and tion is not a matter of professional handle it. I refer to the many good And I still have a long way to go employers. ethics, specifically sanctioned by law, AAs who work professionally in the in getting Number Eleven under my Since we also told of our AA but I think thc AA promise of con- field of alcoholism and are always belt. Doesn’t “attraction rather than membership when we made amcnds, fidentiality is a sacred one, and 1 being interviewed by newspapers and promotion” have a personal meaning when we spoke at open meetings, must do my part to kccp it. on television and radio. They just say for me? Yes, I am supposed to make and when we did Twelfth Step work, Within the Fellowship, I prefer to they are “recovered alcoholics,” AA life look so attractive that drunks thc notion of keeping our membcr- speak of another mcn~bcr- and be without saying that they are AA will want the kind of sobriety they ship secret, or being furtive about it, spoken of – only by the first name. members. It seems to me that this see in me more than they want to go just never occurred to most of us, I I like this practice simply because it device is honest, adheres perfectly to on drinking. Rather than promote guess. After all, why should we is extra insurance against letting slip the Tradition, and at the same time AA with the hard sell or with bribes be ashamed of recovering from a things told me privately, and because may carry a message of hope. Cer- (a cup of coffee, a flop, a job, or disease? it is an effective symbol, making the tainly, the old stigma fades when other favors), it’s up to me to make We did not tell any outsiders the point-particularly to outsiders and good-looking, smart-sounding, re- AA seem very attractive. names of other members, of course. newconiers – that we mean it when spectable folks like that are not The members I met in 1945 did That promise of confidentiality in we say we’re anonymous, we’re ashamed to say in public that they just that for me. I don’t find it so our name was precious to me, and trustworthy, we don’t tcll. are recovered alcoholics, and when easy. still is; I certainly would not break it. Few of us in AA, I guess, have they say it as casually as they would B. L., Manhattan, N.Y. But I have always loved to gossip, much occasion to worry about that and it wasn’t easy to keep from tell- part of t h e Tradition cautioning Eleventh Tradition Checklist ing last namcs and otlm identifying against the use of our namcs or faces I. Do I sometimes promote AA so fanatically that I make it seem unfacts about members to other AAs. in mass comnlunications media. Not attractive? I have learned my lesson on that one, long aftcr sobering up, I discovered 2. Am I always careful to keep the confidences reposed in me as an AA I hope, the hard way – through em- that ncither Winchell, Life, the NCW member? ,

barrassment. It happened to me York Times, nor anyone else was 3. Am I careful about throwing AA names around -even within the twice. Having told one member standing outside the meeting doors Fellowship? ‘

about another member, I learned every night to announce to a breath- 4. Am I ashamed of being a recovered, or recovering, alcoholic? that the two were old acquaintances less world that I was just leaving an 5. What would AA be like if we were not guided by the ideas in Tradition and each wanted particularly to keep AA meeting, sober. As far as I know, Eleven? Where would I be? the other from knowing he was in David, Walter, and Harry and their 6. Is my AA sobriety attractive enough that a sick drunk would want such AA! Clearly, I had violated confi- TV cameras have let practically all a quality for himself?

SEPTEMBER 1971

fought and cherished in AA. At first, back in 1945, it made me think of the cringing, sniveling, creepy, phony ” ‘umbleness” of Dickens’s Anonymity is the Uriah Heep. That was not what AA The author says: meant, I felt certain. spiritual foundation Then the word suggested to me “A A’s Twelve of all our Traditions, the sensation of being humiliated. I found it hard to understand why T r u d i t i o m huve, ever reminding us and how that would hclp me stay sober. Humiliation had been one of to place principles the most painful parts of my drunkirr my e x p e r i e r m , enness; did AA want me to endure before personalities. more of it, sober? o f t e n p r o v e d vital It was therefore a great relief, that first year, to hear humility discussed in keepitlg me sober, for hours and hours over nickel ing, personally applicable to me. coffees in an all-night Grand Central a n d helpful E VERY SO OFTEN, 1 must ask myself, “Who do you think you are, anyway?” That question tics mc N e w s p a p e r s , m a g a z i n e s , TV, movies, and radio only rarely find Station cafeteria. Humility, I was told, did not mean being a doormat, otherwise to thc guidcpost which is our Twclfth ilny particular one of us important ncvcr standing up for oneself; in- Tradition, much as a ropc tethers enough for the public to care wheth- stead, it meant just being opena grazing mule. When hooked to it, er we are sober or not. When they minded, no longer sure that I knew in 011 mv do, the Eleventh Tradition amply all the answers. 1 am restrained from roaming into dangerous territories of vanity and covers that situation, in my opinion. Later, investigating religious ideas aff nirs. ” self-pity. They always secrn to bc (It never was intended to keep us with the guidance of AA friends, I beckoning, trying to cnticc my hun- from revealing our AA membership found enormous help in Emmet gry ego with their grccncr-looking privately, howcvcr.) Fox’s explanation that being humble fotltlcr, and ovcrindulgcncc i n cilhcr Ilut hcrc in thc Twclfth, the term did not mean be:ng poor-spirited could lead mc back to drunkcnness. “unonynlily” strongly suggcsts to and spineless. Instead, it meant be- Circling this Tradition, trying to mc something more than that, some- ing teachable. gct insidc its mcnning by logic or thing at thc corc of nearly all AA After a 1946 slip, I think I took some other routc, timc ;~ftcrtime I tc;~chings.AS of todiiy, to the best onc step ncilrcr undcrstiulding huhave felt pullctl up short by the dis- of my understanding, that somc- mility, when 1 decided to try to learn covery that hcrc, in this context, thing more is humility. about unselfishness. For me, that “anonymity” has one simple mean- The word is one I have both meant practicing it, going through

the motions many times, as if it were and outside AA. And I have another 1 also made sure he heard me say sweaty, nipping-all-day-but-tryingan exercise – necessary for one who bad habit to combat. Each time I go loudly to someone, “1 can’t go to to-hide-it drunk. People laughed at had been lost in greedy, sick self- through the lesson, I havc to remind lunch -have to do this.” Poor ole the Sen Sen breath, the razor-nicked concern. 1 had to find tiny things 1 myself to be more gencrous about me! jowls, the vulgar jokes, the mug of could do for someone clse’s bene- giving others credit whcn credit is Running the pages through – a “cold tea for my cough” stashed fit. Then I had to keep quiet about their due. I am sometimes morc two-minute operation – I tried to behind some books, the long lunch these deeds, instead of trying to col- prodigal with gripes than with back off and look at myself, a trick after which he always reached his lect any credit for them. praise, alas.) my good psychotherapist had en- daily peak of agreeableness and hat was not always easy, because I thought I was beginning to catch couraged me to practice whenever calm, c u r e d of t h o s e m o r n i n g I felt pretty sure that the deeds on to the meaning of humility in my face felt scarlet. What I saw was shakes. should not be too easy. They should action. Then, late one morning, just a preposterously pompous forty- I had told him enough about my cost me at least a little, even if it before lunch, my boss strode into my year-old man pouting like a four- own past drunks for him to realize was nothing more than my time, in office. “Verifax these for me,” Tom year-old. I looked so ludicrous I we were buddies beneath the skin. order to give me the spiritual prog- said, handing me some loose pages. began to giggle at myself, and to (I was trying to maneuver him into ress I sought. For my purpose, I And he walked out. breathe again. Not too many years asking how I stayed sober.) So found menial tasks best – such as Rage paralyzed me. I could not before, I had been a drunk, an un- when I suddenly thought of those washing my group’s ashtrays on the have felt more affronted if he had employable bum. Now 1 had turned pitiful trembling hands, I was deeply ‘ sly. The point was, I felt, that for ordered me to sweep out his office. into a big shot who thought he was ashamed of myself. Obviously, just my own survival I had to learn to Who did he think 1 was? Why me, too good for a mere mechanical before lunch he could no morc put place the welfare of others before instead of a sccretary? Why me, in- task. Indeed, who did I think I was? pages neatly into a copying machine my own, and learn to do so without stead of a junior writer’? I was so No longer so blinded by my own than he could accurately guide a the reward of raise. angry, I could not think at all – 1 injured vanity, I remembered some- pencil. He had simply needed a (Such exercises are still useful to just felt. thing else I had temporarily forgot- favor from a friend he could trust, me when I find myself wishing for Finally, I went to the duplicating ten. Old Tom was a drunk. I mean and he thought I was it. But I had credit I , d o not get – both inside machine, making sure Tom saw me. a miserable, grouchy, guilty, scared, been so conceited about myself and

my position in the company that 1 self out of that pit of despair, as I port AA financially? Whcn is the 10. Do my utterances always rehad forgottcn all itb011t him and Iris hiid previously laughed mysclf oil last timc 1 anonyn~ouslygiwc away llcct thc Tenth Trndition, or do I problems. thc peak of sclf-importancc. a Grapevine subscription? give AA critics reid ammunition? I was hardly placing “principles Evcr since the alternate self-cx- 8. Do I complain about certain I I . Should I keep my AA membefore personalities.” In my deep in- altation and humiliation of those AAs’ behavior – especially if they bership a secret, or reveal it in privolvement with the most fascinating days, almost fifteen years ago, I have are paid to work for AA? Who vate conversation when that may personality in the world – my own, been searching for a happy medium made me so smart? help another alcoholic (and thereof course – I had for a moment between the two extremes. I know it 9. Do I fulfill all AA responsibil- fore me)? Is my brand of AA so overlooked a prime AA principle, exists – genuine humility, with false ities in such a way as to please pri- attractive that other drunks want it? concern for the fellow alcoholic. I pride absent but self-respect pres- vately even my own conscience? 12. What is the real importance felt like such a heel that I took him ent – because it is demonstrated by Really? of me among 500,000 AAs? to lunch in his favorite, dreary, hid- so many of the AA personalities den-away bar – four or five double through whom I learn AA principles. martinis for him, pretzcls and ginger I think I have also caught glimpses ale for me. of it in writing about our other Tra- For several weeks, I wallowed ditions (as the checklist following in a mud puddle of guilt about that, this illustrates, 1 hope). sure I was the worst of all AA mem- If anybody who reads the Grapebers. I practically began to proclaim vine wants to share a different unwith pride my preeminence in rot- derstanding of our Traditions, I, for tenness and failure. Then a dear AA one, will be glad to read it. After friend observed one night over cof- all, understanding our Tr;tditions is fee, “Some of us will do anything for like staying sober: I do not have to distinction, won’t we?” do it by myself, not as long as I am Shocked, 1 began to chuckle. in AA. Something relaxed inside. Shortly Who do I think I am, anyway? afterward, 1 was able to ridicule my- B. L., Manhattan, N.Y.

Twelfth Tradition Checklist 1. Why is it a good idea for me a desire to stay sober? to place the common welf;~reof all 4. Do I cvcr try to gct ;I certain AA members before individual wel- AA group to conform to my standfare? What would happen to me if ards, not its own? AA as a whole disappeared? 5. Have I a personal responsibility 2. When I do not trust AA’s cur- in helping an AA group fulfill its rent servants, who do I wish had the primary purpose? What is my part? authority to straighten them out? 6. Does my pcrsonal bchavior rc- 3. In my opinions of and remarks llcct the Sixth Tradition – or bclic about other AAs, am I implying it? membership requirements other than 7. Do I do all I can do to sup-

October 1971

much has to be learned before it our own diligence and sincerity in bccomes an “exact” science. Psy- applying the principle, not by the chologists and sociologists have personalities of those people. trouble agreeing on terms primarily Likewise, nobody can own a prinbecause they always must deal with ciple. A brilliant personality may the variables and caprices of the discover a principle and pass it People and Principles hun~anpersonality. along to others, but he cannot later But this does not make personal- keep the principle from working for ity less interesting to most of US. them. Once a principle is learned, Personalities change and people are often Principles often leave us cold and it can easily be applied by anybody wrong, but principles remain constant indifferent, while personalities give who cares to test it out. It is no life its color and magic. Albert Ein- respecter of persons, and never will stein discovered great principles, but be. most of us would find the man It was our good fortune, as sick U R FELLOWSHIP would not be There is a good reason why that himself more interesting than his alcoholics, to find a set of principles 0 where it is today if we had not benefited from the influence of is so. A principle is a fundamental truth, something that never changes discoveries. This attraction to personality is that can work very well in our recovery. We call these principles the some wonderful personalities – fine and always works in the same way both a strength and a weakness. We Twelve Steps and the Twelve Tradimen and women who launched our under similar conditions. It is a prin- can be led to great heights by the tions, but they are not the exclusive groups and set the tone for every- ciple, for example, that causes water right kind of person – the individ- property of AA. They would work thing that AA was to become. to boil at 212′ F. at a certain ual who believes in the truth and for any person who wanted to apply We are doubly fortunate, how- elevation. The principle is not af- practices it. Or we can be swept to them in his life. ever, that these strong personalities fected by the attitudes and opinions the depths by fol1owi:ig the wrong Wonderful as people are, none of usually took themselves out of the of human beings. Water boils just kind of person -the nlistaken or them can serve as an absolutely repicture when principle was involved, as well for the sinner as it does for selfish individual who encourages us liable guide for our own actions. thus giving their assent to the idea the saint. to do something that is fundamen- We can use others as models for of “principle before personality.” But a personality is something tally wrong. our own behavior, and we can go Perhaps the best example of this quite different. A personality is a We will always be attracted to to them for advice. But we are in was a noted lady member who has human being as he happens to be at strong personalities, and we will al- trouble if we do not base our own done significant work in a related a particular time, usually the sum ways seek out people who seem actions on truths that we know to field of alcoholism, yet decided early total of his attitudes, opinions, ex- to have answers for us. How can be right. We need to understand to retain her anonymity at the pub- periences, expectations, and other we balance this tendency with the such truths and use them, for the lic level in the interest of protect- feelings. Personality changes from wiser inclination to follow principle? time may come when we will no ing AA. year to year, even from moment AA’s guideline is very simple, yet longer have others to lean on, and The motto “principle before per- to moment. It is often unreliable, it never fails to work. It is this: will have to use our own undersonality” has a much broader ap- and it is certainly unpredictable. A People can help us by carrying the standing to get through a difficult plication than in the safeguarding personality may be pleasing and pos- truth to us, but they cannot cause situation. of anonymity, though this is where itive for a period of time, then it to become effective in our lives. In our AA lives, there is no perit is often applied in AA. The fact suddenly become ugly and destruc- Only we can do that, by accepting sonality who can serve as a subis, it really can be a spiritual guide- tive. Personality is still one of the the truth and applying it. What stitute for such practices as turning line for every human activity. most difficult fields of study, and then happens will be determined by our problems over to a Higher

Power, taking our own inventories, arts group which came under the and working with others. If some- sway of a dominant but opinionated body tells us that these actions are board member. Largely at his insisnot necessary and can be side- tence, thc board finally dismissed a stepped in some way, we should not director who had been quite poputake his word for it, but should lar and had kept the group on a check the matter out to our own sound financial basis. This ill-adsatisfaction. vised decision, based on emotion In our everyday living, we will be rather than objective reasoning, no less successful if we try to fol- plunged the group into near banklow good principles. A businessman ruptcy. got into trouble, for example, be- The lesson in all this is that cause he accepted a questionable people are often wrong. through business contract from a group with either malice or ignorance. If we shaky credit and credentials. He listen to their counsel when it goes would have refused the contract had against what we know to he right, it not been recommended by several we are placing pcrsonalitics ahead prominent men. His failure to heed of principles. We are asking for good business principles and his trouble, and we will be lucky if we willingness to listen to the siren avoid it. call of personality resulted in the Some people think that all prinloss of several thousand dollars. ciples, whether physical or moral in In another case with a far greater nature, come from God. Human potential for tragedy, a beginning personality also comes from God, pilot took off with his wife and but it is distorted by being caught young daughter on a cross-country up in the mixture we call “truth trip with a flying club. Visibility was and error.” Human being come and marginal, with low mountains on the go, and are constantly changing. but flight path, but the other mem- principles go on and on, and do not bers had laughed at the newcomer’s change. When we put principles first, doubts. The fog closed in shortly we are really putting God first. after takeoff, and the plane crashed Perhaps that is why the two great into a mountain. Fortunately, all conimandments suggest loving God three aboard were rescued, but the fi,rst and then our neighbor. Our experience made the man a much neighbor is a great guy, but he is wiser pilot, willing to follow the not worthy of being our guide in all principles of good flying rather than things. If we put God and His printhe opinions of others, who may ciples first, we will have things in have been willing to take foolish proper order. What’s more, we’ll risks. even be finer personalities! A third case concerned an amateur M. D. B., Jackson, Mich.

AA GRAPEVINE, NOVEMBER 1971 unhappiness, drunkenness, incarcer- Why do we need to be servants, ation, death. The rewards are hap- rather than bosses? It seems to me W h y We Have Servants piness and sobriety. Also, in AA, contrary to the situwe need to be servants because we have to learn to receive in order to ation in business, what is given to progress. Once, we tried to progress Instead of Bosses one enriches all. We don’t have to from drunkenness to sobriety by ourtake away from one in order to give selves. (At least, I did, and I think to another. Anything that one gains, most of us did.) We found we A Trustee looks at we all gain. Since our interests are couldn’t do it by ourselves; it didn’t not in conflict, we need no referee. work; we needed power from the some diflerences between So I think that perhaps is why we outside – a Higher Power than our- AA and big business can operate without a boss. selves. “Bossing” blunts one’s ‘abil- The next question is: Why must ity to receive -to accept the input . we operate without a boss? And I from a Higher Power -because one think we must. We must because, if is putting out most of the time and, the individuaI fails to adhere to our therefore, hasn’t much time for tak- Traditions or prescription for happi- ing in. “Bossing” in AA also would D URING THE LAST four years, as a Trustee on the General Service Board of AA, I have learned terests conflict with the interests of the other two groups. What you give to one group, you’ve got to take ness or code of ethics, he is the one who suffers, not the group. Since he mean assuming life-or-death responsibility over other people. And that more about what makes an organi- away from the other two. is the one who pays the penalties, he responsibility has to be left with the zation work than I did in my preced- Therefore, business has to have a must make his own decisions. His individual. ing thirty-six years as a businessman. boss, a chief executive, to act as a life depends upon it. Nobody else Our common goal in AA, our ap- I’d like to share this learning ex- referee in the contest over who gets can make decisions for him -no- plication of common principles, the perience. how much of what – to strike an body can boss him. It’s like the dan- existence of common penalties and In business, we have bosses. In optimum balance among the con- gerous military mission – people rewards, the lack of competition, the AA, we have only servants; we’re sumer, the employee, and the stock- aren’t ordered to go on such a mis- fact that what one gains, all gain all Indians and no chiefs. holder. sion; they are asked to volunteer, these forces create and sustain our How and why can AA operate How do we get around this prob- because a man must have, so far as incredible paradox of autonomy on effectively with no bosses when, as lem in AA? Well, we have the possible, the right of decision over the one hand and, on the other, far as I know, no other organization Twelve Traditions. Our only require- his own life. That, I think, is why unity under our Higher Power. on the crust of this planet has been ment for membership is a desire to each of us can and must operate au- That’s what I’ve learned in these able to perform such a feat? stop drinking. Our primary purpose tonomously and why AA can still last four years, and I thank you all Let’s examine the basic differences is to carry the message to all alco- function so effectively with so high from the bottom of my heart for between AA and any normal busi- holics who still suffer, and to do this a degree of individual freedom. having given me the chance to learn ness enterprise. A business has three we must stay sober ourselves. All of This leads us to another question: it. B. F. P., Manhattan, N.Y. functions: one, to make a profit for us in AA have the same requireits stockholders or owners; two, to ment, the same purpose, the same fill a consumer need by providing a code of ethics – a prescription for product or service; three, to create happiness, if you will -the same jobs. Each of these three functions penalties and rewards for what we .-. .* * wmcs a group of people whose in- do or fail to do. The penalties are

November 1971

great interest to professionals in The Price Tag medicine and social work (not all of them social or behavorial scientists), on Personal Growth as well as to the public at large. Most of the curious are practical people and frequently ask of us an extremely practical question: “How does Do we realize that AA’s Tradition o f self-support AA work?” pays dividends more precious than gold? We may answer with the conventional quip: “Fine! It works just gram down to simple misintcrprefine.” But the importance of their tations. We are usually unable to inquiry is clear. describe precisely how and why AA

I F YOU ARE a social or behavioral scientist (as 1 am), you can look at AA this way: It represents the Without patting ourselves or our co-founders too hard or too frequently on the back (I am convinced works for us and others; so these non-AAs tend, upon superficial examination of our literature and upon first successful effort in history by a that we are merely instruments of conversations with onc or two argroup of people with a physiological powers greater than ourselves), we rested drunks, to construct perfectly a n d l o r psychological disease to can say that we have produced re- rational descriptions of AA’s “methachieve their own common control markable results over the years. AA ods” in accordance with their imof that disease. AA also stands as is the only nonneurologically orient- pression of how therapy of all kinds one of the few (but not only) suc- ed form of psychotherapy that ap- ouglrt to work. Thc fact that they are cessful attempts by individuals suf- pears to work with any consistency. wrong (or only slightly right) docs fering from “anomie” or “alienation” It is an effective way of arresting a not appear to bother thcni much, to overconle this condition by creat- disease long thought to be incur- just as their quick and easy concluing, in effect, a community of the able. sions about AA do not bother me. alienated, though they come of Generally speaking, alcoholisni is rither – much – if I look at thcnl different religious, educational, na- incurable, of course. But people out- from my own personal viewpoint. In tional, and ethnic backgrounds. side AA do not often accept our spe- the first place, I have no better ex- “Alienated” people are simply folk cial notion of incurableness. Like planations than theirs to hand out; in who cannot harmonize with their many sober drunks, I live and work the second place. I am not anxious cultures’ values and normal life- in a community of intelligent people lo test my capacity for serenity too styles, and their inability may be who, although most of then1 know harshly. manifested in many other ways be- that I am an alcoholic, simply refuse We hear that AA is some kind of sides drinking. to believe that I live only one drink religion. Or that it requires alcohol- The unique and, so far, largely away from a drunk and that I am ics to “get religion” before they are unexplainable success of our Fellow- not cured. But I know – and that is able to sober up. Or that the (sugship is no secret and is naturally of what matters and what averts argu- gested) Twelve Steps contain some ments. kind of voodoo that frightens away In my travels in this outside world, Denion Rum. (The word “suggested” I have also noticed the tendency of is usually lost in the translation to concerned non-AAs to boil our pro- the language of non-AAs.) Or that

the external formalities and formats nymity. Born in the matrix of shame, money, welfare funds, capitalistic largesse, and fund-raising in order expected: on one hand, admiration of what appears to be severe idealof our meetings (in which many it serves us magnificently by keeping to spread abroad what they are con- ism; on the other, confirnlation of Loners and other sober AAs rarely both our egos and our disease in vinced are good words and good their suspicions that the exccssivc pnrticipatc) provide some kind of place, and these are equally critical works. intake of alcohol frequently destroys . group thcrapeutic device sure to matters for the kind of people who Everywhere and at all times these brain tissue. work as well on schizophrenics, nail- tend to tipple excessively. A lucky days, the prior requirement for ac- They tend to overlook this vital biters, fatties, and other alienated accident? Who knows? complishing anything to better the point: Our Tradition of self-support, and semialienated people. Or that The second is a far more subtle human condition -be it cleaning up practiced in letter as well as spirit. only the more dramatic aspects of issue, which many wise people – polluted rivers, educating ghetto is essential to the “method” they our twelfth-stepping work rare and both outside and inside AA-some- youngsters, conquering some hei- have been trying to discover in their special magic. times take all too lightly, I think. It nous disease, encouraging poets and queries about how AA works. Our Enough delusions. These half- centers on our Seventh Tradition of painters, or spreading the gospel to insistencc on self-support is thc crittruths, by inipelling di~turbedpeo- total self-support, a masterpiece of ical difference betwecn AA and most ple to face their own disturbances, common sense in a materialistic culhave probably done more good than ture like ours, where almost everyharm. in the long run. However, it is thing outside AA seems to follow, T he two main, indispensable aspects of (if not all) the conventional dogoodism of society today. We are expecting entirely too odd that (in my experience) the two run, jump, and do tricks at the be- of AA’s eflectiveness much of these non-AAs, I think, if main, indispensable aspects of AA’s hest of the almighty dollar. are hardly mentioned. we ask them to understand that, effectiveness are hardly mentioned. Now, outsiders are certainly im- when we were drinkinr alcoholics, But it is not so odd when one con- pressed by the Tradition of self-sup- the unredeemed – is the collection the matter of self-support for most siders that the thoughtful outsider port. They are most impressed when of as many bundles of cold cash as of us assumed crisis proportions; if does not see these aspects as thera- they see it in action: when an “out- possible. And cash lacks character. we require them to comprehend (as peutic tools; to him, they seem side contribution” is refused or when All money procured by do-gooders our founders so clearly did) that nlerely conceits, eccentricities, and an AA declines to accept a fee for to do good is considered good. Tax- such fantasies as the dream of acdiversions from AA’s chief purpose. doing something that in the normal payers, penurious contributors, ca- cunlulated cash consolidate the re- Further, it is difficult to draw the at- round of living would command a pricious foundations, and crazy lationship between a drunk and his tention of a physician, a sociologist, price. They are amazed at it when, millionaires are all fair targets in the bottle; if we request that they emor a social worker to these aspects of like most public-health personnel, . game. Good ends are believed to pathize with our need for pride in AA simply because they run coun- social workers, and university peo- justify such means as scare advertis- our own accomplishments as rccovterclockwise to the values by which ple, they themselves happen to be ing, harassment by fourth-class mail, ered alcoholics and with our need to such people live and work. forever engaged in schemes involv- and political hanky-panky. The tax recognize comnlon humanity, rather The first is our tradition of ano- ing foundation grants, government proceeds from Nevada’s legal fun than money, as our currency of exparlors and naughty houses are re- change. Outsiders – even profesported to subsidize that state’s var- sionals involved in the worldwide ious school systems. effort to solve the alcoholic problem In this nearly universal quest, the –siniply are not drunks or ex- Fellowship of Alcoholics Anony- drunks. mous is the outstanding exception. Logically and often with good in- The reactions of our friends outside tentions. thev mav want to s u ~ w r t , , a ~ – z . AA, therefore, are both sensible and AA. And in their vocabularics, the

word “support” is colored green. For basket pass by me at my next meetus drunks, support is a different mat- ing without weighting it down a bit ter – or two different matters. While -especially when I remember the we were drinking, money was mere- prices I saw under the bottles in the ly what we used to buy our bottled liquor store down the street. I cansupport. Now that we are sober in not leave it to the group to be “fully AA, the word “support” has to do self-supporting,” because I am part with sharing, people, self-respect, of the group. Neither can I find it in gratitude, and what we are privi- my heart, at the other extreme, to raleged to give – not take – in ma- tionalize accepting a nonalcoholic’s tcri;rl terms. bequest of $10,000 to an AA cen- Sigmund Freud, one of the intel- tral office in a large city -an actual Icctunl giants of our era, understood all this in a peculiar way, although alcoholics (who were mostly beyond the reach of his therapy) did not A masterpiece of common sense in a intcrcst him more than incidentally. materialistic culture In dcfcnding his method of psycho- like ours. analysis. Freud emphasized that the payment of a fee to the analyst was bequest that has been refused, incicrucial to the desire of a patient to dentally – by regarding it as some- Iical himself. In a materialistic world, how a n o n y m o u s a n d s u i t a b l y Frcud’s insight wiis keen. Financial alcoholic, because it comes from a engagement in psychoanalysis made dead man who meant well. Borrowthe analysis importonf to the man or ing another expression once used by woman on the couch – and still the young, self-support is “where it docs. is at” – “it” being my sobriety and The paradox of AA is that finan- yours. cial independence and the support T h e Seventh Tradition was a of our Fellowship by alcoholics and stroke of genius born of a necessity cik~~irolicsdone not only enhances that, I believe, deserves respectful AA’s importance to each of us, but and humble reconsideration by all stimulates our engagement in our of us every once in a while. Let’s own rccovcry and our respect for not forget that we are alcoholics, the ourselves, because, in the words of kind of people who can resist everythe youngsters, AA is “our thing,” thing except temptation, and that an from our group’s treasury to the bal- addiction to the taste of folding letmce sheets at the General Service tuce is not too difficult to cultivate Oflice. – no more difficult, I imagine, than I cannot interpret the Seventh a taste for booze. Tradition as an excuse to let the G . N. G., Queens, N.Y.

of the 13,000 rcspondcnts cilnlc into 2. Most pcoplc do not know any AA througli an A A mcmbcr. This AA mcmbcr, or if thcy do, arc unais morc than citmc in through all WilrC of it. othcr sourccs combincd. 3. Our “imagc” among thosc who Sccond, a survcy wits made of thc know us is such that they might be opinions held by thc gcncrnl public willing to scck our help. But our about AA itnd A A nicmbcrs. Only “imagc” among thc grcat majority about one-fourth of thc pcoplc sur- who do not know us is ncgativc, to vcycd said that thcy kncw a mcm- say thc Icast. bcr of AA. Thc othcr thrcc-fourths Lct’s spcculatc for a moment may actually not havc known any- about why thcrc cxists this unattracone i n AA, or thcy may havc bccn tivc misconccption about A A memunilwilrc of thc A A mcmbcrship of bcrs. Probably for two rcilsons. . .. somconc they did know. First, in our drinking days, we At any ratc, thc pcoplc who said had a fairly high dcgrcc of visibility. .they did not know tlnyonc in AA Wc wcrc sccn, heard, itnd talked harborcd a p rctty unattritctivc con- about in varying dcgrccs of incbriaception of us A A mcmbcrs: Fifty- tion. Thcn wc quit drinking and eight pcrccnt of thcm think of us came into AA (or vicc vcrsa.) We ;IS “weak”; lifty-cight pcrccnt, as immcdiatcly bcc:tmc itrvisihle. bcing “unhappy”; lifty-four pcrccnt, Thcrc is much to notice and talk “ncurotic”; and fifty pcrccnt, “scn- itbout in an individunl who is roarsitivc.” ing about thc community with a AA Grapevine, DEcember 1971 How m:my pcoplc do you think skull full of boozc. But what’s to I would voluntarily scck hclp of ;In noticc in onc who goes quietly and A Position Paper on Anonymity individual who lillcd that dcscrip- clTcctivcly about his ditily routine? lion? So AA mcmbcrs arc apparentiy pic- Finally, thc study among thc pub- turcd its wc wcrc when our conduct lic rcvcalcd that ~ c o p l cwho do cngravcd tlic sharpest images in pcoknow il mcmbcr df AA think far plc’s minds, and not as.wc are today. bcttcr of us. A much smallcr pcr- Thc sccond rcason surcly has to’ thosc of us i~lrcadyin AA. Uut it ccntagc of thosc who know us tag do with thc i~nonymity tradition. M ORE T H A N I ~ A I . I ; of tlic general public picturcs AA mcnibcrs ;IS bcing wcak, unh:~ppy, ncurotic. will kill t1ious;tntls of now-activc ;11coholics unlcss wc act to changc it. us with thc four rcpcllcnt quolitics listcd abovc, and a much Iilrgcr per- Sobcr AA mcmbcrs arc ncvcr sccn in any public mcdium-only drunks. .

So wc Icurticd from three rcccnl This is not Iiypcrhole. It is foct. ccnt;tgc attribute constructivc char- This would bc ;I minor handicap to saniplings of public opinion all First, in 1969, n study was con- actcristics to us. cst;~blishingour character if wc wcrc itcross the country by your Public ductcd covcring AA nicmbcrs at- If wc put all thcsc findings to- known on a privure Icvcl. But many lnfor~~iationCommittee as author- tending live pcrccnt of all tlic AA gether, we must scvcral con- of us arc not. This pcrsonal invisiized by AA’s General Scrvicc Board. nicctings in c ~ h statc of thc U.S. crclc conclusions: bility sccms to stcm from a mis- Such a ncgativc “imagc” falls into and cach provincc of Canada. That 1. AA mcnibcrs arc by far tlic conception about thc anonymity the “sticks and stones” catcgory for study rcvcalcd that fifty-fivc pcrccnt most important bridgchcad to AA. tradition. Vast numbers of A A

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members seem to think that thcy holics might.bc helped if cach AA qrc prohibited from tclling friends, mcmbcr were to bccomc his own associates, and ncquaintanccs about Privatc Information Committcc with their AA membership. Thc othcr family, fricnds, doctors, lawycrs, day, wc heard an AA mcmbcr say, ministcrs, busincss nssociatcs. “I broke my anonymity today at Public information is rcstrictcd by lunch by telling so-and-so that I’m tradition. But private information in AA.” Broke his anonymity? Not is hcrc for thc giving- and far at all! Thc prohibition in thc ;mo- morc clTcctivc. nymity tradition applics to plthlic And what are thc rcwards of tcllprint, broa~lcast,and film. It docs ing pcople about our membership in not apply to our pcrsonitl dci~lings. AA? First, it providcs us onc more If the principal channel to AA is safeguard against the possibility of AA members, and if itlc~holic~ arc rcaching for a drink. Sccond, it being condemned to continued suf- grants us frccdom from furtiveness. fering because wc mcmbcrs havc Wc wcrc furtive about our drinking. never made oursclvcs known, it How exhilarating to be opcn about would seem that thcrc is great op- our sobricty! And, finally, shcdding portunity for each of us in letting our rcticcncc is illmost like a miritothers know, on it personal level, clc in thc ncw opportunities it crewherever wc propcrly can. Whilc the ates for us to help othcrs achicvc decision about face-to-face anonym- sobricty! ity must remain with each indi- And aftcr all, isn’t that what wc vidual, millions of sufTering alco- are all about?

6-‘ I

AA Grapevine, December 1971

It is vital that we understand the full implications o f anonymity for ourselves and for our Fellowship. The Grapevine presents here a ttine-page section continuing the discussion of this most important subject

A message f ~ o m Bill, delivered b y Lois at the New York Intergroup Fellowship and for the myriad bless- side, and security from those of us Dinner in c d e bration o f his 36th anniversary ings bestowed upon us by God’s who would use AA for sick and sel- Grace. fish purposes. If I were asked which of these AA must and will continue to blessings I felt was most responsible change with the passing years. We M Y DEAR FRIENDS: Recently, an AA member sent me for our growth as a fellowship and most vital to our continuity, I would say, “The concept of anonymity.” cannot, nor should we, turn back the clock. However, I deeply believe that the principle of anonymity must an unusual greeting which I would Anonymity has two attributes es- remain our primary and enduring like to extend to you. He told me sential to our individual and collec- safeguard. As long as we accept our it was an ancient Arabian salutation. tive survival: the spiritual and the sobriety in our traditional spirit of Perhaps we have no Arabian groups, practical. anonymity, we will continue to rebut it still seems a fitting expression On the spiritual level, anonymity ceive God’s Grace. of how I feel for each of you. It demands the greatest discipline of And so – once more I salute you says, “I salute you and thank you for which we are capable; on the prac- in that spirit, and again I thank you your life.” tical level, anonymity has brought for your lives. My thoughts are much occupied protection for the newcomer, re- May God bless us all now, and these days with gratitude to our spect and support of the world out- forever.

January 1972

Another view of anonymity be true. Froni West Virginia: Third, “How exhilarating to be I agree almost 100 percent with open about our sobriety!” I think the Public Information Committee’s this is the strong suggestion for per- Position Paper on Anonymity (print- sonal gain and reward. It’s this ed in the December Grapevine) and suggestion of personal feeling of exthe thought behind it. Each of us hilaration. I drank for effect, and at should be a Private Information one time I thought a good stiff drink Committee of one, and we should of bourbon exhilarated me. let our membership be known where I am concerned about the new it serves a purpose and where it man or woman. It has been the exmight help another. perience of our groups that it is the I feel, though, that the next-to- new persons who want the world to last paragraph of this paper strongly know they are AA members even suggests personal gain and reward before they are sure they want what from just tclling people we are AA has to offer. The new person n~enibersof AA. I would like to go sometimes doesn’t understand the ‘ over thc paragraph point by point. importance of anonymity at the level “First, it provides us one more of press, radio, and film. If we sugsafeguard against the possibility of gest to the new member that he (or reaching for a drink.” We have had she) can be exhilarated by telling some members tell their bosses or people of his membership, it might someone else and then begin to be interpreted to mean that he can drink again soon after. be even more exhilarated by having “Second, it grants us freedom his picture in the local newspaper. from furtiveness.” I think this may ANONYMOUS

February 1972

Help Kill Jim? T w o whole years o f chances slipped away, and suddenly it was too late

ety. They know me only as a sober kept the secret that, I thought, gave Tradition asks us to keep our ano- HAVE B E E N LED to believe that I anonymity is a sacred secret – a man. fact of my life that is only for me I had a co-worker named Jim. He sparkle to my eyes, the secret that, I felt, gave me the most marvelous advantage over the civilian world. nymity only in newspapers and on TV and radio. It does not prohibit and perhaps a few close friends to know cnigma. drank to the point where it was o a well-guarded spiritual vious to all of us at work that h had a problem. I worked closely 1 Yes sir! I have just come from Jim’s fuus from telling friends. Now I have started to tell people I am in AA. 1 see the zcalous guardneral. ing of my secret was a reservation After all, the group 1 belong to with Jim for two years. He had a Something went wrong with my still prints only my tirst name and part-time job as a bartender, and on my part. I was afraid I would scheme. Jim drove through a red light drink again and they would all laugh last initial in the monthly group bul- our company assumed that thislwas on the way home from that night bar- at the Great Me. 1 lacked complete letin. I never questioned this. They the reason for his coming to work tending job–the job he had held, not faith in our marvelous program. 1 have been doing it for years. I as- late and smelling of whiskey. 1 talked to Jim. I heard his re- to make ends meet, but to be able lacked courage to speak up for the sumed it was to keep our egos in line, to keep us from getting too sentments. 1 often knew what he was to afford his habit. His widow is very thing I love most in life – AA. “famous.” In retrospect, I realize going to say before he did. I smiled. twenty-three. His two confused chil- No more. If a sadness like this that we all know one another’s last I kept my secret. I knew that even- dren were there, cute as buttons. l ever happens again, it won’t be benames fairly well. The New York tually, when he asked, I would be stared at them and wondered wheth- cause I did not love my fellowman Times is not waiting with bated able to help him. er I could have helped. 1 certainly enough to tell him about myself,’to breath to publish our names. I kept my anonymity. I felt he would not have hurt. weather his temporary scorn, per- I have been sober seven years – would appreciate this when he was I know I did not kill Jim. But I did haps. And then . . . well, who knows? ready. He would love us AAs for waste two whole years of chances. There will never be another Jim not only sober, but happy and pronot being glory-seekers, though sober A11 I might have had to do was in my life. I understand anonymity ductive in all areas of my life. You tell him I was an AA member. That’s can’t ask for much more than that. – simply sober people acting orpi- now. I work for a large organization. I nary. I felt that he would really re- all. I realize now that the Eleventh E. S., Brooklyn, N.Y. began working for them after sobri- spond to this great humility. So 1

AA Grapevine, February 1972

Acting Within the almost everywhere treatment pro- Traditions grams for alcoholics have a very low position on the priority scale. We tained interest that, I believe, can be provided only by those who are o r have been directly involved, profesby John L. Norris, MD need m x e , much more, public inter- sionalism will take over and the Nonalcoholic Chairman, cst if this is to change. vitality of treatment programs will A A General Service Board Wherc is the greatest, most dy- wane. namic source or reservoir of com- Experience in other health fields mitted public interest? It is among has shown that interest needs to be the victims of the disease and their organized in order to be effective holism, and the consequent shortage relatives and friends, Members of for instance, in order to be suffican do much of trained personnel to develop and AA and thcir families, as individuals, ciently visible for legislators to recstaff treatment facilities – all these acting within the Traditions of AA, ognize the political importance of to help the public factors have drawn individual AAs are indispensable in bringing about our problem. So I believe it is essenunderstand more and more into the middle of throughout our society the change in tial that we in AA consider seriously the dilemma. attitudes which will mean the ac- our own personal responsibility for the disease of Individual AAs must carry the ceptance of alcoholism as an illness cooperating as individual citizens message to other alcoholics. Without for which there is an answer, will with all those agencies in our home alcoholism bring more alcoholics to AA, and communities – perhaps for helping this, the gift of sobriety is lost. As

w H E R E DOES ~ 0 0 p e ~ a t i 0 nStop and affiliation begin? This is a question that has troubled AAs for many years, and as facilities for the they do this, answering the calls for help from active alcoholics, many times they find themselves in the midst of an acute medical emergency will provide more adequately for their care during the acute emergency. Without the committed and susto create an agency – planned to help suffering alcoholics in areas beyond the scope of our capabilities.

care of alcoholics and people to with which they cannot cope safely. Too often, they have been and still One Member’s View staff these facilities increase, it will become increasingly necessary t o are turned away by hospitals and From Ogden, Utah: taking all the A A components out answer satisfactorily. Tlie demon- professionals equipped and trained To the AA who has embarked on of his life for just a moment. Put stration by AA that recovery is pos- to care for these situations. Public- this “alcoholic counseling” life-style, them in a pile. This is the AA messible for a significant proportion of political-pressure to open the doors but who still might wonder whether sage. This is the pile which we give the victims of alcoholism, the broad- of hospitals and provide treatment or not he is fracturing our Eighth away without thought of monetary ening but still inadequate acceptance facilities has accomplished much in Tradition, may I suggest a method reward. T o keep the program, we by society and government of their the last twenty-five years, but much of solution to the problem? In the rnltst give it away. responsibility to provide medical more needs to be done. The alco- silence of meditation, he might try Then sell – or try to sell – the care, the inadequacy of training in holic is still rejected far too often ( I taking his own moral inventory, by other pile. D. P. professional schools regarding alco- almost said “in most places”), and

March 1972

Anonymity and the physician ism and Alcoholics Anonymous. 1 was soon attending open meetings From Ann Arbor, Mich.: for a firsthand view of the AA re- I have enjoyed reading the Grape- covery program and reading all the vine for the last two years, but I was medical literature that I could find particularly pleased to see the article on the topic. As a result of an article “A Position Paper on Anonymity” in Reader’s Digest, I was able to get in the December issue. I heartily excellent information on how to start agree that each AA member can an alcoholism program, and within (and should!) be a valuable source two years AA had almost thirty new of information for physicians. regular members. Moreover, the About three years ago, I met physicians of some of these men Brick C., who was twelfth-stepping attended open meetings to find out one of his fellow employees. I hap- what had come over their previously pened to be the plant physician unmanageable patients. And so the where these two men were employed, miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous and Brick and I were both trying to continues to snowball. I can’t help help the same fellow. Brick revealed but think that if more physicians had his AA membership to me and bepersonal contact with AA through gan to excite my interest in alcohol- their own uatients. there would be fewer suffering alcoholics in this world. Keep up the g m d work. JOSEPH J. BELLANCA, MD

August 1 9 7 2

Anonymity Our English cousins, it seems, are struggling to understand anonymity just as we are here. The following items are from Newsletter, English equivalent of the Grapevine. With tongue in cheek, they project into the future two extreme positions on anonymity . . .

The year is 1995, and A A’s entry into he publicity letters AA stand no less for Absolute Anonymity than they do for Alcogame is causing dificulties, as the TV critic of u holics Anonymous. Sunday newspaper points out. . . . Asked by a member of the KKK Group whether something could be done about the approved-pattern hoods worn by members at all meetings -the design makes smoking difficult -084 GSB said this matter was W OLFGANG SNARLE’S comment last week on Late Night Lineup that “Sobriety can be fun, but why can’t it last?’ may be causing AA’s publicity men to think again. Snarle was referring to BBC’s Stay Sober in hand, as was the question of marking all literature “Top Secret –‘for the information of AA members only.” With the Stars and ITV’s Sobriety Show, both with high ratings and both causing headaches to producers because of high casualty rates among the stars themselves. 1 learn that AA groups holding “Meet a Star” evenings And now, a note of sanity on the subject . . . are also running into similar problems.””We’ve no business in show business” in AA, it seems! by Bill W. in As Bill Sees I t – the A A Way of Life

Five years later, Newsletter reports the I N SOME SECTIONS of AA, anonymity is carried to the point of real absurdity. Members are on such a poor basis of communication that they don’t even know each other’s last names or where each lives. It’s like the Convention for the year 2000 as follows. .. cell of an underground. In other sections, we see exactly the reverse. It is difficult to restrain

0 NLY TWENTY-NINE MEMBERS reached the Convention at XJVKZ2 in October last. As Number 543 pointed out from the chair, this was part of the price we must pay for total anonymity, and it happened because AAs from shouting too much before the whole public, by going on spectacular “lecture tours” to play the big shot. However, I know that from these extremes we slowly pull ourselvds the new code books had not been issued in time. onto a middle ground. Most lecture-giving members do not last too long, Number 187 of the CFMQP Group deplored the growing practice of and the superanonymous people are apt to come out of hiding respecting allowing the use of first names at closed meetings, and foresaw the time their AA friends, business associates, and the like. I think the long-time when this relaxation of anonymity would creep into open meetings. It trend is toward the miQdle of the road- which is probably where we was the thin end of the wedge, he said, reminding the Convention that the should be.

s”, –

From the August 1972 Gra&&e -field of alcbholism. “Cooperation only ones who can carry the message.” without affiliation” has not proved It seems ironic. First, we labor to to be a simple task to perform. convince all the world that we have a It may be well to reflect on our pro- way out, and we recommend the thergram since its birth in 1935, and the apy for the alcoholic patient. Then, 1 evolution that has taken place. In real- after we have succeeded and it is genity, we are a very young movement. erally recognized that our Twelve The years that have gone by since the Steps are effective, the voice says to beginning do not mean full maturity. the AA working in the field, “No! For example, the Twelve Concepts You are using AA.” – – – for World Service were not accepted I hope we can make up our minds he Fellowship of Alcoholics in history. We are experiencing prob- until 1962. what we really want. Our Eighth Tra- 9P Anonymous is now undergoing one of thegreatest growing-pains tests lems with our friends, both professional and nonprofessional, in the I In years past, problems were numerous with outside agencies and dition tells us that we should not professionalize AA – but I don’t believe professionals. Hospitals, jails, courts, that a person telling someone about institutions, doctors, etc. were not the Twelve Steps of AA, and not his too receptive to the program of AA. or her own story, is “using” AA. Frustrating and futile attempts were There is a difference. made to have our program included Most professional programs talk in the therapy for the suffering alco- about and recommend the program of holic. Many old-timers will remember Alcoholics Anonymous as a sustaining the discouragement associated with force for contented sobriety. Usually, the attempts to convince people of new patients are in the therapist’s our willingness to help our fellow care for approximately two to four alcoholics. The breakthrough was weeks, which is only a Start. Where painfully slow, but we did not give up. do they go after that? As far as I can Now we are experiencing an over- determine, eventually many of them whelming surge of acceptance from enter our Fellowship as members. those who once turned deaf ears. This Let us ask ourselves: “Are we foltrend can only grow even faster, with lowing up as sponsors? Are we fulfillour ryewfound friends as our allies in ing our responsibility? \s the hand of combating alcoholism. AA there when anyone, anywhere, Unfortunately, we hear among our reaches out for help?” own members a new voice that says to . Let’s take our own inventory, and these friends, “Don’t use our pro- let’s not hide our light under a bushel. gram. The program is ours. We are the G. G., Phoenix, Ark.

AA GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER

our concern to the alcoholic, not to prohibition. Although alcohol is un- Drug Addiction, doubtedly bad for alcoholics, AA recognizes that alcohol is not necessarily an evil for all people under all and Pills circumstances. The test of good or evil is the consequences in any particular case. by Vincent P. Dole, RID, T o illustrate this point, let me RoclcefeIler Univeraity ; describe an unusual but important Nonalcoholic Trustee, AA General Service Board medicinal use. It happens that alcohol diminishes the output of a pituitary hormone that stimulates the uterus in some pregnant women with threatened abortion. The chief of T H E SOURCE of strength that I find in AA is its single-mindedness, its extraordinary focus on the group would beccme frustr. :rd and abrasive. It is hard to love a’person who gets worse when you are trying hcrc tlic analogy ends, for each of the addictive chemicals has its own obstetrics at New York Hospital and his wife, who is also a doctor, reaspecific mission of helping alcoholics, p;lrticulur p h a r m a c o l o ~ .They act soned that the depressive action of to help him, because his failure it1 dilTcrcnt ways, on different parts alcohol on the pituitary gland might the Fifth Tradition. threatens your own belicfs. And if If AA were to abandon this pre- this group persisted in its mistaken of thc brain; they produce different prevent abortion in such cases by cept, saying, “Well. here we are with kinds of impairment and tend to af- reducing the outflow of this horefforts, it would lose the love and a successful formula -Jet us put it faith and compassion that are the feet difTcrcnt groups of people. “Ad- mone, oxytocin, when abortion seems to work and solve the other prob- essence of AA. diction” is like “fever” – a broad imminent, and thus permit the mothword th;~ti~icludesmany diseases. It er to carry her baby to term. The lems of humanity,” it would destroy Of course, no AA group would the Fellowship. The Fifth Tradition is as illogiccll to assume that onc treatment has proven successful in go to this extreme, but there is a trcatnicnt will cure all addictions as is AA’s strength, because it brings to dangerous ground that may tempt clinical trials. I hasten to add, howit is to prescribe a single medicine ever, that this is a rare situation us the strength of humility. It limits groups to stray from the Fifth Traour goal to what we can do uniquely for all fcvcrs. not in any sense a general endorsedition: namely. the treatment of perwell. Tlicrc is, howcver, much of gen- ment of alcohol for pregnant women sons who misuse pills and narcotics. cr;~li~llportanccthat AA can teach (for whom, as Ne know, alcoholism Suppose (to take a farfetched ex- Superficially, alcoholism and drug I ~ I Cprol’cssionals who are trying to is a serious complication). But the ample) an AA group came to be- abuse appear to have much in com- frcat pill-takers and other addicts. example does illustrate how alcohol lieve that the Fellowship could cure mon. The individual loses control of ‘ I h st:trtin~point in all cases must can have quite different effects unanything, including heart disease. As his appetite and floods his body with h. ~ o ~ i ~ p ; ~ s sfor i o nthe person who dcr different conditions. The good the victims of this disease failed to toxic amounts of alcohol, sedatives. s11ll’~rs.ratlicr than condemnation of improve with AA treatment, the narcotics. or some other agent. But or evil of any chemical lies in its t h clicrtlic;~l.The Traditions direct effects, not in the molecule itself.

In my own field of medical work question in our methadone treat- – treatment of heroin addicts – I ment centers. About ten percent of have been much influenced by this the heroin addicts coming to some precept. We do not have a position treatment units are also alcoholic. for or against narcotics as chemical Methadone stops the heroin use, but substances, but are intensely con- leaves the alcoholism uncontrolled. cerned with what they do to human Paradoxically, some AA groups conbeings. When a narcotic drug re- sider such individuals ineligible for lieves the pain of a patient with help because they are taking a drug. cancer, its effect is good; when it As these groups see it, the price of enslaves people and destroys their help from AA is to discontinue methcapacity to live normal lives, its ef- adone – which means a probable fects certainly are bad. relapse to heroin. This attitude, I What we have found in studying think, distorts A A traditions. I t heroin addicts is that the AA method would be more reasonable to conof help does not work for more than sider heroin addiction as a medical a small percentage of cases, but that problem separate from alcoholism, the underlying philosophy of AA – just as a person with both heart disconcern for the human being- is ease and alcoholism could receive vital. I believe that most heroin digitalis from his doctor and still be addicts need medical treatment in welcomed into an AA group. addition to group support and self- With pill-taking, the problem is examination. We have been criticized more obscure, since sedatives and for this. but 1 think that we remain tranquilizers are often prescribed by consistent with the principle, which doctors for treatment of alcoholism was often emphasized by Bi!l W., -wrongly, in my opinion. Here we AA’s co-founder, that the mission have, not two diseases, but a single of AA is to help the sick alcoholic. disease – alcoholism – being com- When criticism comes to us, our plicated by misguided medical preproblem is clarified by the simple scriptions. How can an AA group question “Does this treatment help work effectively with an alcoholic the sick addict?” if at the same time some doctor is So much seems to me clear: AA loading him with tranquilizers? There must keep faithful to its specific is no simple answer. What is needed mission, and other agencies must is greater understanding by doctors search for effective means to treat of AA principles, and more discrimother addictions. But the hardest ination by AA groups between good question remains unanswered: How and bad medical practice. The guide to treat the person who is both al- for AAs in evaluating any decision coholic and addicted to pills or nar- must always be the question “Does cotics? We are struggling with this this help the sick alcoholic?”

AA GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1972 want to put in a real serious plug for dough – bread -money – so -that- we alcoholics can continue to pass on AA help to other alcoholics. as a little publication in the area,

. Yes, it really does take money to which serves over 200 groups. continue this AA responsibility. Currently, working on the General -;I No Dues or Fees, but.. I want to try to tweak your con- Service Committee in this area, I am science and see whether, individually getting educated to the big picture. and collectively, we can’t get enough I am learning from experience how J u s t because we’re sober, money to the AA General Service difficult it is to talk about, let alone Office so that they won’t have to get real interest in, the fact that we do w e have t o g e t tight? come up with a red figure in the op- have a worldwide responsibility for erating budget year after year. Group the maintenance and growth of AA. and other worthy causes. Also, part and individual contributions do not Our Fellowship needs the help of all of my professional life has been in cover expenses; each year, the deficit 575,000 members in order to convarious-phases of fund-raising. is made up chiefly by the money we tinue carrying the message to other In the fall of 1954, at the age of get out of our books and pamphlets. alcoholics in the ninety-plus counthirty-seven, I participated in a mir- (Of course, under our Seventh Tra- tries where we are already involved acle. I had been arrested in a bar dition, AA accepts no money at all or have a toehold. on skid row at 7:30 AM for drunk- from outside sources -no gifts, no How well is this need being met? enness, and the police had taken me bequests, in spite of frequent offers.) Take a fast look at the AA World to a city-hospital alcoholic clinic. I Many alcoholics are suspicious Directory some time. What do you had already lost everything except characters, so let me say that no one see? Some things that are good, some my life – a wife and three kids, my at GSO put me up to this. They are that are bad. Just at random, I’ll self-respect, my ability and ambition really a great bunch. I am privi- pick three states. (Don’t worry in my profession (the news media leged to know them and to love no names. Let’s keep it anonymous.) and the public-relations field). them, and the dedicated service that A large Eastern state sends in T HE WORDS “no dues o r fees but. . .” are spoken almost as often as some of our favorite AA It was there at the hospital that I met Ed D., who truly held out the they render to the Fellowship. Incidentally, none of them will ever get about $10,000 to GSO. This is good. But there are almost 300 groups in Slogans. And yet, by the record, the hand of AA to me when he said, rich on their salaries. this state, and about 125 of the 300 meaning and the importance of these “Come with me, and I will take you I became interested in this subject don’t send in a red cent. Think what five little words are missed by most to a place where they can help you of money for AA a few years ago, a difference it would make if each members of our Fellowship. if you want it, and if you let them.” after serving on one intergroup board of the 125 sent just $10.00 a year. Money is a hard topic to talk He took me to AA, and from that in New England and on another in Per capita, this state’s contributions about and a harder topic to sell even time till today, each 24 hours has an Eastern city, where I was lucky average only $2.01. when you are begging for a worthy been good- a return to sanity, to enough to serve as treasurer and A second Eastern state makes a cause. But this matter of money sup- effectiveness, and to my family, and then as chairman. With the other donation of close to $19,000, but port seems to come easy to me. My a chance to live as this Fellowship members of that board, I had the sixty of its 350 groups don’t kick in dad was an Episcopal priest, and teaches and shows us. responsibility of balancing the old anything. In this state, the total figyear after year I heard him have to This is why I am grateful, and budget while keeping the office and ures out to $2.09 per person. beg for the support of the church also why I am concerned, and why I the answering service going, as well A Midwest state which has over

first came into AA. up, lost her family – the whole ball This caring develops at a fast pace of wax. She was near the end and .md.has holding power. What is the considered hopeless, as many of us 110 groups does well by sending to AA. What interest do we pay on next step in caring? It usually fol- were. Her doctor, through this free over $4,000 to GSO, but still has that debt? lows that some of us learn to care AA literature, was able to reach her, -over twenty groups that don’t ante We can’t look to the well-fixed greatly about our intergroup; we and she went to AA in Paris. She up. In this state, an individual gift members to make up for our lapses. learn how important this phase of came into a group of seven dediaverages out to $2.05. Remember that AA tradition limits our loose organizational setup is in cated AA people and found sobriety. In the Golden West, we have a to $200 the amount any one mem- keeping local groups going and par- As she spoke, she pleaded for the state that sends almost $50,000 ber may contribute annually. Ours ticularly in serving the newcomer. extension of this free distribution of (bless them!). Among its 1,300-plus is a program of shared responsibil- I am asking us all now to look AA literature. It is desperately needgroups, however, there are 346 that ity, as well as shared experience, one step beyond, to the big picture ed everywhere, and you and I have send no money to GSO. Strange as strength, and hope. I believe it’s vital that many AAs don’t know about. the responsibility to be sure that AA it may seem, the large contribution to our spiritual well-being for each By the big picture, I mean world- has the means to carry out distribucomes only to $1.71 per AA mem- of us to take on our part of that wide AA as it is seen by the General tion worldwide. ber in this state. responsibility, in proportion with our Service family in New York, set up Some AA members take on this If all groups participated each individual means. by our co-founders, Doctor Bob and responsibility in a very personal way. year in sending a reasonable sum to How much did we spend each day Bill W., to carry the message and to They have adopted the Birthday the General Service Office, we would on booze when we were regulars at keep AA, not only alive, but grow- Plan: They send $1.00 to GSO on not have a deficit – we would have neighborhood pubs or veterans’ clubs ing and reaching out for the millions their first anniversary, $2.00 on their a surplus that would let us increase or fancy hotel and restaurant bars? of alcoholics who need us. GSO is second, and a dollar more for each the work of reaching the still-suffer- Beer is now fifty cents a glass; a bot- really the mainstream, the guts of year of growth in the program. Some ing alcoholic, not only in the United tle of hard stuff, $7.00. Remember the success of AA. put a limit of $10.00 on this; others States, but throughout the world. the manhattans and those extra-dry Or, as Bill predicted, we may now keep sending the exact amount on This goal, of course, calls for the martinis? Well, they’re going at $1.25 describe it as our “senior service each anniversary. This is a tremenwider and more generous participa- apiece in today’s market. And let’s center”; others are springing up as dous help, and if fifty percent of us tion of individual AA members in not mention what it would cost to AA circles the earth. I have been did it, GSO would have no real figiving money at collection time in say, “Make it a double.” Anyhow, speaking mostly to American and nancial problem. individual group meetings. I am also we paid, day after day. Today, we Canadian AAs -but members else- I guess what I am trying to say is mindful that it takes money to run usually attend two AA meetings a where have the same responsibility this: “Let’s all of us who owe our each group, and also each inter- week, and how much money do we toward their own service and litera- lives to AA give more as we grow group office and General Service contribute? ture-distribution centers. Where AA more.” We ought to, not only be- Assembly. If we left our generosity back in is too newly or sparsely established, cause more will be needed for the An old-timer in the program, talk- the bar, perhaps it is because we small groups and Loners still rely on AA job that lies ahead, but because ing to us about money the other day, think of AA only in terms of our GSO in New York. it is up to us alone to see that AA reminded us of the Big Book words own group and its members. In this Recently, I heard a wonderful does not fail that responsibility. AA in Chapter Five: “willing to go to Fellowship, we learn to care for one woman speaker tell what happened was there for us when we came, any length.” If we need to borrow another, as sponsors or just as fellow after her doctor in England got a so let’s be sure that others in the money for ourselves, we pay from AAs. We also feel real pride and piece of free AA literature. She her- same desperate straits have the same six to eighteen percent interest on caring for our groups, especially our self was in desperate shape at that chance to be helped by AA. the loan. Most of us owe our lives home group or the group where we time, had tried everything to sober F. F., Bethesda, Md.

November 1972

From the Grapevine book AA Today, published on the occasion of A A’s twenty-fifth anniversary

by Bill W. . . . he had failed with nearly all. Only here and there had this dismal experience of futility been brightened by a genuine recovery. People wondered how he could go on, how he could still believe in the possibility of help for chronic aicoholics. Yet he did believe with n faith that never faltered. He kept saying, “Some qay we’ll find the answer.” He had developed some ideas of say .what this communication actu- M Y WORKSHOP stands on a hill back of our home. Looking over the valley, I see the village ally is- so mysterious and yet so practical? We can only partly realize channels of contact hav’e always been charged with the language of the heart. And what is that? Let’s his own about what ailed drunks: They had an obsession to drink, a veritable and a destructive lunacy. community house where our local what we have received and what it see if I can communicate to you Observing that their bodies could no group meets. Beyond the circle of has meant to each of us. something of what it means to me. longer tolerate alcohol, he spoke of my horizon lies the one world of It occurs to me that every aspect At once, I think of my own doc- this as an allergy. Their obsession AA: eight thousand groups, a quar- of this global unfoldment can be tor, William Duncan Silkworth, and made them drink, and their allergy ter of a million of us.* How in related to a single crucial word. The how he ministered to me with the was the guarantee that they would twenty-five years did AA get the word is communication. There has language of the heart during the last go mad or die if they kept it up. way it is? And where are we going been a lifesaving con~munication shattering years of my alcoholism. Here, in contemporary terms, was from here? among ourselves, with the world Love was his magic, and with it he the age-old dilemma of the alcoholi . Often, I sense the deep meaning around us, and with God. accomplished this wonder: He con- Total abstinence, he knew, was the F of the phenomenon of Alcoholics From the beginning, coniniunica- veyed to the foggy mind of the only solution. But how to attain Anonymous, but I cannot begin to tion in AA has been no ordinary drunk that here was a human being that? If only he could understand fathom it. Why, for instance, at this transmission of helpful ideas and who understood, and who cared them more and identify with them , particular point in history has God attitudes. It has been unusual and without limit. He was one who would better, then his educational message chosen to communicate His healing sometimes unique. Because of our gladly walk the extra mile with us, could perhaps reach into those grace to so many of us? Who can kinship in suffering, and because our and if necessary (as it often was), strange caverns of the mind where common means ‘of deliverance are even the last mile of all. At that the blind compulsion to drink was Now thirop-srvm yearn OW. A A has ahu~rr effective’ for ourselves only when time he had already tried to help entrenched. I7.WO p o r p s and an rsrlmarrd mrmbership of constantly carried to others, our 57J.000. over twenty thousand drunks, and So the little doctor who loved

drunks worked on, always in hope that the very next case might some- “Here was one drunk talking to another, Here was hope indeed.” how reveal more of the answer. When I came to him, his more re- gently but frankly to tell us the was an old friend, an alcoholic, and other human being, the first humble cent concepts and tactics had begun whole truth: Neither mine nor his my sponsor-to-be. Why was it that and faltering steps away from isola- . t o produce slightly improved results. nor any other resources he knew he could communicate with me in tion and guilt; willingness to face up So he was encouraged, and he went could stop my drinking; I would areas that not even Dr. Silkworth to those we had harmed, making all after my situation with something have to be locked up or suffer brain could touch? possible restitution. A thorough of the enthusiasm and hope of a damage or death within perhaps a Well, first of all, I already knew housecleaning inside and out wa young doctor on his first critical year. that he himself was a hopeless case indicated, and then we were read! case. He told me what an infernal It was a verdict I would not have -just like me. Earlier that year, I to devote ourselves in service to malady alcoholism is, and why. He accepted from any other person. He had heard that he, too, was a can- others, using the understanding and made no promises, and he did not had spoken to me in the language didate for the lockup. Yet here he language of the heart, and seeking try to conceal the poor recovery of the heart, and so I was able to was, sober and free. And his powers no gain or reward. Then there was rate. For the first time, I saw and receive the truth he offered me. But of communication now were such that vital attitude of dependence on felt the full gravity of my problem. it was a terrible and hopeless truth. that he could convince me in min- God, or a higher power. I learned, also for the first time, He spoke in the name of science, utes that he really felt he had been None of Ebby’s ideas were really that I was a sick man emotionally which I deeply respected, and by released from his drinking compul- new. I’d heard them all before. But and physically. As every AA today science I seemed condemned. Who sion. He represented something very coming over his powerful transmisknows, this knowledge can be an else could have driven home this different from a mere jittery ride on sion line, they were not at all what enormous relief. I no longer needed indispensable principle on which the water wagon. And so he brought in other circumstances I would have to consider myself essentially a fool every recovery depends? I seriously ‘ me a kind of communication and regarded as conventional clichCs for o r a weakling. doubt that any other man alive evidence that even Dr. Silkworth good church behavior. They appear- This new insight, plus the little could have donr: it. could not give. Here was one drunk ed to me’ as living truths which doctor’s account of a few of his Today, every AA member im- talking to another. Here was hope might liberate me as they had lib good recoveries, brought me a surge plants in his new prospect just what of hope. But above all, my confi- Dr. Silkworth so powerfully lodgd indeed. Ebby told me his story, carefully erated him. He could reach me a depth. I dence rested on the understanding, in me. We know that the newcomer detailing his drinking experiences of But in one respect I still backed the interest, and the affection he so has to hit bottom; otherwise, not recent years. Thus he drew me still away. I could not go for God, befreely gave me. I was not alone any much can happen. Because we are closer to him. I knew beyond doubt cause I could not believe there yas more with my problem. He and I “drunks who understand,” we can that he had lived in that strange and any God. Ebby sold me his other could work it through. Despite sev- usc that nutcracker of the-obsession- hopeless world where I still was. ideas at once, but not this one. I eral discouraging slips, I truly bc- plus-the-allergy as a tool of such This fact established his ‘identifica- could not share his faith, as much lieved this for quite a while. And power that it can shatter the new tior1 with me. At length, our channel as I had to admit its very evident so did he. man’s ego at depth. Only thus can of con~munication was wide open, result. But the hour finally arrived when he be convinced that on his own and I was ready for his message. 1 had struck an impasse with he knew that I was not going to be unaided resources he has little or And what was his message? All which thousands of incoming AAs one of his exceptions. He would no chance. AAs know what it was: honesty have since collided, have to begin to walk that last mile I was’ in precisely this state of with oneself, leading to a fearless Mine was exactly the kind of with my wife Lois and me. Charac- inner c d ~ ~ a ~ s when, e in November moral inventory of character defects; deep-seated block we so often see teristically, he found the courage of 1934, I was visited by Ebby. He a revelation of these defects to an- today in new people who say they

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your odd spiritual experience. Tell are atheistic or agnostic. Their will your own story. Then pour it into to disbelieve is so powerful that ap- those drunks how medically hopeparently they prefer a date with the less alcoholism is. Soften them up undertaker to an open-minded and enough first. Then maybe they will experimental quest for God. Hap- buy what you really have to say. pily for me, and for most of my You’ve got the cart before the kind who have since come along in horse.” M,the constructive forces brought My meeting with Doctor BOG in to bear in our Fellowship have near- Akron was my first successful rhply always overcome this colossal ob- port with another alcoholic. I folstinacy. Beaten into complete defeat fact that God comes to man in many lowed Dr. Silkworth’s advice to the by alcohol, confronted by the living one alcoholic working with the next. ways. I had begun in effect to say letter. Doctor Bob did not, need proof of release, and surrounded by I was convinced that I could give to to my clients, “You must be as I spiritual instruction. He already had those who can speak to us from the fellow sufferers that which Ebby had am, believe as I believe, do as I do.” more of that than I did. What hd heart, we have finally surrendered. given to me, and for months after- Here was the sort of unconscious did need was the deflation at depth And then, paradoxically, we have wards I tried to carry the message. arrogance that no drunk can stand! and the understanding that only one found ourselves in a new dimension, But nobody sobered up, and a won- 1 loudly began to point out the sins drunk can give another. What I the real world of Spirit and of faith. derful lesson came out of the ex- of my prospects (mostly, of course, needed was the humility of self-for- Enough willingness, enough open- perience: I was painfully learning the sins I supposed I didn’t have), getfulness and the kinship with anmindedness – and there it is! how not to communicate. No matter and the prospects got sore and so other human being of my own kind. When my own time for open- how truthful the words of my mes- did I. When they got drunk, I got I thank God for providing it. mindedness and surrender finally sage, there could be no deep com- mad. And here was hurt pride again. One of the first insights Doctof came, that new world of Spirit burst munication if what 1 said and did My new Oxford Group friends Bob and I shared was that all true upon me in a flash of overwhelming was colored by pride, arrogance, in- (the religious group in which Ebby communication must be founded on conviction and power. And as a re- tolerance, resentment, imprudence, had made his first, but not final re- mutual need. Never could we talk sult, freedom from obsession, faith or desire for personal acclaim – covery) objected to the idea of down to anyone, certainly not to a in God, and a consciousness of His even though I was largely uncon- alcoholism as an illness, so I had brother alcoholic. We saw that each presence have .remained with me scious of these attitudes. quit talking about the-allergy-plus- sponsor would have to humbly adever since, regardless of subsequent Without realizing it, I had fallen the-obsession. I wanted the approval mit his own needs as clearly as those ups and downs. The gift of faith pretty heavily into these errors. My of these new friends, and in trying of his prospect. Here was the foun- ; instantaneously became built into spiritual experience had been so I to be humble and helpful, I was dation for AA’s Twelfth Step to ‘ me. My pride had paid a very high sudden, brilliant, and powerful that neither. Slowly I learned, as most recovery, the Step in which we carry price. In despair, I had cried out, I had begun to be sure I was des- of us do, that when the ego gets in the message. “Now I am willing to do anything. tined to fix just about all the drunks the way it blocks communication. Our next great adventure in com- If there is a God, will He show Him- in the world. Here was pride. I kept I needed another big dose of de- munication was the book Alcoholics ‘ self!” And He did. This was my harping on my mystical awakening, flation, and I got it. The realization Anonymous. After four strenuous first conscious contact, my first and the customers were uniformly dawned on me that for six months years, we had produced three small awakening. I asked from the heart, repelled. Here was imprudence. 1 1 had failed completely. Then Dr. groups and less than a hundred reand I received. began to insist that every drunk Silkworth gave me this crisp advice: coveries. We knew we could con$ With this illumination came the should ‘have a “bright-light uplift” “Quit preaching, quit harping on municate face to face. But it was vision of a possible chain reaction, just about like mine. I ignored the

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very slow going. As we prepared the next, year, Jack Alexander wrote days, and it was the Traditions the book, we all wondered, “Could his famous Suturday Evening Post which finally brought order, coherthe written word carry the message?” feature article on Alcoholics Anon- ence, and effective functioning out Could the book speak the language ymous, published in 1941. And for of the noisy anarchy which for a of the heart to the drunk who read the first time we saw what commu- time threatened us with collapse. it? We didn’t know; we simply nication in the language of the heart The Traditions are neither rules, hoped. But now we do know. could mean nationwide. regulations, nor laws. No sanctions The impact of his article upon tal hospitals. We never did those Alcoholics Anonymous appeared or punishments can be invoked for frightful things you fellows talk in 1939. At that time, there were the alcoholics of America, upon their their infraction. Perhaps in no other about. Maybe AA is not for people one hundred drunks who had recov- families, and upon the general pub- area of society would these princilic was tremendous. There was an like us.” ered in AA. And there were five ples succeed. Yet in this Fellowship For years, we old-timers simply million alcoholics and their families immediate deluge of calls for infor- of alcoholics, the unenforceable Tra- could not communicate with such in America alone who had never mation and for help – not hundreds, ditions carry a power greater than folks. Then, out of much experience, heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. but thousands. We were flabbergast- that of law. For years now, we have a new approach was developed. To There were perhaps another twenty ed. It was evident that our recovery seldom seen a serious departure each new high-bottom, we emphamillion sufferers in other parts of message could be transmitted all from them. The example of the very sized the medical view that alcoholthe world. How were we going to over the country – if we did our few who have persistently ignored ism is a fatal and progressive mala*. get the good news to even a fraction part. them has not caused others to follow We concentrated on the earlier peof all these? There was now a book As our Fellowship now entered suit. We obey our Traditions will- riods in our drinking careers, when about AA, but almost nobody out- its period of rapid growth, the Tra- ingly because of the need for AA we were mild cases ourselves. We side the Fellowship knew about it. ditions of AA gradually took form. survival. We obey them because we recalled how sure we were! that It became apparent that we would The Twelve Traditions communi- ought to and because we want to. “next time we could control ourhave to have the help of press and cate our principles of unity as the Perhaps the secret of their power selves” when we took a few drinks. radio, that we would need communi- Twelve Steps communicate our prin- lies in the fact that these life-giving Or how our drinking was the fault cation resources of every kind. ciples of recovery. The Traditions communications spring out of living of unfortunate circumstances or the Would these agencies really be in- show how an AA member can best experience and are rooted in sacri- behavior of other people. terested? Would they be friendly? relate himself to his group, the group ficial love. Then we took the prospect through Would they be able to place a true to other groups, and AA as a whole Even in the very earliest days of the parts of our histories which image of AA before the alcoholic to the world around us. They show AA, we began to find that the kin- proved how insidious and irresistible and his family and friends? what AA membership is; they reveal ship of having suffered severe alco- the progress of the illness is. We The answer turned out to be yes. AA’s experience in matters of au- holism was in itself not enough. We showed him how, years before wej In the fall of 1939, Elrick Davis, a thority and money; they guard saw that, in order to cross certain realized it, we had actually gone fine reporter, wrote a series of pieces against compromising alliances, pro- barriers, our channels of communi- much beyond the point of no return about us in the Cleveland Plain fessionalism, and our very natural cation had to be broadened and so far as our own resources of Dealer. These pieces embodied truly desires for personal public acclaim. deepened. For example, practically strength and will were concerned. wonderful insight into what AA The Twelve Traditions were slowly all of AA’s first members were what We kept pointing out how right the really is and what it can do, and evolved during an era when large- we today call last-gasp or low-bot- doctors are in their assessment of within a few days several hundred scale publicity was causing new tom cases. When the mildly aWicted this malady. alkies and their families literally groups to spring up like popcorn on or high-bottom cases began to turn Slowly but surely, this strategy swamped the small AA group in a hot griddle. Many a power-driven up, they often said, “But we were began to pay off. The low-bottoms Cleveland with pleas for help. In ego ran hog-wild among us in those never jailed. We were never in men- began to communicate at depth with

the high-bottoms. And the high-bot- Swedes, the Danes, and the Finns? toms began talking to each other. What about the Dutch, the Germans, . As soon as any AA locality took in the French, the English, the Scots, even a small number of high-bottom and the Israelis? How about the Afridrunks, progress with this class of cans, the Boers, the Aussies, the sufferer became very much faster Latins, and the Japanese, the Hinand easier. It is probable that about dus and the Mohammedans? half of today’s AA membership has So Lois and I wondered a lot as been spared that last five, ten, or we headed for Europe and Britain even fifteen years of unmitigated to see for ourselves that year. The hell that we low-bottoms know all moment we alighted in Norway, we too well. knew that AA could and would go In the beginning, it was four everywhere. We understood not one whole years before AA brought per- word of Norwegian. Sccnes and cusmanent sobriety to even one alco- toms alike were new and strange to holic woman. Like the high-bottoms, us. Yet there was a marvelous comthe women also said they were dif- munication from the first niomcnt. ferent. But as communication was There was an incredible sensation improved, mostly by the women of oneness, of being completely at themselves, the picture changed. To- home. The Norwegians were our day, our sister AAs are many thou- people. Norway was our country. sands strong.* too. They felt the same way about The skid-row man said he was us. It shone in their faces. different. Even more loudly, the so- As we journeyed from land to cialite (or Park Avenue stumble- land, we had the same magnificent bum) said the same. So did the adventure in kinship over and over practitioners of the arts and the pro- again. In Britain, we met with the fessions. So did the rich, the poor, most wonderful love and underthe religious, the agnostics, the In- tanding. In Ireland, we were at dians, the ~skimos,the veterans, with the Irish. Everywhere, and the prisoners. But that was years everywhere, it was the same. This ago. Nowadays, they all talk abou was something much greater than

:j how very much alike we alcoholic people cordially meeting people. are when the chips are down. This was no merely interesting com- By 1950, this one big questi n parison of mutual expcricnccs and remained unanswered: Could aspirations. This was far more; this communicate overseas? Could AA was the conlmunication of heart to transcend the barriers of race, lan- heart in wonder, in joy, and in everguage, religion, culture, and wars? lasting gratitude. Lois and I then What about the Norwegians, the knew that AA could circle the globe Arcordine l o a rcrcnl surrey a h 1 1 1 one-lovrrh 01 prcscnl-duy A A n w t l b c r r ‘ u r c wonrrn. – and it has.

June 1973

ANONYMITY I N APRIL of 1971, 1 hit bottom. Added to the knowledge that I couldn’t (still can’t) drink, came the realization that by and of myself 1 couldn’t quit. Fortunately, I knew where a local group of Alcoholics Anonymous held its meetings. One Tuesday evening found me walking in and saying to two men, “I think I’m an alcoholic.” Before the meet- boasting and shared with those who personal anonymity at the level of AA need be anonymous to family, ing ended, I knew that I was (as I were interested what I was learning press, radio, and films. friends, or neighbors. Disclosure still am) an alcoholic and that these about this condition, always mini- ” 1 2. Anonymity is the spiritual there is usually right and good.” people had and would share a way mizing what I was doing and em- foundation of all our Traditions, For further reassurance, I turned of life designed to free me from phasizing what was happening to ever reminding us to place principles to the last two chapters of Twelve having to drink. Since then, except me. before personalities.” Steps and Twelve Traditions. Espewhen I’m out of town, Tuesday At nlonthly naval-reserve drill Mentally, 1 heaved a sigh of relief. cially on page 190, this book s u p evenings are reserved for AA. weekends, shipmates soon noticed Not having written for the press, ports the views expressed above. Our group meets in a portion of that I wasn’t being carried back from nor appeared on radio or TV, I had T o keep it simple: If I do not the basement of the church at which liberty and that 1 wasn’t in a hang- not violated the Eleven:n. And since seek glory for myself, if I don’t my family worships. On our meeting over fog during working hours. I did not “hero-wonhip” anyone in break a fellow member’s anonymity, nights, there often are also meetings Rather than taking glory to myself AA, I felt that I was in accord with if I avoid the press, radio, films, or of the church council, of various for having “sworn off,” 1 shared the the Twelfth. But I decided to dig any other public medium, my anocommittees, or even of the entire truth with those who asked. further to find what wiser, more ex- nymity is mine, to retain or lose. women’s guild. Inevitably, church Then, at an out-of-town meeting, perienced minds had said in expo- In the February 1972 Grapevine, members met and greeted me on a discussion arose about anonymity. sition of these two Traditions. an article asked, “Did Anonymity some Tuesday evenings. Rather than It included much talk, many opin- In the pamphlet “AA Tradition – Help Kill Jim?” This theme was unleave them curious about my pres- ions and anecdotes, but no quoting How It Developed,” there are two derscored by “I Had Hoped That ence, I decided to volunteer the fact from AA literature. Had I unwit- Grapevine articles by Bill W. on this You Could Help,” in the January that I was attending the AA meet- tingly breached a tenet of our way subject. In the 1946 article, Bill 1973 issue. ing. Since word of this might have of life? wrote: “As a matter of fact, few of Let us not be guilty of hiding our reached the pastor indirectly, I First, I restudied the Twelve Steps, us are anonymous so far as our daily light under the bushel of anonymity. sought him out and told him of my both in Chapter 5 of the Big Book contacts go. We have dropped ano- – We have freely received freely let new allegiance. and in Twelve Steps and Twelve nymity at this level because we think us give. Give credit where credit is In the office, fellow employees no- Traditions, but found no mention of our friends and associates ought to due -asked how we live without ticed me reading AA books and anonymity. Then I went on to the know about Alcoholics Anonymous drink, let us share our AA experiother literature about alcoholism. Traditions, where I read: and what it has done for us. We also ence, strength, and hope that we Since they had already noticed that “1 1. Our public relations policy is wish to lose the fear of admitting may help others to recover from I no longer came in hung-over, I based on attraction rather than pro- that we are alcoholics.” In the 1955 alcoholism. answered their questions without motion; we need always maintain article, he wrote: “Of course, no H.E. W., Des Moines, Wash.

November 1973

Frorn the Grapevine book AA Today, published on the occasion of A A’s twenty-fifth anniversary

enormity of this situation, shall any of us sit comfortably and say, “Well, people, here we a r c Wc hope you hear about us and come around. Then maybe we can give you a hand.” AA Tomorrow Of course, we shall do nothing of the sort. We know that we aregohy Bill W. ing to open, wider and wider, every conceivable means and channel through which these kinsfolk of ours may be reached. We shall remem- Our co-founder sums up after 25 years o f A A ber Dr. Bob and his marvelous coand looks it110 the future we are tzow livitlg worker Sister Ignatia how they worked at Akron. We shall remember the many years of Silky’f untake? Still clearer vision and an stinted labor for us. Ten thousand placent self-satisfaction by the wide W E HAVE s o m e wonderful glimpses of the panorama of AA at work in the twenty-fifth year acclaim and success that are everywhere ours. This is the subtle tempever-mounting sense of responsibility can be the only answers to these questions. AAs still around will remember how they literally owe their lives to these three people. Each of us will’ reof its founding. We marvel and re- tation which could stagnate us today, What, then, is the real size and member his own sponsor, the one joice that the near impossible has perchance disintegrate us tomorrow. reach of our foreseeable responsibil- who cared enough. As the inheritors really happened. AU this has indeed We have always rallied to meet and ities? During the last twenty-five of such a tradition of service, how depended on our many channels of transcend failure and crisis. Prob- years, it is quite certain that twenty- many could ,ever say, “Let George communication and our singular lems have been our stimulants. How five million men a n d women do that Twelfth Step job; he likes to ability to use them. well, though, shall we be able to throughout the world have suffered work with drunks anyhow. Besides, Now comes the question: Where meet the problems of success? alcoholism. Nearly all of these are l ‘ n ~busy”? Surely there could not do we go from here and what is our Will we continue to search out the now sick, mad, or dead. AA has be many! ~ o m ~ i a c e n c would ~ be responsibility for today and for to- ever-present flaws and gaps in our brought recovery to something like impossible. morrow? communications? With enough im- two hundred and fifty thousand.’ Our next great area of future re- Clearly, our first duty to AA’s agination, courage, and dedication, The rest are still out of reach or sponsibility may be this one: I’m future is to maintain in full strength will we’ resolutely address ourselves clsc gone beyond recall. An even thinking about the total problem of what we now have. Only the most to those many tasks of repair and larger generation of drunks is right alcohol and about all of those who vigilant caretaking can assure this. improvement which even now the now in the making. Facing the still must suffer the appalling conse- Never should we be lulled into com- future is calling upon us to under- I . I n 1973. the rstin~arris 650.000. 2. D r . William D. Silkworth

that we often fail to give thesc dcdi- marriage partners to become their cated people the cncouragement they protective custodians – their “man~uchnecd. Now that we AAs hirve mas” and “papas.” This has often so amazingly unified around our resulted in a built-in pattern, one singlc purpose and the Twclve Tra- most difficult to erase. The coming ditions, the risk that we could be of sobriety in AA is seldom a remmuch hurt by anything done in these edy. Indeed, sobriety sometimes outside venturcs is virtually non- aggravates this often intolerable conexistent. dition. Let’s instcad kecp focuscd on the Thc Al-Anon Family Groups, fact that therc irrc some twenty-four comprising wivcs and husbands of alquenccs of alcoholism. Their nuni- Of coursc, wc do have concern. million, scvcn hundred and fifty coholics, now see this picture clearly bcr is astronomical; it runs into While wc irpprecintc that AA itself thousand drunks left in thc world. – far more clcarly, in fact, than do hundreds of millions. Hcre’s just a cannot very well get into alcohol Could not still more fricndly and most of us AAs. In their own groups, sampling of that problem: education or into any of the related widespread cooperation with outside they are now working to repair that Because of our drinking, most of activitics that touch the total proh- ;igcncics linally lcird us to countless damage – along with thcir other de- . us damaged our kids. Their cmo- lcm, we do know that, as peculiarly alcoholics who will otherwise be lost? fccts – by the practice of AA’s tional scars should have made them well-informed citizens, thcre is plen- Maybe we arc beginning to stand in Twclvc Steps. More than some of naturals for alcoholism. Yet it is ty we can and should do in thcse our own light. Perhaps wc are block- us, these life partners of ours are startlingly true that teen-age children fields. ing a communication that has a tre- trying hard to practice AA princiof good AA members show almost Enterprises of this sort – govcrn- mendous potentiill. Shouldn’t wc ples in all their affairs. The Family , no sign of becoming drunks. They mcntal, state, and private – havc drink moderately or not at all. If a been springing up evcrywherc in thcrcfore havc ;I fresh look at this? lnsidc AA . . . well, how do we Groups havc already made a big dent in this mighty tough problem, few of the vulnerable do hit the recognition of the fact that alcohol- stand’? and there is evidence of far more to bottle, and the telltale symptoms ism is a top-priority problem of I t is a fnct. and ;I perfectly cx- comc. Can’t we, therefore, give this and episodes show up, most can stop health. Ncarly every one of thcse plicablc one. thirt the number of Al- remarkable project our greatest pos- -and they do. Now why is this? agencies tells us it has been inspired Anon Family Groups has jumped sible understanding and encourage- The answer is “alcohol education” to work on by the example we AAs from a handful to 1,3003 of thcm in ment? And let each of us do his full -AA-style. Of course, we have have set them. They now take thcir the last ten ycars. They are tackling share of that rcpair job at home! never told our kids not to drink. But turn as pioneers. Naturally, they are onc of thc toughcst problcms that ;In Then therc is among us AAs the for years, around the house and at bound to make some mistakes. Ccr- alcoholic and his family citn hirvc, cvcr-present necd for furthcr spirimeetings, they have heard what the tainly, we can understand this. In inside AA or out. This is the tcrrilic tual growth. Hcrc most of us show it score really is, what alcoholism can fact, we like to sily that we ourselves distortion that we alcoholics force hcirvy dclicit, i d I’m a notable cx do to people. They havc scen thc havc progressed mostly hp tritrl and upon our wives (and husbands) m p l c . Thc simplcst sclf-questioning old man in action, first as an irlco- error. A good number of thcsc un- through drstructivc drinking – can rcvcal such dclicicncies. For inholic, then as an AA member. This dertakings iire now going placcs, and drinking that has Icd us into a highly stance: “Am I trying to ‘practice is the kind of education that has no thcir promise is vcry large. abnornlal dependency upon them. thcsc principles’ in all nly own ;ifdoubt already saved a hundrcd thou- Ncvcrthelcss, I gather thc inlprcs- Activc drunks frequently turn thcrn- fi~irs?Or am 1 simply complirccnt sand of our children. sion that many of us arc so intcnt on sclvcs into rcbcllious i~ndwayward irnd quitc content with just c~\ougli But what about other peoplc’s kids thcir fcw errors, especially the errors children, thcrcby conipelling thcir spiritual nourishment to kccp me -have we no concern for thcm? of thosc AAs associatcd with thcm, sobcr? Do I really possess the spiri-

tual resources to see me through toward that likeness and image. some rough going? Or do I think However small and prudent our next pretty well of my spiritual demon- immediate step on the path of progstration because (a) things are pret- ress may be, we of AA can never ty good at home, (b) 1 got a big set any hampering limitation upon raise, and (c) they made me vice- the ultimate destiny of oursclvcs and president of my lodge? Or if things our Fellowship, nor any whatever go badly and I begin to be jittery, upon God’s love for us all. Individudepressed, anxious, or resentful, do ally and collectively, structurally and I then justify my resulting self-pity spiritually, we shall ever need to and guilt by blaming my ‘bad breaks’ build for the future. We are still layor, more usually, the behavior of ing down the foundation on which other people? Or do 1 fall back on all coming generations of AAs will the old refrain that I’m a ‘sick alco- have to stand, perhaps for centuries. holic’ and therefore not responsible?” Our Fellowship has been permit- Nearly all of us, when we think ted to achieve – though still in minabout it, agree that we are a long, iature – the “one world” dream of long way from being anywhere near philosophers. Ours is a world in grown-up, from almost any point of which we can hotly differ, yet never view. We can clearly see that our think of schism or conflict as a solujob as individuals and as a fellow- tion. As a fellowship, we ask nothing ship is to keep right on growing by of wealth or power. As we better the constant use of our Twelve use “the language of the heart,” our Steps. communications grow apace: Al- Of course, we may be certain that ready, we find ourselves in safe pasthis will be a slow business. But we sage through all those barriers of also know we can never take our distance and language, of social displodding progress as the slightest tinction, nationality, and creed, that alibi for setting ourselves second- so divide the world of our times. rate goals. Our high aim can be For so long as we remain surc emotional sobriety, full emotional that our “one world of AA” is God’s maturity – and that’s good. How- gift, rather than any virtue earned ever, I think most of us may prefer or created by ourselves; and for so a still larger definition, one with a long as our “one world” continues still broader and higher reach. Per- to be ever more inclusive of those in haps there can be no “relative” in need; and for so long as we speak the universe unless somewhere there and try to perfect the language of is an “absolute.” To most of us, this love – for just so long may wc “absolute” is “God as we understand count upon making whatevcr rcn- Him.” We feel that we were born to dezvous with destiny that God would this life to grow – if only a little – have us make.

AA Grapevine, February 1974

dreams of wealth and influence. but one ultimate autltority -a lov- ‘How, Then, Could We Carry (Too few have read the details of ing God as He tnay express Himself the remarkable story, in A A Comes in our group conscience. Our leuders Our Message?’ o.f A -m ..) are but trusted servunts; they do not I -:I So it went – lessons learned, gnvern. The Twelve Traditions and the General Service Ofice problems solved, principles slowly This saves us forever from the formulated – all forged in the white creep,ing evils of dogmatism, ritual, heat of actual experience, all beaten and power drives. M ANY TIMES, 1 have tried to recreate in my own mind the setting, the mood, the words, and ideas were actually born in the minds and hearts of Bill and Dr. Bob, ideas that became the General Service Ofout on the anvil of pain, discourage- 2. The only requirement for tnetnment, dissension, and sometimes de- hership is n &.\ire to stop drinking. First, it was “an honest desire.” the feelings of that May night in spair. fice and the Twelve Traditions. Now these painfully learned les- But what drinking alcoholic is ca- 1935 when Bill W. and Dr. Bob held It took years of trial; the early the meeting that, I am sure, will one sons begged to be put into words and pable of honesty? Early members history of AA was woven of soaring written down. In 1946, only eleven nskcd that question – and dropped day be recognized as one of the great hopes and crashing defeats, of false milestones in human history. years after the bcginning of AA, the qualifying word, again demonstarts, heartbreak, and stunning dis- what we know now as the Twelve strating their resolve to refrain from I am equally thrilled by the meet- couragement, totally defeating at the ing that took place between them Traditions were published. These moral judgments. moment, but later to be recognized carefully worded statements have 4. Errclz group shodd be autonosome two and a half years later. Bill as purifying and clarifying, temper- shaped and guided our destiny as a t?rofrs except in tnatters affecting wrote that it was on a November day ing and testing the principles we are when he and Dr. Bob sat down to fellowship, just as the Twelve Steps otlrer groups or A A as cr whole. perpetuating so successfully today. have shaped and guided our per- This gives individuals the right to count the noses of the recovering. Paradoxically, the Twelve Steps be wrong. There will be no domisonal lives as sober alcoholics. Failures galore there had been, but were produced after many meetings, there were also some startling suc- Understanding of the Traditions nance from above. lnstead of the arguments, and downright quarrels. came late to me, but it is obvious to anarchy so greatly feared, this Tracesses. All told, they figured, up- There was that fateful moment when, wards of forty alcoholics were staying me now that 1 could not have real- dition resulted in healthy growth as almost by accident, the wording of ized their profundity earlier. all groups exchanged their varying bone-dry. the Third Step was arrived at, per- I. Our common welfare should come ideas and experiences. “This Enowledge,” Bill wrote, mitting all alcoholics to come to us, “. . . was still in the hands of too few first; personal recovery depends upon 5. E ~ c hgroup has but one pritnary regardless of their beliefs or lack of A A unity. purpose – to carry its mPssage to of us. Must every alcoholic come to belief. In other words, the conduct of the alcoholic who still suffers. New York or Akron in order to get Then came the monumental toil “Shoemaker, stick to your last” is well? No, that would never do. . . . individual members, no matter how and disappointments incidental to How, then, could we carry our mes- out of line it may seem, need never no tired old clichC for AA. Again the writing, publication, and publi- disturb us. No one member is greater and again, we remind ourselves to sage? . . . How could we possibly cizing of the Big Book. h m g together and cling to our new or weaker than the whole. No one lcavc religion to the clergy, medicine Enthusiastic and determined ef- member should be admired and to the doctors, politics to the polilifeline, this line whose strands were forts t o attract “big money” to AA woven of medicine and of religion praised, nor despised and castigated. ticians. Cooperate? Yes. Compete? and thus “end our worries forever” and of our own experience? Could Our enemies are self-righteousness, Never. went on until John D. Rockefeller self-deception, self-aggrandizement, 6. An A A group ought never enwe carry the message to the distant Jr. posed the question “Won’t money alcoholic? Could we grow rapidly and sitting in judgment upon others. dorse, finance, or Ietrd the A A name spoil this thing?” and his son Nelson to any related facility or outside enand soundly?” We met the enemy, and it was us! later declared, “It needs only our This was the moment when two 2. For our group purpose there is terprise, lest problems o f tnoney, goodwill.” A major blow this, to the

property, und prestige divert us from money from Twelfth Step work. The personal anonymity at the level o f we found salvation. “Principles beour primary purpose. answer is forever “No.” Commer- press, radio und film. fore personalities” advises us to con- Instead of moving A A into the cializing our message is unthinkable. Early on, the communications me- tinue to experience that humility, fields of research, education, medi- I t is just as unthinkable that efficient dia of this country were advised of to believe and live the truth that the cine, hospitalization, and rehabilita- management of so important an of- our public relations policy. The men whole is greater than any one of us. tion, as once seemed so desirable, fice as GSO could be left to volun- and women of the Fourth Estate, The Twelve Traditions are unfawe have stuck to our purpose. Now teers. Knowledge, skill, training, and used to dealing with publicity-hungry miliar to many members of the Felwe find our principles and traditions continuity are essential and worthy organizations and aware of the im- lowship, and GSO means nothing to at work among addicts of other of remuneration. portance of names, greeted this many AAs. This is sad, for, in my drugs and among divorckes, neurot- 9. A A , as such, ought never be or- precept with skepticism – which opinion, GSO is simply and gloriics, compulsive gamblers, overeat- gunired; but we muy create service eventually turned to acceptance and ously the group conscience of AA at ers, and God alone knows who else. boards or committees directly re- admiration. work throughout the world. And 7. Every A A group ought to be fully sponsible to those they serve. 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foun- what does it do? It makes one giant, self-supporting,declining outside con- This has worked for thirty-odd dation o f all our Traditions, ever re- untiring, and unending Twelfth Step tributions. years, during which we have grown minding us to place principles before call on alcoholics of all colors and From the turndown by the Rocke- and flourished with no formal rules personalities. creeds almost everywhere in the feller~to AA’s decision to forgo the or regulations, no fiats. Probably no other single Tradi- world. $10,000 bequest left us by our first 10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no tion has cost us so’much in pain, “How could we possibly hang todeceased benefactor, we have lived opinion on outside issues; hence the embarrassment, and dissension as gether?” TheTraditions tell us how. a self-supporting life of corporate A A name ought never be drawn into this much-misunderstood Twelfth. “Could we carry this message to poverty, and it is obvious that is the public controversy. Humility is indispensable to the al- the distant alcoholic?”‘ Yes, we can right way to go. In some respects, I believe, this coholic. St. Augustine wrote: “Hu- – through GSO. 8. A A should remain forever non- Tradition may be the most vital to mility is truth.” Somewhere along Bill and Dr. Bob asked these quesprofessional, but ortr service centers our future safety. May we always the line, you and I and every other tions on a November day long ago muy employ special workers. keep it. sober alcoholic faced this truth: that – and left us the answers. With hu- This Tradition once and for all I I. Our public relations policy is he was utterly powerless to help mility, we can still be proud of our cleared up the question of whether based on attraction rather than pro- himself. In that moment, we tasted unique heritage. any member has the right to make motion; we need always maintain true humility, and in that humility A . R . McG., Encino, Calif.

April 1974

‘Financial irresponsibility’ From Morrisvilie, Vt. : “Self-Supporting?” by Ernest A., Norfolk, Va. (December 1973 Grapevine), is the finest article on money in AA that 1 have ever read. All it suggests is sharing fairly. I know of a limited number of groups who never have contributed, and apparently never intend to contribute, to the General Service Office to support our worldwide efforts to carry the message. I have questioned the members of some of these groups, and I get a variety of “reasons” for not contributing. But the underlying reason (excuse) seems to be based on the much-abused AA doctrine of “no musts.” I go along with this doctrine up to a point, but when it is misused to defend acts of sheer financial irresponsibility, I am amazed. This act of noncontributing by 40.4% of the AA groups listed in the U.S. and Canada is a fact that I have known for some time, but Ernest A. hag explained this pitiful situation in a’ manner that says it all for me. I visit many groups because of my travels. I, too, have been miserable enough to throw a dime into the collection while visiting groups that I know are not contributing to GSO. I checked in the 1973 AA World Directory, and the states I call in have about half or a little more than half of the 40.4% not contributing. GSRs could create an awareness of this situation. ANONYMOUS

Misunderstandinganonymity? From Denver, Colo.: I had hoped that, with the publication of the “Understanding Anonymity” pamphlet, much misunderstanding would be resolved. Not so! In this area, we AAs are anonymous only to each other! How frustrating it is to hear my pastor ask, “Do you know Joe Blow? He’s in AA.” Chances’ are, I don’t know the individual by his full name. Anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films is recommended in our Tradition Eleven. It is recognized that anonymity is a very personal thing. I don’t, however, think it was ever intended that we should be anonymous inside AA. Thank

God, Bill W. and Dr. Bob weren’t anonymous to each other! Two and one-half years of steady sobriety has revealed something to me. Most people that know my history want to know how I did it. I am not sure myself, ,but I know where I did it. To me, personal anonymity -below the public-media level -would be denying another drunk a chance for sobriety. G. A.

May 1974

Coping with cliques From Santa Rosa, Calif.: Ever since I became a member of AA, many 24-hours ago, one criticism has been repeated and repeated. Perhaps our groups should pay more attention to it. I would like to tell you what one member has done about it. The Twelfth Tradition suggests that we put principles above personalities. When I came to AA, I found that, particularly among the women, there were cliques. If you were a single gal, you were not invited to homes for even a cup of coffee. When you needed a ride, you got it – but only to and from the meeting. I began to become resentful. Then I started to stay away from meetings. But I shortly realized that I was only hurting myself, and I accepted the situation as it was and tried to find ways of coping. I went to meetings for me and my sobriety. I listened and participated. I called members when I felt I needed advice or conversation. I picked up newcomers and people needing rides. There are still cliques, but they no longer cause me hurts or ill feelings. In fact, I don’t notice them. AA principles have given me a new, richer, fuller life, which I would not have known if I had not practiced principles above personalities. M.C. S.

July 1974

‘Painless’ contribution plan From West Palm Beach, Fla.: Among the worst issues that arise This system has enabled us to at business meetings, and probably save the time formerly spent hashthe most agonizing, is the issue of ing over money at business meetings money. AAs seem to have an acute – – and to use it for other group busiaversion to that word, especially at ness, such as intergroup and GSO business meetings. Groups have been reports. Also, it has considerably torn apart and destroyed as a result shortened business meetings, much of money issues. Too much money to everyone’s expressed delight. It seems to be as bad as too little, and leaves us enough money to handle the question of just how much is dif- our rent (which we have voluntarily ficult to decide. increased twice in two years), our Our group conscience has set up coffee expenses, our literature exa system of per-member donations penses (including a book raffle twice handled exclusively from the group a week), and a group contribution treasury. This eliminates prestige to our local annual Gratitude Dinbasket-stuffing, and no member feels ner, plus a small reserve fund. And slighted. We voted to donate $2.00 it’s all painless, too. c. C. per active member per month to the lacal intergroup association, $2.00 per quarter to the state general service committee, $1.OO per month to the local district committee, and $5.00 per year to the General Service Officein New York. If neces; sary, the members will hold a groupconscience meeting to decide whether to increase or decrease any of the contributions.

August 1974 J -r nounced, “I’m Bill, an alcoholic.” the rate in groups that don’t, it Anonymity There were three newcomers there. seems to me there is a decided dif- Suppose one of them wanted to ference.The superanonymous groups reach one of the “Bills” for help have a higher percentage of relapse. Are We a Secret Society? later on. He’d have to be a detective to root out the last name. Fellowship suffers when ,there’s fear of revealing identity. Another advantage of using last Try moving from a city where last OME GROUPS have been misusing names in meetings is that it enables names are used in meetings to one S two of the most hallowed of our Traditions – numbers Eleven and us to know each other better. It’s more conducive to friendship and where the practice is frowned upon. You’ll miss the old cameraderie. Twelve – on anonymity. Any ac- to carrying the message within the You’ll feel sort of out of place. tion, or failure to be helpful, which group. We don’t give up our identi- You’ll have to work to become acinhibits carrying the message is risk- ties upon joining AA. But when we quainted, when it should be easy. bg lives which are on the line – have so many Jims, Bills, Helens, Some won? make the effort, and facing death or insanity unless help etc., we’re not much better than then they allow stinking thinking to is readily available. numbers without our last names. take over. Where did the idea come from If we can’t trust our fellow AAs Yes, our lives are on the line. that it’s breaking anonymity to an- to preserve our anonymity in the We’re in danger as long as we live. nounce last names at closed AA outside world, whom can we trust? Having to hide-and-seek to get last As sacred as anonymity is, being names, in search of fellowship and u Anonymity within AA meetings? This is not “at the level of press, radio and films.” True, “It should be the privilege of each AA to cloak himself with as much perparanoid about it isn’t healthy. When I compare the recovery rate in groups that use last names with help, makes it harder to work the program. Earl C., Santa Barbara, Calif. sonal anonymity as he desires. His can be carried fellow AAs should respect his wishes.” Bill wrote this in a 1946 Grapeto dangerous vine article. Nowhere, however, have extremes I found justification for inflicting an extreme idea of anonymity on fellow AAs. Is this “group conscience”? In my opinion, it’s a misconception which has ,become a custom. It perverts the right of each AA to maintain his own personal anonymity at whatever level he wishes. It puts the group in the position of a secret society. We don’t like promotion, but we want to

have attraction. Jr recent closed discussion meetiiig, .uree participants in a row an-

November 1974

Not too old-fashioned From Temple City, Calif. : On reading the letter from J. T., Thousand Oaks, Calif. in the July Grapevine, I wonder if he has read and understood Bill W.’s “Problems Other Than Alcohol.” I, too, am the “old-fashioned alcoholic.” I am grateful, though, that I became aware of potential pill problems for. us through hearing other alcoholics share their experience with pills. It has saved me from possibly getting trapped in that vicious circle. D. B. Bill’s article, originally published in the Grapevine, is now available in pamphlet form from the Generul Service Ofice, Box 459, Grand Central Station, New York, N.Y.10017. Price: 5$. -The Editors

December 1974

a job, or haven’t been picked up for These two incidents point up to Anonymity as readers see it driving drunk. Many will find their me that to have attraction, we have From Brooklyn, N.Y. : sobriety (way of life) with us. I to be known to others beyond our- Bravo to EArl C. for putting the want to protect their anonymity. Re- selves. W. G. anonymity Traditions in proper per- member, too, those who do not acspective (“Are We a Secret Soci- cept alcoholism as a disease: most From Los Angeles, Calif.: ety?” -August Grapevine) and car insurance companies, some judg- I have enjoyed your magazine pointing out their misapplication to es, policemen, and lawyers, compa- throughout my seventeen years of dangerous and even ridiculous ex- nies large and small. Wouldn’t they continuous sobriety in AA, and this tremes. How true, how true! like to get their hands on our World is the first time 1 have written you. And thanks to you for keeping the Directory for names and addresses? I want to thank you for printing the Grapevine the very interesting pub- Most of these people think we’re article on anonymity by Earl C. lication that it is. J. F. G. still drunk. D. J. L. I’ve met hundreds of people in AA -but know the last names of From St. Albans, W.Va.: From Arcadia, Calif.: very few. I lxlievc in anonymity at I cannot speak for AA. What I’m I’d like to share a recent experi- the level of press, radio, etc., and about to say are my own beliefs. I cncc. I had a job in a small, nearly never break anyone’s anonymity believe closed meetings are secret isolated con~munityin northern Ari- without his pernlission. But whenand an open meeting is not an AA zona, and found the contact phone ever I speak, I give my full name. meeting. I have been sober eight numbers in the AA World Directory I know a newcomer could never find years (continuous sobriety). I have hopelessly out of date. I tried a nummade leads at open meetings. I will ber listed in the phone book for only use my first name; my last another town in Arizona, and the name is not important. individual 1 reached also had the I think of the new people coming out-of-date phone numbers. Okay, into the Fellowship who haven’t lost so now what? As it happened, I had an eye infection and had to see a local doctor. I asked him if he knew of local AA my initials in the phone book. 1love members. Not surprisingly (for the AA and have had so many wonderlocal medical community often knows ful things happen to me. of at least one member of AA), he Before AA, I drank my way out offered several numbers. of jail – I was a police matron. I am very thankful that the AAs Now my ex-employers there respect of that community had not been hid- me. I didn’t know about AA then ing behind total anonymity, or I and had three more years of hell to would never have made contact with go through. My doctor recommendsome very fine people. I am single ed AA, just after he told me I had and was an out-of-towner, but was cirrhosis of the liver and four months welcomed immediately once I made to live. Thank God. I had enough contact. marbles left to try AA. F. M. T.

February 1975

Anonymity and Me I had been sober four months. I had kept my AA membership a dark secret. The inevitable day arrived when I received an invitation to my Uncle Paddy’s home for one of our frequent liquid family celebrations. Everyone greeted me with hoots of approval, telling me how marvelous I looked. I walked through the clan gathering all evening drinking soda. My hand trembled each time I poured a soft drink. After five hours, my Aunt Sarah looked at me and said, “I see you are drinking it in soda now, Ed.” I was amazed. They had not paid the least attention to what I had poured in my glass! I made the decision to “break an AA Tradition.” I told them my secret. They all agreed as how it was a grand thing and they were all meaning to mention my drinking to me one of these days and they knew that AA was not full of bums anyway. The trauma of that evening could have been lessened for me if I had understood that the anonymity Tradition applies at the public level and not the private. 1 grin now when I hear someone say that he broke his anonymity by telling his grandmother he was in AA. We understand one another- anonymity and me. E. S.

March 1975

‘First names only’? From Carrollton, Tex.: My first seven years in AA were spent with a group that was not too anonymous. There were quite a few celebrities in it. 1 actually feel that this was to my advantage. I couldn’t hide from my friends the fact that I was sober, and I was never told that last names were not used in AA. In moving to another state, I looked up an AA group to call “home,” and 1 found a much different attitude on anonymity. They used first names only. Consequently, during the ensuing twenty-two years, I never achieved that home-group feeling. I still know the full names of more AAs in my original group than in my present group. of course, a person should be allowed to be as anonymous as he or she wishes to be. We all have an obligation to protect the anonymity of all AAs we meet in our group or elsewhere. In a very anonymous group, my experience has been that small cliques develop and they know each other by full names and occupations. This is difficult for the newcomer, who is not usually included. 1 am not knocking anything. AA has worked so successfully that there is no way to criticize it. Just a personal opinion. D. L.

December 1975

The Clinking Dime A plea for realistic self-support

I DON’T K N O W how it is where you are, but around here it’s a quarter in the raffle and a quarter in the tics are superior, but because they’re getting such a bargain in rent they couldn’t afford to go elsewhere. collection basket. Foi your halfdol- Many members cry, “But the lar, you get a seat up front (if you .” newcomer can’t afford. . and other take the program seriously), all the such twaddle as a defense against coffee you can drink (with or with- being asked to be self-supporting in out cream and sugar-your choice), fact. For such members, knowing and more doughnuts and/or other the Tradition is enough -living up goodies than you should eat, plus to it would be gilding the lily. one and a half hours of educational Remember Bill’s dime clinking entertainment. “thinly” when he was asked to go Back when coffee was a nickel a heavy on the hat? Nowadays, a quarcup and doughnuts fifty cents a doz- ter can hardly be thought to clink en – and you could buy a new Ford “fatly.” A

for $800 to $900 -it was a quarter If you don’t remember Bill’s dime in the raffle and a quarter in the col- clinking thinly, try rummaging lection. through Twelve Steps and Twelve Times have changed. But if the Traditions until you find the referbark on a tree were as tight as the ence. Chances are, the longer it average group, you’d have a mighty takes you, the more you need the sick tree. Many groups meet in search. church halls, not because the acous- Bill A., North Weymouth, Mass.

July 1976

t

Do We Need Each Other? The first words this suflering drunk heard in A A came back to him in AA’s First Tradition

lief. So I mutely followed that won- I F THE FIRST WORDS I heard in AA eased me into the First Step, it was the second statement that gave derful woman into another room, to talk it over. At that moment, I fessional observers of AA or by us. The empathy of those first AAs I met certainly struck a mighty blow bastard, worse than anyone else, uniquely loathsome and not worth caring about. Alone again -ostrame instant hope, making me feel would have followed her to Hades, against my drinking and gave me a cized, undesired, and undesirable. better right away. Now, thirty-one of course, hooked by her unashamed h u g shove toward recovery. It is, I Now, surely it takes an acrobatic, years later, I believe that second revelation that she was a . . . well, believe, a manifestation of our First if not an alcoholic, egotism to flip sentence I heard contained the heal- what she said. Tradition, and it goes considerably flop continually in order to retain a ing idea of our then-unwritten First “Drunk” was a word I resented, deeper than simply ideatifying. We distinction like that -to be either Tradition. as adjective or noun. It had always go on to imitate good examples of an unappreciated, Christlike genius The first words were: “Are you disgusted me, until she said it about sobriety. And in twelfth-stepping, or a uniquely horrible specimen. But having trouble with your drinking?” herself as simply as she might have we put ourselves in another person’s practice had made me good at it, Totally unprepared for that ques- said she was a woman or a citizen or place in order to help. and I was almost never as conscious tion, before 1 knew what I was doing on a diet. The empathy around me seemed of anyone or anything else as I was I had nodded a truthful “Yes.” It She said, “There are lots of us to elicit some in me, which was the continuously aware of me and my was a wobbly lurch toward Step who have alcoholism, and we’re now first genuine concern for someone specialness. Even when I was not One. (Later, I slipped off, but finally getting over it.” else’s welfare I had ever felt. And it conscious of it, it permeated all I climbed back:) I was not alone! A sob of relief had another benign effect on me. did and said. My new friend smiled and said welled up. Like some other alcoholics, I had My first AA greeter’s second statecalmly, “Well, I’m a drunk myself; My friend then told me, unemo- felt the most outcast, lonely person ment, “I’m a drunk myself,” shattercome on in, and let’s talk it over.” tionally, about her drinking, and on the earth a long time before I ed a lot of my claim to being so In effect, she invited me to partici- carefully asked no questions about came to AA. In the rosy glow of first specially different. It was exactly pate in Tradition One: “Our com- me or mine. drinks, I had felt set apart, above what my sick ego needed to hear. mon welfare should come first; per- In that wonderful book Thirst for others. Special. Better. Unique. Then her tale of alcoholism and resonal recovery depends upon AA Freedom, David Stewart points out That’s an isolated spot, with room covery in the company of other alcounity.” the tremendous helping power of for only one. Maudlin hours later, holics quickly demonstrated that I Her description of herself struck empathy. I wonder why it is not sloppy drunk or trying to sober up, was far less powerful than the A A s me dumb with amazement, even re- talked about more, either by pro- I had felt just as alone. A special staying sober together. Thus, it

in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, when he Would I have any welfare realized he urgently needed to talk to another alcoholic to keep himself of my own at all sober. if it were not for A A? On that long-ago day of my own entry into AA, as soon as I heard the implied invitation to join, I longseems to me that the principle of ed to be in that company. I’ll always anonymity is rooted in these words: be grateful that I soon was, and I “Our common welfare should come have been so ever since. first; personal recovery depends up- Our togetherness, our common on AA unity.” welfare, our fellowship mean so Does this mean I must put the much to me that I am puzzled when welfare of AA before my own? To someone fliply remarks, “The Traanswer, I ask myself another ques- ditions are for groups, of course, not tion: Would I have any welfare of members. They are there to hold my own at all if it were not for AA? the movement together.” Not the Does this Tradition mean we members? “Thc Steps, not the Tradishould stifle unpopular or dissenting tions, are for recovery.” voices among us? I think it means Did any of us recover on our the opposite. Suppose you and I own? Didn’t unity with other alcohave opinions poles apart about psy- holics in AA help a bit? Does anychiatry, religion, AA public infor- one in AA believe he or she was not mation activity, or the Steps. Must helped to recover by the knowledge each of us not respect the other’s that we are all afloat on the same life opinion if we want to stand together raft? Isn’t that the First Tradition? in sobriety? I don’t mean tolerate; Ego deflation is important in my I mean really respect. Learning to recovery, and this Tradition bears work together amicably despite dif- on that, too, it seems to me. To the ferences is a part of becoming ma- extent that I have experienced anoture, I suspect, and something I had nymity in the spiritual sense, it no clue to before AA. grows from Tradition One, our The words of our First Tradition unity. It seems to me worth sacrihad not been written the first day I ficing some ego satisfactions for, walked into AA. But when my AA such as those of being recognized as friends assured me we could all stay some kind of AA committee memsober together, although we had not ber or officer or speaker or Grapebeen able to do it alone, I believe vine contributor. The bonds that they were acting out the Tradition. hold us together seem to me greatly The Tradition also seems to me worth cherishing. an echo of what Bill W. discovered B. L., Manhattan, N.Y.

i

A A G R A P E V I N E L JULY 1976 I A reminder and a warning. .. LCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS was only A ten years old when Bill W.,

TheWashingtonians AA’s co-founder, wrote: “Those who read the July [I9451 Grapevine were startled, then sobered, by the account which it camed of the Washingtonian movement. It was hard for us to believe that 100 years ago the newspapers of this country They flourished when were carrying enthusiastic accounts And they died when they about 100,000 alcoholics who were they helped one another abandoned certain timeless principles helping each other stay sober; that today the influence of this good work has so completely disappeared before his death, Bill said that the mitted politicians and reformers, that some AAs are complacent that few of us had ever heard of Washingtonians had done things both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, to enough to suppose we never shall.” it. .. . “which were very natural to do, but use the society for their own pur- Bill also recalled the fate of the “May we always be willing to which had turned out to be utterly poses. .. . Within a very few years Washingtonians before 1,500 AAs learn from experience!” Bill cau- destructive. And it was this spectacle they had completely lost their effec- gathered at the annual banquet in tioned. of the past, brought before us as our tiveness in helping alcoholics, and the New York City on November 7, – – – Traditions were evolving, that con- society collapsed. 1945. “In short, the Washingtonians firmed that we were probably very “The lesson to be learned from went out to settle the world’s affairs The quotations in this article much on the right track in this mat- the Washingtonians was not overare from material in AA’s before they had learned to manage ter of no public controversy; in this looked by Alcoholics Anonymous. themselves. They had no capacity archives, question of paying our own bills; in As we surveyed the wreck of that for minding their own business. … this question of not becoming in- movement, early AA members re- The negatives within them overthrew Founded by six drunks in 1840, volved with other enterprises, and so solved to keep our Society out of the positives. the Washingtonians had grown in on down the line. And above all, it public controversy.” “That won’t happen here,” Bill membership to hundreds of thou- confirmed the great protective guide And to a friend he wrote, “I wish urged in closing, “if we remember, sands in a short twelve years, and of our anonymity Tradition.” every AA could indelibly bum the publicly and privately, our own simthen destroyed themselves as an or- Later, in the book Alcoholics history of the Washingtonians into ple principles of honesty, tolerance, ganization and dropped out of sight. Anonymous Comes of Age, Bill his memory. It is an outstanding ex- and humility, and that we live only By 1852, all that remained of their wrote: “In many respects the Wash- ample of how, and how not, we by the Grace of God;” spectacular power as a method of ingtonians were akin to AA. …Had ought to conduct ourselves. In a Traditions! Words to remember! treatment was the Home for the they stuck to their one goal, they sense, Alcoholics Anonymous has Thanks, Bill. Thank you, Washing- Fallen in Boston. might have found the full answer. never had a problem seriously threat- tonians. In a talk on the Traditions shortly Instead, the Washingtonians per- ening our overall unity. Yet I notice D. P., Ogden, Utah

A A GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1976

Don’t Order Me Around

In A A’s Second Tradition he found a safeguard agdinst being bossed and against being bossy

older member who attempts to pull our Second Tradition and apprecia- about a new tool available or a new rank or exert seniority. In the words tion of its assistance in my recovery, policy. Minus such personal authorof the Tradition, “For our group in which expressions of group con- ity, AA has to struggle along without purpose there is but one ultimate science have been very useful. Group that channel of communication. authority – a loving God as He may decisions to let me make the coffee But I think our founders were express Himself in our group con- or sweep the floor, group decisions right to include in our Second Trascience. Our leaders are but trusted to hold certain meetings, group de- dition the trusted-servants, not bossservants; they do not govern.” cisions to do public information es, idea -for at least two reasons. That instant equality of all mem- work and start beginners meetings- One is strictly personal: If AAs had bers reflects another truth well all these have enormously strength- tried to boss me, I would have gone known to biologists: No life of any ened my chances to stay well. away to die. The other is more interkind is possible in isolation. A bio- It can be persuasively argued that personal: I need restraint to keep logical necessity for all life- is a net AA would function more efficiently me from getting bossy with other of intricate interrelationships, with if it had a centralized human gov- people. It is another form of the ego every single particle vital to the ernment, with a vertically arranged reduction so necessary to my sobriwhole. Even the amoeba maintains hierarchy. Without such a guiding ety. My itch to be bossy but never such; the human animal is the most force, to be sure, our Fellowship is bossed is hard to erase, I find, and complicated system of that kind sorely disadvantaged in communica- is one of the biggest dangers I enknown to us; and neither is able to tions. counter in sponsorship. survive without connections with the As things stand now, thousands Almost all of us, I suppose, have world around it. of AAs do not know that the AA known newcomers (ourselves, per- Just so, Bill W. needed drunks to Guidelines, for example, or the haps) who practically insisted a share his experience with if he was Grapevine, or the booklets Came to sponsor give them direct advice to survive, and so do I. In AA, Believe and Living Sober are all and then resented it. We even resent ecology is a fact, not a theory or a available’to help theni. In a military imaginary authority. At the same political cause. or tightly structured religious organi- time, curiously, we demand authori- Growing realization of this fills zation, the chief can simply put out tative answers. me with wonder at the wisdom of the word, and everyone is instructed Some months ago, I was astound-

ed to hear at a meeting that “the tent to get by with only a smattering General Service Office is going to of information about it. There are take the word ‘suggested’ out of the parts of it I have never bothered to Steps.” explore, so I speak from my own Alarums rumbled through one experience. metropolitan area, and excited let- When the facts behind that disters were written, protesting. Out- torted rumor were finally underraged writers said the fact that the stood, the hysteria died down. program is suggested makes it palat- Presumably, those caught by it able to drunks. And angry petitions learned from the experience somedemanded (get this!) that GSO not thing previously not grasped about make the Steps mandatory. the operation of AA entities. GSO never remotely had any such When group conscience is well inludicrous intention, of course. formed, it is a beautiful thing to At first, it seemed to me the letter watch, often surprisingly wise and writers were making fools of them- benign. So I suggest, seriously, an selves, displaying deplorable igno- important change in the wording of rance of AA. Hadn’t they read our Second Tradition. It is inserting Twelve Concepts for World Service, the word “informed,” so the Tradi- The AA Sewice Manual, or at least tion would read: “For our group the latest Conference Report and purpose there is but one ultimate AA Comes of Age? No one familiar authority – a loving God as He may with those could arrive at the amaz- express Himself in our informed ing conclusion that GSO ever could group conscience. Our leaders are do such a damfool thing, even if it but trusted servants; they do not wanted to. Fat chance! govern.” Neither could the General Service There is a way to change, “offi- Board, nor the General Service Con- cially,” the Traditions or Twelve ference. Doesn’t every AA know Steps, you know. Maybe you’d like that? to inform yourself about it by read- Of course not, I could see upon ing Part 3 of the Conference Charter reflection. And here’s why. How section in The AA Service Manual. knowledgeable or ignorant each of If the group conscience rejects my us is about our Fellowship’s work- suggestion, that’s okay with me. At ings is up to the individual. No one least, those of us who take part in can require you or me to pass a test such a decision will come out better to prove our understanding of AA. informed. Let it begin with me. And many of us are perfectly con- B. L., Manhattan, N.Y.

August 1976

— – –

Anonymity Three members discuss this vital, “. ..the good is done without credit or acclaim. .. 99

but often misunderstood, spiritual foundation of our Fellowship cloaked in a conspiracy of mutual you know my last name is Saxon and protectiveness. that I’ve been sober almost five “lf I am to stay sober,” he con- years, but I had a bad experience tinued, “I must be responsible. My recently when someone threw my hand, through AA, must always be alcoholic past right into my face. I there. Just plain George, or even had asked my boss, who never knew George C., cannot be responsible, me while I was drinking, if I could . but George Carter can be found in have some time off on a particular When Do We Say the phone book or readily identified day. When he refused and I showed ‘I’m in AA’? through the central office by any disappointment, he told me I was suffering alcoholic.” being very ungrateful, because he Art, or Arthur, as he prefers to had been good enough to hire an cidl himself, idso gave his full name. ex-drunk!” T HE LEADER of the Friday discussion meeting gingerly approached his topic for the evening: The subject had been put forward rather vaguely, and you could almost feel the thinking that was Having come from a large Eastern This had obviously been a discity, he had known the sort of auto- turbing challenge to Doris, but she anonymity. “Not necessarily the churning in the minds of the twenty- matic anonymity that swallows up had resolved it by reasoning that personal anonymity we keep in the odd people in attendance. There the individual AA member except this man’s meanness was actually his outside world,” he stressed, “but the within his own selected groups. problem, and therefore it should not were no newcomers or even visitors, spiritual aspects of the question. so all of us had seen or known each “I was known as a lush for years,” and could not upset her sobriety. ‘Anonymity,’ ” he reminded us, ” ‘is Arthur continued, “by my boss, my The following three or four speakother over a period of weeks, the spiritual foundation of all our months, or years. business associates, and, God knows, ers emphasized the discretionary ap- Traditions.’ ” The first man gave his full name. by my family and whatever friends proach. When breaking their own I was glad that he decided to go “I’m George Carter, and I’m an I had who counted. So what was the anonymity was useful or seemingly round-robin to the left, because I alcoholic,” he began. (For this arti- big secret when I finally made it to desirable, they would not hesitate, was seated on the opposite side, to- cle, I’ve changed the last names, of AA? There wasn’t a single person but they weren’t about to shout their ward the end of the tables set up in course.) “I don’t give my last name who really cared about me and my AA membership from the rooftops. the roomy meeting hall. Since I was problem who wasn’t delighted over “After all,” said one person of out of any sense of pride, but bea comparatively new member of this cause I think it is important for me my sobriety. In fact, the attraction considerable note in the community, group, I would have the benefit of to make myself identifiable and part of the program helped me later “my alcoholism is hardly a secret at preceding comments, and I was therefore available.” on to smooth the path into our Fel- all. I was front-paged by the leading eager to hear the remarks of my George related briefly his own ex- lowship for several old drinking local newspaper three different times peers. Although I had. recently read buddies.” for drunkenness and drunk driving. perience and frustrations when he the AA leaflet “Understanding Ano- first arrived in this small city and Doris gave only her first name. “I Since I stopped drinking in AA, I nymity,” I still had ambivalent feel- found AA so anonymous that it was think we have to be very careful,” haven’t even bothered to change the ings on the matter. virtually an underground society, she said, “about breaking our ano- license plates on my car, which spell nymity to nonalcoholics. Most of out my last name in full -the same

name that was headlined in those Betty B. recalled her early days, ” ‘Understanding Anonymity,’ ” he take that first drink. As I see it, by stories. But I don’t reveal my AA nearly thirty years ago. “When I first declared, “pretty well clears up the giving my full name, I show that I membership -unless I feel it will came to town, there were exactly doubts and confusion we’ve all had no longer feel shame over my past, help someone.” twenty AAs here. Only two of us on this question. At least, I know it and my gratitude to and trust in AA And so it went, until one man were women. Anonymity was mighty has for me. Over the years, the at- is implicitin my doing so.” brought us back to the spiritual important then. For some people, it traction of our program has blunted The last man to speak took only angle. Harry McE. spoke up. “I still is.” the stigma associated with the term fifteen seconds. This was Tom P., a think the real spiritual side of AA Dick S. pointed out that a breach ‘alcoholic.’ Our Fellowship has won relative newcomer. “My philosophy anonymity means that whatever of anonymity might be especially general approval from all thinking is simple,” he said. “I can sum it up good we may do is done without serious in professional fields. “Would people and the support of many in three sentences. One – your credit or acclaim. If we bring hope you have wanted to be that patient great organizations. Even the medi- anonymity is inviolate. Two -my where there is despair, if we comfort who was operated on by Dr. Bob cal world has come to recognize al- own is discretionary. And three and love, rather than seek to be after his slip?” coholism as a disease -one that my discretion is guided by my comforted and loved.. .” He broke There were only two members fortunately can be arrested and even Higher Power.” Wow! That to me, off. “You know the prayer of St. who had not spoken. Al T. was the have its ravages reversed to some really nailed it down! , Francis, that Bill W. used to quote first one to mention the pamphlet. degree -just as long as we don’t Anonymous, Santa Barbara, Calif. -getting ourselves out of the way. It isn’t Joe B. or Joe Blow who is doing good. It’s the spirit he does it Anonymity in that’s important.” A couple of others mentioned the importance of preserving personal anonymity for the sake of the new- Keeping It Complicated comer. “Don’t forget,” one person H o w to break said, “we do call ourselves Alcoholics Anonymous.” another person’s a n o n y m i t y Then it was my turn. “I don’t while trying not to think a sincere newcomer is likely to be put off that way,” I said. “If he is, as “technical adviser.” then he probably is not yet ready to thoroughly follow the path of sober W HEN CO-FOUNDER Dr. Bob left us with that wise admonition “Keep it simple,” I doubt that he, a treatment facilities available in a large West Coast city (not Lompoc). One important facility was, of This cooperation resulted, not in handcuffing our creativity as film- AAs. If we are ready to go to any surgeon, meant that we should dis- course, AA. The producer and di- makers, but in helping us to turn out lengths, then we’ve certainly got to embowel a patient when a more rector agreed that the film would a film that is still used in many parts have faith and trust in the proven selective incision was called for. Isn’t cooperate with AA policy where of the country and continues to results of working the program.” one of our slogans Think? matters regarding Alcoholics Anon- receive favorable comments from Jim T., another Easterner, de- As a writer of documentary films, ymous were mentioned and photo- AA members, including those proscribed the practice of some groups I learned that observing the AA graphed. I mailed copies of the fessionally active in the field of alcoholism. who close by saying, “We are all principle of anonymity is often more script in various stages to GSO and friends together here in AA, but we complex, than it appears on the sur- consulted with the local AA inter- A t the “preview,” the audience suggest that after the meeting all last face. Some years ago, I was hired to group’s public information chair- included several hundred AA memnames be suspended.” write a film about the alcoholism man, who also donated her services bers. The producer and I were re-

lieved when not one AA registered holism will be shown. It is titled a complaint charging the violation of The Brothers Kamchatka and is anonymity or any other AA Tra- written by Fedor D.” dition. Now, if she had given my full It was when the film was entirely name as a professional writer, only out of my hands that it became in- those readers who already knew that volved in the breaking of an AA I’m an AA member might have member’s anonymity at the public made the connection. But by using level by other members, who sin- my first name and last initial, she cerely believed they were protecting was in effect saying this: “Fedor D. and observing that Tradition. is obviously a member of AA. And To explain how this came about, when you see the film and the credit I’m going to give my film a fake ‘written by Fedor Dostoevski,’ you name, because to use its real title will then know without a doubt that would automatically identify me, the Fedor D. and Fedor Dostoevski, the writer, as an AA member. Also, I that had caused dispute or was con- in AA. And it didn’t say he was also film writer, are one and the same, am going to make up a pseudonym trary to AA principles. a Mason, a Rotarian, and a Presby- and that he belongs to AA.” for myself. Let’s say, Fedor Dosto- “Then what’s controversial? The terian. Could you tell any of that, And if I ever get drunk and drive evski, an improbable name for a names of at least a dozen other just by seeing his name up there on my droshky through a tearoom, and writer. And the film we will call people are on the film, too, but none the screen?” the exploit makes the papers and the The Brothers Karnchatka, Kamchat- of those people, including me, is This time, I got a vague, indulgent TV news, thousands of people will ka being a geographical location in identified as a member of Alcoholics smile, and he turned to introduce me receive the erroneous impression northeastern Russia and obviously Anonymous.” to somebody, saying, “This is the that AA doesn’t work, or that “AA having no connection with alcohol. “But you are in AA,” he persisted. guy who wrote the film — Fedor is full of bums and lousy writers like An AA member in a nearby com- I tried to explain that because he Dostoevski. He’s a member of AA.” that there Fedor Dostoevski.” i munity, who was in charge of a knew I was in AA, and scores of It happens that I didn’t mind – The same principle applies to court class, decided to show my film my friends and associates knew I but this man, who was so concerned AAs who timidly give only their first to his audience of probationers con- was in AA, it did not break the about “controversy,” had broken my name and last initial to be used in victed of alcohol-related offenses. I Eleventh Tradition to have my name anonymity as a member without my authorized correspondencewith their attended on the member’s invitation on a film merely as a writer. He gave consent. He had also linked my group secretary, intergroup, and and was startled when he introduced me a blank look. name to a film designed to be shown GSO. AA service offices and conscithe film as “controversial.” Since he “Listen,” I began again. “Not at the public level, thereby paving entious groups take great care not to himself had chosen to show it, I long ago, I wrote a film about scuba the way for further anonymity put “AA” or “Alcoholics Anonyasked him afterward why he con- diving. My name was on it, as the breaks. mous” anywhere on the outside of sidered it controversial. writer. Did that break my anonymity In that same community, the edi- their envelopes. But anyone seeing “Because your name is on it,” he as an AA member?” tor of the local AA newsletter wrote mail addressed to Gus W. or Agnes answered. This increased my sur- Again a blank look. I an item about another showing of T. would have cause to wonder, and prise; my name as a writer is so “Look,” I said. “In that alcohol- the film. In a valiant but misguided some might speculate, “Is this perobscure as to cause little interest, ism film, there was one other name attempt to observe the Tradition of son in AA?’It would be true if the let alone controversy. He admitted on the screen that belonged to an anonymity, she wrote: “After the envelope came from the gas comthere was nothing in the 6lm itself AA member. But it didn? say he was regular AA meeting, a film on alco- pany or Bell Telephone. Such un-

thinking caution actually achieves harm, might break the anonymity of AA, we are just now beginning to cemetery. Friends suggested that a the very consequence the person is another member. understand the full therapeutic im- suitable monument be erected in fearfully anxious to avoid. (Note: It has come to my atten- pact of anonymity. The AA member their honor, something befitting a More careful reading of the AA tion that, by an amazing coinci- who understands anonymity realizes co-founder. Dr. Bob would have leaflet “Understanding Anonymity” dence, there was someone named it is not just a matter of keeping his none of this. Before he,died in 1950, and Bill W.’s description of the rea- Fedor Dostoevski, and by further name secret. It is a philosophical he told Bill that he just wanted to sons behind our anonymity policy remarkable improbability, he was a way of life, an attitude, a way of be buried like other folks. Dr. Bob’s in the pamphlet “AA Tradition – writer. He died in 1881 in Czarist getting out of the self and becoming memorial can be seen in the hun- How It Developed” can help all of Russia, fifty-four years before AA at one with universal forces. Em- dreds of thousands of joyful faces us avoid mistakes in this area. Com- was founded. It is unlikely, then, pathy, or complete identification everywhere -faces of people who paratively few of us are writers, ac- that he was a member of our Fellow- with society, individually and col- are recovering from the “incurable” tors, or people of such news value ship, and there’s no way of telling lectively, is enhanced by it. disease; faces of harmony and emas to appear in the media, but at whether or not he had a desire to The AA way of life invites us to pathy; faces of humility; faces at one some unguarded moment, any of us, stop drinking.) accept and live the joys of anonym- with the universe; faces of serenity; with good intentions but eventual Anonymous, Manhattan, N . Y . ity. Dr. Bob and his wife, Anne, lie faces of anonymity. beneath a simple stone in an Akron R. A., Yuba City, Calif. Anonymity

To Be One With Humanity Grapevine in January 1946: “. . . we T HE THERAPEUTIC value of anonymity was not immediately are beginning to feel that the word realized by the earliest members of ‘anonymous’ has for us an immense Alcoholics Anonymous. In the Big spiritual significance. Subtly but Book, there are only three references powerfully it reminds us that we are to anonymity. Originally, anonymity always to place principles before was intended to protect the mem- personalities; . . . that our movement bers’ reputations from the cultural not only preaches but actually pracstigma attached to the disease of tices a truly humble modesty. . . . alcoholism; it was simply a matter The practice of anonymity has alof secrecy. ready had a profound effect upon us. Bill W. himself broke his ano- . . . Anonymity is already a cornernymity for several years and discov- stone of our public relations policy.” ered that personal recognition and In a spiritual sense, anonymity prestige were not compatible with amounts to a renunciation of perthe search for sobriety and serenity. sonal prestige as an instrument of Bill began to realize the philosophi- general policy. It is a vital prerequical (spiritual ) therapeutics of ano- site for humility, honest empathy, nymity some ten years after the and harmony with the universe. Surcreation of AA. He wrote in the prisingly, after forty-one years of

October 1976

Even after the broadcast ended they remembered the spiritual foundation of our Traditions

Humility on the Air

J OHN GENTRY. THE HOST of The and our healing message of love, John Gentry Show, WGCH, in Greenwich, Conn., seated us hope, and strength, documented by our personal experiences, vibrated around a table that sprouted a mike over the airwaves and into the in the center. A glass partition shut homes of “Gentryland.” us off from the control room. The What a hot, humid evening it “on the air” signal lit up. John in- was! And we, in gratitude for our troduced his guests-Hope, a healing, gave it our all. We were twenty-year-old member of AA, tired, sweaty, and headachy when Ruth, a member of Al-Anon, and we finally walked out of the studio Mark, a twelve-year-old Alateen- into the sultry summer night. to the radio audience. “If only I could tell all the kids John had done his homework that I was on radio!” Mark exwell, boning up on information claimed. And didn’t we all feel like about the disease of alcoholism and doing a little bragging that we had the effects the illness has, not only been guests on a radio show! But, on the alcoholic, but on his or her hard as it was not to boast, we family and loved ones. He explained didn’t. Anonymity’s reward is the the principle of anonymity as the gift of humility we receive every cornerstone of the Fellowships, and time we practice the Eleventh and he introduced us by first names Twelfth Traditions. only. He skillfully interviewed us, Anonymous, Slamford, Conn.

October 1976′

AA is not a haven for drug ad- Two views on ‘other problems’ dicts and should not be used as a From Ashland, Oreg.: substitute for Narcotics Anony- Your article entitled “Pot” in the mous. But we should feel free to May issue really impressed me. I am mention this problem in meetings an addict and alcoholic, now clean and to guide people in the right difrom all chemicals, including pot, rection-to NA meetings or, if NA for fourteen years. But I have a hard is not available, at least to some time convincing other AAs that pot person in the group with a dual is dangerous. Southern Oregon is an problem. It seems now that any ideal place for pot smoking, because group with a half-dozen members or of the lenient laws, so this provides more will have at least one recovjustification for anyone, including ered dual-problem AA member. AAs, to use it. After all, we are in the business What I am getting at is that the of saving lives. ANONYMOUS article will give me the push 1 need to say what 1 have to say and do From San Jose, Calif.: what 1 have to do. Thank you for 1 read the article “Pot” in the printing this type of article and for May issue of the Grapevine with disallowing me t o take a small gust. And then sanity intervened. I inventory with you. thanked God that he brought me A prominent businesswoman in into AA back when it was for our group just committed suicide by alcoholics. Today, coming in new, 1 putting a gun to her head. She had could never make it. eighteen months without a drink, Even in the worst of my drinking, but was popping pills regularly. I would not associate with neurot- There was very little mention of ics, psychos, drug addicts, gays, nor drugs being dangerous in our group weirdos in general. And 1 sure don’t until last night, when we heard of intend to begin now. I respect everyher death. Many of us felt very one’s right to “do their own thing,” guilty about our silence on the drug and I judge no one. But I don’t problem. intend to do it with them. Apparently, the day when real alcoholics will be forced t o go underground is fast approaching, and I intend to go with them. Alcoholics Anonymous is my “thing.” Please send the balance of my Grapevine subscription to someone who needs it or just cancel. M. G .

October 1976

In AA we demand

Give Me Liberty! But that doesn’t give irs the right to push others around

A T THE MOMENT when Ebby T. said to Bill W., “Why don’t you choose your own conception of state of negative feelings about people. My first AA mentors helped me apply the slogan to my family understood Him.” Step Four suggested that for my own recovery I force anyone to pray; but the weight of social pressure pushed everyone God?,” our Fourth Tradition began and to others I was continually find- pass judgment solely on myself, not heavily in that direction, and since to germinate, it seems to me. ing fault with, including AAs. on anyone else. Step Eight suggested that one particular prayer is identi- As page 12 of the second and Maybe this aspect of our program that 1 concern myself with the inven- fied with one religion, he asked the third editions of the book Alcohol- has more to do with the effective- tory of myself only, not with the in- group t o change its custom. ics Anonymous shows, that ness of AA than has been widely ventory of persons I had harmed or For weeks we discussed it, at question freed Bill almost miracu- recognized. Sitting in judgment on who 1 felt had harmed me. times even rationally. Two memlously from the prison of his old other people-a constant preoccu- So, despite the fact that Tradition bers, one pro, one anti, wrote GSO ideas. And I can now use that no- pation of mine while drinking- Four had not yet been spelled out, I about it, each sure GSO or the tion, as expressed in our Fourth is a temptation that keeps re- think its basic idea of liberty board of trustees would rule his fac- Tradition, as my own charter for curring. God is a heavy role to coupled with responsibility was tion right, the other wrong. Both personal freedom in AA-as long as play, and I’ve conclusively proved already operating to help me stay were irritated when they got GSO’s 1 behave responsibly. to myself many times that my life sober my first year. As I have since reply-that it was up to the group to “Each group should be autono- becomes unmanageable when I detected other outcroppings of it in decide for itself. (I empathize. 1 still mous except in matters affecting try. In helping to free me from many forms within our Fellowship, don’t like being told, “Grow up.”) other groups or AA as a whole,” that shortcoming, or defect of it seems to slap some new humility No formal group vote ever octhe Tradition says. character, Tradition Four has into me every time. That is a prime curred, because the objecting friend The idea got to me during my first proved priceless in my own AA life. value all the Traditions have in my and some who agreed with him year in AA, 1945, through the slo- 1 gingerly tiptoed around the recovery. decided to start a new group, with gan Live and Let Live. At that time, edges of Step Three during my early Once, an agnostic member began entirely different customs. As a I was so hypercritical of everyone AA months, not too scared of it; to object to our group’s closing the result, for years now there have that I lived in an almost perpetual after all, it did say, “. . . God as we meeting with the Lord’s Prayer. been two thriving groups where only True, he said, the group did not one existed before-twin fruits of

Tradition Four-and I have often course. Here in Manhattan, years the framework of the last part of the its members. Because I found a few been able t o get from both precisely ago,,we formed an intergroup asso- Fourth Tradition. not to my liking, 1 was condemning the help I needed. ciation. For a while, it was a delicate Recently, I decided to stop paying the whole group. That reminded me The liberty each of us has to start little thing. Its fragile life could my dues in a political organization. of the last part of our Fourth Tradinew groups, experiment with meet- easily have been shattered if its , The fee is small, and the club takes tion: “. . . except in matters affecting formats, or change our home steering committee had tried to very little of my time. I still believe ing other groups or AA as a whole.” group provides a resilience in AA dictate to groups about officers, or in its purpose and generally approve Again, I saw that anyone who that has been important in my meetings, or whatever. Every resistant group could have simply with- its methods. So why, I wondered, knows I am an AA member may sobriety. AA is so flexible, it is hard did I want to resign? just as easily judge all of AA by me. to fight. Anything we don’t like drawn its volunteers and financial Examining my last few contacts If I am found unpleasant and unreabout it, we know we are free to support-and poof, no intergroup! with the society, 1 realized why I liable, someone may easily say, change. We d o not need anyone’s Instead, the association decided wanted out. I had encountered some “Those AAs are nasty and dis- ‘ permission, and no one can declare each group was autonomous, thus members (not all, just some) who honest .” us wrong or overrule us or read us avoiding the kind of intra-AA seemed to me unpleasant and not Each of us may be the only AA out. As 1 and some other “slippers” squabble that could have been fatal. entirely trustworthy. (1 was better at experience some people have. The have learned, we can’t resign from Perhaps this Tradition derived finding such faults in people when I Fourth Tradition gives me no license AA, because there is nothing to send from the ego-inflicted suffering was drinking, but since sobering up to behave in any way that reflects your resignation to! We can’t break some of our first AAs had to endure I have certainly not lost all my skill badly on AA. AA rules, because there aren’t any. after getting sober. Robert Thomsen at taking others’ inventories!) That’s a sobering thought, isn’t How can I take my marbles and run shows so beautifully in Bill W., his I caught myself in time. I was it? I find that’s literally true of all away from a game played without stunning biography of AA’s chief judging the whole outfit by a few of our Traditions, for me. marbles? architect, that co-founder Bill tried B. L., Manhattan, N. Y. The freedom from the necessity and tried to impose various orthoof passing judgments on one an- doxies on AA, only to be frustrated other has prevented the Fellowship painfully time after time. from breaking up in all kinds of dis- One of the delights of growing putes. If the General Service Board, older can be a lessening of my com- GSO, or the Conference constantly pelling desire to make everybody refereed arguments among groups else do things right. (For “right,” or members, it would be tanta- read “my way.”) It is liberating to mount t o pronouncing one side or learn repeatedly that I cannot bend the other wrong. We’d probably AA to fit just my particular shape. keep squabbling until the unhappy The pain of such struggle disappears losers went away. And this would when I can let other AAs have happen over and over, after every things their own way. That leaves such judgment was passed. me more energy that I can devote to Instead, we are told-sometimes my number one problem: me. to our exasperation-to decide for The price 1 must pay for this freeourselves. dom is a corollary responsibility. I Local central offices operate have virtually unlimited indepenunder the same guiding principle, of dence in AA, as long as I act within

November 1976

Personal uses for the Traditions From Kansas City, Mo.: I am pleased that the Grapevine is publishing a series of articles on the Traditions. A few of us out here, particularly in the young people’s group, have latched on to those babies and find them very useful in our own programs, as well as for the survival and well-being of the group. Early on, for example, it occurred to me that “fully self-supporting” might well be applied to my own life. I spent a lot of years on the dole, so to speak, and my recovery and growing self-worth depend in large part on being self-supporting through my own contributions (to paraphrase the Preamble). The second case in point is Tradition Two. 1 had an ongoing fistfight with the Second and Third Steps, until the Second Tradition was pointed out to me (not very tactfully, I might add). That the group conscience wanted only what was good for me, that it did not lie to me, that it did not attempt to con me, that it did not abuse my trustall these truths began to prove to me that there is a loving God who indeed expresses Himself in the group conscience. T. H. C.

Whatshould we do when outside theories conflict with AA experience?

Is Public Controversy tion Ten explicitly states that always insisted that controlled 1 T HAS NOW BEEN S W months ~ since a prestigious research organization released a lengthy renewed rage by another supposedly authoritative assurance that alcoholics need not remain absti- “Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into drinking is an impossibility for the alcoholic. “We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow report on its study of alcoholism. nent. public controversy.” new ones,” the Big Book says. From that necessarily technical An AA member who .criticizes The Tradition does not disap- “Neither does there appear to be report, the press and other media such .reports usually expresses one prove of individuals’ becoming in- any kind of treatment which will seized upon the one element sensa- concern: that they may harm volved, provided they don’t use the make alcoholics of our kind like tional enough to make news: the alcoholics still drinking and en- AA name or announce that they are other men. We have tried every statement that some alcoholics can courage some recovered alcoholics members. In fairness t o AA, imaginable remedy. In some inand d o return to normal drinking. to resume drinking. Therefore, it however, it’s plain that no person stances there has been brief re- Several of my friends bitterly de- could be argued that AA members, should leap into a public controver- covery, followed always by a still nounced the report. Many other AA drawing upon considerable ex- sy as an AA member, thus giving the worse relapse. Physicians who are members, identifying themselves as perience in this area, have a duty to impression that the Fellowship itself familiar with alcoholism agree that such, wrote angry letters to news- expose the fallacies in the report. is taking a position. There are good there is no such thing as making a ‘ papers and magazines. In my opinion, we have no such reasons why we have always avoided normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Perhaps by this time tempers have duty as AA members. On the con- such controversies in the past, and Science may one day accomplish cooled enough t o let us examine the trary, we have a long-standing it’s not likely that there will be this, but it hasn’t done so yet.” issue involved in the light of AA Tradition about public controversy. justification for becoming involved We should remember that this is principles-assuming that, just At almost every AA meeting, we in the future. offered as an opinion, not as a before press time for this magazine, hear that our Fellowship does not Still, it could be argued, AA has dogma to be defended at all costs. we have not been prodded into engage in such controversy. Tradi-

In 1939, when the Big Book was published, a large number of doctors and social workers probably “We . . not enter into public controversy, even in self-defense. ” thought that alcoholics should be able to become controlled drinkers experience has certainly shown us workers if we try to shape general ship can put AA’s name on the line at some point. AA members did not that alcoholics do not usually re- opinion. in defense of total abstinence as the set out to d o battle with any of these spond to logic or intellectual AA’s role in the broad field of only way to recovery. Would this people and, for that matter, didn’t arguments. alcoholism, as I understand it, is ever be justified? Well, co-founder even argue with alcoholics who When I was drinking, I would simply to offer our program to Bill W. apparently had such issues thought they could still drink in a have listened to any person, no mat- those who want it and to cooperate in mind when he wrote in Twelve controlled manner. Far from warn- ter how sleazy his credentials, who with other alcoholism workers and Conceptsfor World Service: ing them of dire consequences, the told me I could keep on drinking. agencies to help alcoholics, without “. . . we cannot and should not Big Book authors merely said, in ef- This questionable reassurance marrying AA to any specific cause enter into public controversy, even fect, that the proof of the pudding would have counted for more than or opinion. Many outside workers in self-defense [emphasis added]. was in the eating. “We do not like the advice of 100 experts taking the and agencies share AA’s views on Our experience has shown that, to pronounce any individual as opposite view. I believed what I alcoholism and the recovery pro- providentially, it would seem, AA alcoholic,” they wrote, “but you wanted to believe, and other cess. Others d o not and are even has been made exempt from the can quickly diagnose yourself. Step members have told me the same critical of AA. In any case, these are need to quarrel with anyone, no over to the nearest barroom and try thing about themselves. That being outside opinions, even when relating matter what the provocation. some controlled drinking. Try to so, I do not think many alcoholics directly to AA’s interests. Nothing could be more damaging to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more are endangered by a scientific We discovered long ago that our our unity and to the worldwide than once. It will not take long for report. True, it’s much better to success in following the AA pro- goodwill which AA enjoys, than you t o decide, if you are honest with have a prominent think tank suggest gram and helping alcoholics public contention, no matter how yourself about it. It may be worth a that you can drink, but any friendly depends largely on our own prac- promising the immediate dividends bad case of jitters if you get a full bartender or drinking companion tices and beliefs, and that it isn’t might appear. knowledge of your condition.” will serve just as well. necessary to have the agreement of “Therefore, it is evident that the In other words, the AA founders Another argument in favor of outsiders. Some professionals in harmony, security, and future effecwere not zealously committed to the entering the controversy could be alcoholism, for example, think that tiveness of AA will depend largely task of convincing any person that that controlled drinking is not an AA’s spiritual program is un- upon our maintenance of o he might be an alcoholic, or of outside issue, since rejection of this necessary and irrelevant, and others thoroughly nonaggressive and citing scientific proof that he could goal is vital to AA’s program and believe that AA should relax its pacific attitude in all our public relanever be a controlled drinker. This methods. We should remember, Tradition of anonymity. They have tions. This is an exacting assignwas something the individual would however, that the professional field a right to hold such opinions, just as ment, because in our drinking days have to decide for himself, even at is external to AA, and it is made up we have a right to hold opposite we were prone to anger, hostility; the cost of getting drunk again. Is it of people with all shades of opinions views. rebellion, and aggression. And even irresponsible to tell an alcoholic to and beliefs. AA members who work It might also be argued that cer- though we are now sober, the old try drinking again if he thinks he in the field of alcoholism do not tain issues are more important than patterns of behavior are to a degree can get away with it? Not really, really have the right or the duty to others, that the controversy over still with us, always threatening to because any person who believes speak for AA as a whole, and there controlled drinking warrants part- explode on any good excuse. But we that he can drink will probably d o it will be a great deal of resentment ing from tradition so that in- know this, and therefore I feel conn o matter what is said to him. Our and opposition from professional dividual members and the Fellow- fident that in the conduct of our

public affairs we shall always find cheek, that aeronautical engineers the grace to exert an effective still argue about what causes an restraint.” airplane to fly. And the professional As I reread this, I was reminded and technical journals in every field of my own feelings some years ago are full of lively and heated disputes when the question of an alcoholic’s about matters most of us would return to controlled drinking was have thought settled long ago. It is raised. A nonalcoholic friend whom only logical, therefore, that the in- I greatly respected told me that he creasing professionalization of the didn’t think the AA program alcoholism field should be marked brought real recoveries from by criticism of older theories and alcoholism. He insisted that real discussion of new ones. recovery would enable the alcoholic Meanwhile, of course, there’s to become a moderate drinker, plenty of opportunity for AA neither addicted to alcohol nor members and friends of AA to enter dependent on AA meetings. Around arrived at the pearly gate! certain people will criticize us. Nor any controversy, if they can Blo so the same time, some doctors in Cin- Upon examining my feelings, can we expect universal agreement without involving the AA name or cinnati and other researchers in however, I came to see that I was on anybody’s theory, even the ques- the Fellowship as a whole. I’ve England were saying that alcoholics concerned more about my own ego tion of an alcoholic’s ability to noticed, for example, that several ought to be able to drink again with than about the welfare of still- return to controlled drinking. It professionals in the alcoholism field safety and that some were doing so. practicing alcoholics. I closely iden- seems self-evident to us that we are have attacked the think tank’s In one report, there was also a veiled tified myself with AA, and I right-all our experience shouts it- report, so it is being properly criticism of AA and a hint that the sometimes obtained approval and but we have to let the facts speak for challenged by knowledgeable and insistence on total abstinence as a respect by informing others that I themselves. Even if our belief prov- experienced people. This is the way condition for recovery might pre- was an AA member. I wanted peo- ed right in the long run, we would be new ideas and theories are tested vent some people from receiving ple to praise AA as the most effec- wrong as individuals and as a soci- and publicized among profeshelp. tive force in the field of alcoholism. ety if we became involved in angry sionals, and I’m all for it when it What effect did these pro- I felt cheated and hurt by any accusations and bitter denuncia- moves along in a spirit of friendly nouncements have on me? Well, it’s criticism of AA, because it was also tions. debate. That friendly spirit comes right there in the quotation on the a criticism of a way of life in which I For that matter, it is not surpris- hard for us, as recovered alcoholics, Twelfth Concept: My friend’s state- had a major investment. ing that controversy has developed and I suppose that’s why Bill W. ment and the doctors’ reports made But this, I had to admit, was about patterns of recovery for the urged AAs to avoid public conme angry, hostile, rebellious, and simply an echo of my drinking alcoholic, and I am no longer upset troversy. aggressive. I was so mad at my behavior: seeking the approval of by it. I now see this as a healthy sign There will always be controversies friend that I didn’t even attempt to others or bolstering my own self- that research and study on and rumors of controversies. After answer his (I thought) appallingly esteem by association with a cause alcoholism are continuing to grow. all, if engineers can’t even agree as stupid declaration. As for the ex- or group. It was unrealistic then to In every professional field, there are to why an airplane flies, why perts in Cincinnati and England, I expect universal approval, and it is controversies and conflicting opin- shouldn’t there be disputes about decided sorrowfully that they would the same in sobriety. No matter how ions. It is hard to believe, but a re- the nature and treatment of alcohave the destruction of thousands of well we AAs d o our job or how con- cent Wall Street Journal story holism? alcoholics to answer for when they scientiously we follow our program, pointed out, only partly tongue-in- M. D. B., Toledo, Ohio

AA GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1977

He found that Tradition Seven applied not only to his group bur to himself

– Be Free Pay Your Own Way

D ESPITE DECADES of clever trying, scientists of the mind have not yet been able to isolate the other creditors, plus the Internal Revenue Service, could all attest to my tendency to spend money on mistreated by fate while scrounging for hamburgers the next week. I even enjoyed perversely putting into One of my groups used to meet in a lovely church-owned building virtually rent-free, thus binding itself typical alcoholic personality. I think booze instead of on food, clothing, the AA collection basket a preinfla- in debt to the landlord and ceding to it is the pink elephant of psy- shelter, and other necessities. When tion dollar (most folks gave a the ecclesiastical property owner ‘a chologists. temporarily sober, I resented giving quarter), even though it meant hav- certain authority to order the group Nevertheless, the litter left behind my hard-earned cash to department ing to walk home, sullenly, in secret around. More than once, we turned by researchers contains stacks of stores, grocers, the auto finance – no carfare. up for our meeting only to find a useful findings. I mean those long company, and others with whom I I didn’t put this into words, ex- note: “Use the basement tonight. lists of psychological traits and had negotiated valid debts in good cept to damn our economic system. We need the nice room for bingo.” problems thousands of us share. faith. Beneath that angry grudging, Pecuniary self-reliance seemed to We could not even retrieve our The characteristic I’m focused on I felt that on some far-off, happy me laudable theoretically, but un- coffeepot or literature for the night. today is a tendency to be too depen- tomorrow those things should all be fair when it was actually expected of During a bitter blizzard, the note dent on other people, in unhealthy paid for me, somehow. me. Therefore, hostility toward read: “AA meeting canceled ways. That seems to me a personali- Monetary irresponsibility and the employers, loan companies, richer Christmas Eve.” Since beggars ty problem attacked by our Seventh sour attitude it engenders did not people, and hockshops, plus a float- can’t be choosers, we had no Tradition: “Every AA group ought evaporate instantly when I sobered ing, stubborn soreheadedness recourse. Recipients of charity never to be fully self-supporting, declining up. Years after my last drink, I toward the world, colored far too do. There was no stable we could outside contributions.” found myself spending all of Fri- many of my first sober days. find room in. A glimpse at my own financial day’s paycheck for new neckties on I am thus forced to conclude that, Another group met in a large behavior while I was drinking Saturday, then feeling vaguely teed just as debt is no good for AA residence for elderly, homeless men. reveals a pattern of not only accept- off at the rest of the world because I groups, it is also no good for me. It The facility provided our coffee and ing outside contributions, but also was broke until next payday. Or I hatches resentments. doughnuts (served.by a surly, tipsy soliciting them. My family, friendly would grandly entertain an old That each AA group should be orderly), our AA pamphlets, and loan companies, real friends (and friend with dinner at a lavish financially self-sufficient is beyond janitor service. Once a year, the some strangers), paymasters, banks, restaurant and expensive theater question, in my judgment. Personal chaplain “in charge of AA,” who landlords, utility companies, and tickets I could not afford, then feel experience in groups proves that. had named himself the group’s GSR

(general service representative), got their own weight, beholden to the was expected to get his body to the me by someone-anyone-as if I a check from the residence bursar charitable impulses of no institu- doctor’s office, transport a prescrip- were a child. and mailed it to the AA General Ser- tion, I believe they might have sur- tion to the druggist, dress the Our Seventh Tradition suggests vice Office as the group’s contribu- vived. Groups that d o find a way to wounds, and apply the medication. self-reliance as a cure for this tion. Almost no one in the group financial independence seem to He was angry that these chores were overdependence, or whatever you knew of this. Understandably, guys flourish, or at least they lack the not somehow done for him. want to call it. I need to act more attending these meetings rarely felt problems of being controlled by He found there are days when he maturely, accept my own responthey were participating AA non-AAs. Learning to be responsi- resents having to brush his own sibilities, and take care of myself in members, and very few stayed ble for ourselves and to pay our own teeth, make his bed, deliver clothes several elementary ways, including sober. They saw AA meetings as way helps overcome some of our old to the laundry, prepare meals for the financial. just an entertaining service provided alcoholic dependence and helpless- himself, and wait in an anteroom This has not been too bad, since through the largess of the institution ness, and the resentments that ac- for a job interview. I’ve started getting used to it. in hopes of'”reforming” them, ex- company them. The more of these he listed, the Remember how great it felt when actly like free movies, dances, u p I am grateful to a relatively new more I recognized my own dull, you first learned to tie your own lifting speeches, and a dull library. member for showing me that these smoldering resentments at having to shoes and button your own buttons? One large hospital permitted an problems carry over outside the do similar tasks. There are days To tell the truth, I’ve often found AA group to meet on the premises, money realm into other life matters, when I still begrudge the minutes the same childish satisfaction in AA provided we never distributed any and that being self-supporting in necessary to shave my silly face. I when I began coping with things for literature mentioning God o r ways besides the financial may help can hate having to change a type- myself. I felt very pleased when I medication. On the former, the ulti- overcome this alcoholic tendency of writer ribbon, or riding an hour to settled up my state income taxes, mate authority was one of their mine. get some carbon paper. I wish these and felt I deserved a treat in part-time chaplains. On pills, of My new friend, whom I call one things got done for me. I like to be reward-an expensive vacation for course, the hospital knew better. of my sponsors, lately had a mild driven in a car, to have supplies which I floated a bank loan. They finally canceled us out, natu- skin infection. He did not call his delivered, to be shaved by a barber, Oh, I’m tall enough for my age, rally; we were not keeping any of doctor, so it dragged on and on. to have someone type final, perfect all right-just not grown-up yet. I their tranquilized drunks sober. Then one day he realized something: manuscripts from my messy have growing hope, though. If those three groups had pulled H e was enraged at the idea that he scrawls, and to find meals served to B. L., Manhattan, N. Y .

AA GRAPEVINE, APRIL 1977

I Above the World’s Battles

A A has but one primary purpose. To indulge in public controversy is to threaten our unity and impede that purpose

I WAS INCREDULOUS. “YOU mean AA is not against drinking?” I asked the man who was twelfthnaughtiness.) The vigor and rancor of the POlitical battle to repeal Prohibition in the stance became more formally a leaned toward the other party, would part of our program when the Tra- have a perfect excuse for dodging ditions were adopted at our First AA: “If that lousy so-and-so is a stepping me. the United States has not disap- International Convention, in Cleve- sample of AA, then it’s not for me!” He laughed. “Of course not,” he peared yet. Any book or scientific land. The Tenth reads: “AA has no And the opponents could always said. “How could we be? We’re paper claiming people can drink opinion on outside issues; hence the crack, “What do you expect with a among the world’s most devoted safely still generates lots of hysteria AA name ought never be drawn into drunk in the Oval Office?” The anfans of booze and boozing. We’re pro and con. Many people in the public controversy.” onymity Traditions, Eleven and not Prohibitionists, you see-it’s world are opposed to all drinking. A few years ago, a national maga- Twelve, are involved here, too, of just that we’ve learned we ourselves Many others insist everyone should zine carried a piece about the possi- course. But to focus only on Ten: If can’t drink, for our health’s sake. drink, at least a little. If AA were bility of electing as U.S. president AA had endorsed either Carter or But we certainly don’t oppose other identified with either camp, look some recovered alcoholic. It quoted Ford in 1976, or had come out for folks’ drinking or take any moral how many enemies we’d have. All one expert as saying that if the per- either Trudeau or his opponent stand against alcohol itself.” the people who frown moralistically son had made a good recovery, she some year, the Fellowship itself What a relief! I had supposed the on drinking would attack us if they or he could be an extraordinarily might well have split apart, and cerpeople I would meet when I ap- thought we were of the “wet” camp, fine president-certainly better than tainly many alcoholics would have proached AA in 1945 would be tee- and the whole booze-and-its-acces- a secret drinker. been discouraged from affiliating totalers, opposed to anybody’s using sories empire would be out to get us That thrilled me: one of us in the with us. alcoholic beverages. Most non- if they thought we were trying to put White House! But wait-wouldn’t I can’t put it better than L. M. G. drinkers I had known frowned on them out of business. everybody not of that particular did in the October 1976 issue of that drinking as naughty, if not down- Thus, I found the “no public con- president’s party be opponents of splendid monthly journal Al-Anon right immoral. (Maybe one reason I troversy” posture already adopted that person? Where would that leave Family Groups Fbrum: “Can you started drinking was the appeal of by our Fellowship in 1945. In 1950, AA? Drunks who needed us, if they imagine what would happen to you

vine’s pages they are inappropriate. your approval in order to claim your or your own group if meetings were scientific debates, abortion, diets, Oh, of course, I know that in this is- help. devoted to writing to congressmen hair length, pornography, smoking, sue, as in every other, it says at the My old tendency to judge people or senators regarding pending legis- and especially alcohol and alcohol- bottom of page 1 that “Opinions ex- by their beliefs, political affiliations, lation or appropriations? Or if the ism discussions, such as the merits pressed herein are not to be attrib- or other irrelevant concerns has been group got involved in backing an is- of a driving-while-intoxicated pro- uted to Alcoholics Anonymous as a a constricting rigidity that must have sue that not all the members agreed gram, a clinic, a council on alcohol- whole.” But honestly now, do you deprived me of experience with lots with? Tradition Ten tells us that we ism, a rehab center, legislation, or bear that in mind as you read each of wonderful human beings. But need to provide an oasis of quiet for the way alcoholism funds are allo- page? I don’t. As someone else has when I carry Tradition Ten into all our members, focusing on our own cated. said, when I violate the spirit of one my affairs, it can be a liberating program and growth. Even when, as This really hits me as an AA in- of the Steps, I hurt mostly myself; force. In my political club, shared has sometimes happened in the past, dividual, I think. I must be careful but when I mess up on a Tradition, political concerns are all that count, [we are] attacked or maligned in the never to give any prospective mem- that can damage our whole beloved not views on wildlife or childhood press, we make no response. We let ber or n o n – U the impression that Fellowship. training. In church life, shared spirour works speak for us. Thus we are AA does take a stand on any of The Tenth Tradition also nour- itual values are what count, not sexfree to carry on the important busi- these outside matters. For example, ishes my sobriety, I think. It means ual life-style or choice of tomato ness of changing ourselves for the typing the last version of the manu- that my personal religious or politi- juice brand. And in the whole world, better, and carrying the message to script for this piece, I have just elim- cal beliefs do not count in AA – nothing about any other people those who still suffer.” inated two paragraphs that would which zaps my egotism just where it should matter much to me except the Besides political issues, we also have violated our Tenth Tradition is swollen. No matter how vicious humanity that we all share, should need to stay out of religion and other by using the Grapevine pages for a my bigotries, how wide my igno- it? matters over which people differ thinly veiled, sarcastic, would-be- rance, or how silly my opinions are I wonder what the world would be strongly. If we want to help all alco- humorous attack on certain people on outside issues, I remain as wel- like if everybody had a Tenth Trahojics who reach out for our help, and organizations. As a private indi- come as anyone else in AA. You do dition to live by. we can take no sides on equal rights, vidual, I have a right to express such not require me to pass a test or merit B. L., Manhattan, N. Y. educational systems, medical and views, of course. But in the Grape-

A p r i l 1977

From the April 1977 Grapevine

the mystical characteristic of whatever it is supposed to represent. Ritual tends to institutionalize us, to

My Way @IT YOUITS,? 1 divert us from the true purpose of an AA meeting. Nothing should be done to muddy the clear waters of our purpose – to help one another maintain sobriety and to carry the message to the still-suffering alcoholic. The most telling antiritualist argument, it seems to me, is that ritual presupposes shared assumptions, such as religious views. It forces people by ‘ sheer social pressure into seeming to accept the points of view on which Astonished, I recovered to the reali- those ceremonies depend. Ritual is zation that I was being welcomed, an invasion. midwestern style. The imposition of the Lord’s Prayer Bqth of these incidents represented on a meeting, for example, assumes \ AA group behavior with which per- that I am a practicing Christian. I he meeting was ending, and the in& at my side! His massive, hairy sonally was unfamiliar. Where I come may be a devout believer in and comsecretary spoke those familiar paw slid down my arm and grasped from, we don’t hold hands and we municant with my Higher Power, a words, “Now if all those who would my hand! My hand! He wanted to don’t holler enthusiastic greetings. great respecter of Christian sects, but care to join me in the Lord’s Prayer hold hands during the Lord’s Prayer! This is nothing to get excited about not necessarily convinced of the effiwould please rise,” and I rose with Strange city, indeed! What kind of a unless we start calling the other cacy of frequent and joint repetition the group in anticipation of easing meeting was this, anyway? group’s ways by an emotion-laden of certain words. into the comfortable rhythms of the I glared at my neighbor, but then 4 name – ritual. Some groups have Therefore, no group has the right Gospel According to Matthew, King noticed that the lady to my left had established, prescribed methods of to impose these beliefs by force of James Version. grabbed my other hand and I had be- opening, handling, and closing meet- group pressure. Let’s keep AA simple I reflected that even in this strange come a link in a human chain extend- ings that involve prayers and precise and straight, say the antiritualists, city, things were the same as in my ing around the room. responses. Each meeting is always and not mix it up with a lot of other home group so far away. Even here, I A few weeks later, I was asked t o handled this way, and many newcom- people’s outside ideas. If too much could recite some of the most beauti- lead a meeting in another city. As is ers no doubt believe these procedures attention is paid to ritual, AA meet- . ful words ever written in English while the custom I learned in my home are dictated from somewhere On High ings could in time become religious thinking simultaneously about the group, I began by saying, “Good eve- and meetings are not official without ceremonies. lubrication and oil change I had bet- ning. My name is Chuck and I am an them. Like it or not, that’s ritual. Nonsense, reply the ritualists. Ritual ter get in the morning for my car. alcoholic.” Antiritualists argue that rigid cere- is a mere bridge of understanding Suddenly, I felt the hand of the “Hi, Chuck!” thundered the en- monies have no place in AA. Ritual that helps us get together. A ritual is burly giant of a man next to me, grop- tire room in a loud, ragged chorus. , tends to grow, they say, and to as- simply whatever we do that has mean-

ing beyond its literal self; it is short- fot anything, scared. “Ritual” is hand for a more complex expression. what other meetings indulge in, and it Ritual smooths over the rough spots will probably always be this way. in human communication; much of Anything I was told during those 1 our daily life is filled with ritual. A first days was okay. I was quite ready handshake is a ritual that was orig- to attribute magical powers to any inally a means of making sure an ritual anybody wanted to impose on ‘ enemy was literally unarmed and me, because I could see that it was ready to palaver. working. You folks want to clap hands An AA meeting does not close its three times? Fine. How about four? doors to the world when the meethg Any method of handling a meeting opens. We seek reality, not escape other than what I knew to be effective from it. The little rituals of daily life was vaguely aberrant behavior, to be follow us into the meeting room; the tolerated but not embraced, like a generally accepted standards of be- distant cousin with pimples. havior and methods of communica- A few months after settling into my tion prevail, as they would in the new group with its beautiful bright Rotary Club. fluorescent overhead lights, shin- An AA meeting is unique, but not ing bare tables, foam cups, day-old that unique. It is still people who live doughnuts, and white knuckles, I atin a community getting together and tended a meeting in an adjacent comtalking. Just as the U.S. Supreme munity where the economic level was Court affirmed that communities generally higher. may determine what is obscene ac- Candelabra, with a ,ceremony to cording to local standards, so do AA accompany the lowering of lights groups determine what is fitting for and the lighting of candles. Hors them according to local standards. d’oeuvres. Crystal. China. I fled in If people in a group are comfort- terror, back to the known, the faable with the cultural influences of miliar, where the real AA was, where the immediate countryside, why not? it works. , Maybe it helps them stay sober, which That entire meeting had become is what we are talking about – not ritual to me. Today, I have learned making a big thing over form. Finally that there’s nothing to be afraid of (and this is the clincher), our Tradi- in others’ rituals. Group custom is tions clearly state that each AA group harmless as long as it is understood as is autonomous, and there’s nothing such. To each his own. anybody can d o about it anyway. The key, of course, is simplicity, To this AA, it’s perfectly obvious The best way is to open the meeting that “standard” AA meeting proce- with a moment of silence followed by dure is what I encountered when I the Serenity Prayer. . . I came into AA, impressionable, ready C. H., Fairfeld, Conn.

A A GRAPEVINE, MAY 1977

Attraction vs. Promotion Ourjob is to make the AA way of life so highly attractive that others will want it bers’ knowing who I really was. away someone’s name. H AVE YOU ever thought where you might be if we did not have ahonymGy? I’m sure 1 would anonymity as a basic ingredient. And yet it seems essential and obvious, doesn’t it? Consciousness of my responsibility to live up to that promise of con- None of this keeps me from telling people about my own membership in AA, of course. Indeed, have succumbed to alcoholism long The idea first influenced me, I fidentiality occasionally jolts mebut more, I’m afraid, when other revealing that fact repeatedly about ago. So I consider our Eleventh think, in 1942, three years before I ourselves seems to me a basic part of Tradition, like all the others, not approached AA, when I read in a members break the promise than when I do. I am sharply uncom- our recovery program. How can I only an indispensable protector of Texas newspaper a story about that take Steps Five, Nine, and Twelve my sobriety, but also an assignment weird bunch of drunks. It gave no fortable when you mention the last name of an AA member not familiar without revealing the facts about my I need to fulfill daily. It reads: names and said the members of the own alcoholism and membership in “Our public relations policy is local group practiced complete con- to me. For all you know, that person may be an old acquaintance of AA? based on attraction rather than fidentiality and never used, even When I have resisted doing so, it promotion; we need always main- if they knew, one another’s last mine who does not want me to find tain personal anonymity at the level out she or he is in AA. Of course, seems to me not so much a matter names. of fearing the stigma still associated of press, radio, and films.” (We’ve Still not ready to sober up, I I’ve done it, too, to my shame. I seem to enjoy perversely revealing by ignorant people with alcoholism; interpreted that to include television, nevertheless remembered that AA it is rather the fear of becoming too.) was a safe place to go-no one would to other members that Jane or Bob is in AA. vulnerable, of putting into the hands All of us who have joined AA know. Like some other alcoholics, of others truths about myself. And since 1950 simply inherited this I imagined that my name and identity Maybe one of the finest things Dr. Bob said was “Let us also yet, didn’t everyone who twelfthanonymity Tradition as part of our were important to the whole city! stepped us make themselves vulner- Second Legacy, of course. We were A few years later, ripe for AA, I remember to guard that erring member the tongue, and if we must use able to us? And doesn’t admission just handed it, free, and many- recalled that promise of privacy it, let’s use it with kindness and con- of vulnerability, as in the First Step, maybe most-of us have never had (still implicit in our Fellowship’s invariably take a load off my back ta think it out at all. If a number name) and felt I could sneak into sideration and tolerance.” Gossip about one another is perhaps a more and give me new, free strength? of us sat down to figure out a plan AA without anyone’s knowing it It is our own vulnerability that makes for recovery from alcoholism, I and, probably more important to harmful violation of this Tradition (of its spirit, at least) than giving us able to help alcoholics in a unique doubt that we would think to add my sick ego then, without AA mem-

way, isn’t it? that ,impulse needs curbing and It is the vanity-versus-humility rewards are things an alcoholic can I was astonished when the first examining. aspect of this Tradition that now find elsewhere. Many agencies do a members I met told me their full Very few of us are ever faced with means most to me and requires the better job than AA can in pronames, even pressed on me their the question of whether or not to most constant attention. When I viding various services an alcoholic addresses and telephone numbers. tell publicly, on TV or in a pub- think of “attraction rather than pro- needs. My primary responsibility, I ! must have looked shocked, be- lished interview, that we are recov- motion,” I remind myself that 1 am then, when I identify myself as an cause one of them said, “You may ered alcoholics. Celebrities some- supposed to make the AA way of AA member, is to be sure that I make be surprised that we tell you our times have to figure that one out, life highly attractive, not give it the the AA way of life so highly attracfull names. But you see, we feel of course, as do AA members who old hard sell or any high-powered tive that someone wants it. alcoholism is a disease, not a dis- work in the field of alcoholism promotion. It seems to me I was searching grace, and we need not be ashamed and make public appearances from This does not come naturally for thirty-two years ago for a quality to be recovering from it.” time to time. me. I am a promoter and proselytizer. of spirituality in my life that fer- That lit up my fearful brain like That is where I first met that Sometimes, I hear myself talking to mented and distilled spirits did not sheet lightning. Of course! We question. Running a program on a newcomer and sounding like a provide. Essentially, that is what you know, although most people don’t, alcoholism, I had to do a lot of door-to-door salesman. Or I dis- have given me, and surely that is the that our trouble is just a disease, public speaking, radio and TV shows, cover that I’m trying to bribe some- most valuable thing 1 can share with quite as respectable as tuberculosis, and occasionally newspaper inter- body into recovery-offering a room the next drunk who walks in the heart disease, cancer, or whatever. views. I soon learned that it was not for the night, a meal, or some prom- door. It’s tough, but I become in- Why hesitate to tell about it? always a good idea to talk about ise of future happiness and fun that creasingly convinced that is what And so, as a brand-new AA, I my own alcoholism, since that took no one could keep. our Eleventh Tradition tells me to found a way to drag it into every the focus off the facts about the Mv fanaticism is never attractive. do. Or at least, try to do.

Y conversation. I was teaching the disease I was trying to publicize. ~nd~lod g, ~ ‘ board, and other such B. L., Manhattan, N.Y. poor ignorant civilians what I knew But in certain instances, it seemed to and they didn’t. I felt quite smug have an impact nothing else had. In about it. those cases, I was careful not to Eventually, however, that impulse mention my membership in AA, allessened. It hadn’t really done much though I said yes, I was a recovered good to lecture those ignoramuses alcoholic. When asked how I had reanyhow, I learned. Mostly, I was covered, I did not want to lie, so I congratulating myself on my own learned to say that I had had the superior knowledge. help of many, many good doctors, So I had to rethink the matter, clergymen, and friends. I declined and I came to this conclusion: It isn’t to be more specific, saying I would so much whether or not I tell about gladly answer questions face-to-face myself, or whom I tell, or when, as with an individual, but that this it is a matter of why I do so. If interview was not about me-it was I do so to enrich my own recovery, about alcoholism. fine. Or if I do so to try to help Such revelations, I hoped, helped someone else, that’s acceptable, too. chip away at the old stigma borne But when I want to reveal my AA by our illness, without giving me an membership for egotistical reasons, ego trip.

AA GRAPEVINE, JUNE 19

Honest Perspective Tradition Twelve reminds us that our principles come first. They reflect eternal spiritual values

A DANGEROUS THOUGHT invades my mind at times: “Because 1 am an AA member, I am a superior standing it are two Grapevine articles, “Anonymity-Keeping Complicated” (August 1976) and It find something quite ludicrous in the spectacle of an adult male, supposedly rational, running as hard as are not our own invention. They reflect eternal spiritual values.” Read the whole pamphlet for person and deserve special favors. ” “Let the Bum Find Us” (October he can, panting after some kind of yourself again. You’ll probably get I When I spot such thinking in my- 1976), and that wonderful leaflet prominent status or prestige-in, of much more out of that than from self now, it raises for me the flag of from GSO, “Understanding Ano- all things, a society of drunks. I had this piece. our Twelfth Tradition: “Anonymity nymity.” companions in those sprints, so I At the moment, I seem able to is the spiritual foundation of all our But Twelve, chipping away at my was not the onlv AA sometimes will- focus on only one facet, or maybe Traditions, ever reminding us to drive to be special, seems to be ing to go to almost ridiculous just a sidelight, of this Tradition. It place principles before personalities.” about humility. (When that word lengths to be an alcoholic of distinc- had not occurred to me until recent- It confuses me that the word bothered me, 1 learned to substitute tion! ly and maybe it is peculiarly per- “anonymity” is used in both the “teachableness,” and lately I’ve You can see why I need for my sonal; but like my story of drunken- Eleventh and the Twelfth and yet liked hearing humility defined as recovery so many of the lessons of ness, it is the only one 1 can offer’as means something a little different in “honest perspective.”) Tradition personal humility underlying all our of today. each, as far as I can figure out. Twelve says, among other things, Traditions. They are summed up In my first weeks in AA, I ex- Eleven, it seems to me, is about that I should not use my AA beautifully in our pamphlet “The pected extraordinary kindness and confidentiality, about reasons for membership as a way of “pulling Twelve Traditions Illustrated,” and complete forgiveness for my past and ways of revealing my identity as rank” to wangle things out of peo- I cannot put them half so well. For behavior, as if they were my unquesan AA member, and about my ple. I have often missed that lesson, example, toward the end of the tioned due simply for going to AA. responsibility to make AA life look and in retrospect most of the in- discussion of Tradition Twelve, it “l’ve been sick,” 1 can hear myself attractive. It frees us to d o the best stances arouse my chagrin, not says: “As Tradition Twelve reminds mentally whining. I thought my we can to inform the public about amusement. us, we have something stronger than family should really treat me like a our program, not about ourselves. Come to think of it, looking back our human personalities to rely on. star, eradicating from their minds Enormously helpful to me in under- on thirty-two years of AA activity, I Our principles come first-and they all memory of the anguish I had

caused them. I felt noble and tried pected a furniture store owner to to get everyone, in AA or not, to give us special rates for chairs for a see that I was and to pay tribute clubroom, and a grocer to sell us accordingly, simply because I had refreshments at a big discount. “turned myself in.” I wanted per- After all, we were handicapped and sonal credit. I did not see it was were always performing such AA’s principles that deserved credit, selfless miracles of kindness. I not I. remember once trying to use my AA I’ve pretty much forgiven myself membership to get out of paying a for that. It was the best I could do at fine for a parking offense. Those the time. Anyhow, it made it easier tricks must have left some non-AAs fdr me to forgive myself and en- with very sour impressions of our couraged me to keep trying to Fellowship. And they did not leave recover. It kept me from hating me feeling proud, either, just myself too much, for a change. frustrated and resentful that “they” Subsequent behavior of that sort don’t understand us. Poor us. is not so easy to excuse. For exam- It seems to me the Twelfth Tradiple, I recall once going to our tion is saying I should learn to treat group’s landlord, a clergyman, with everyone, in AA or not, with the attitude that “because we are so respect, courtesy, and compassion, selfless and dedicated in our good and never try to take advantage of work of helping sick alcoholics, you my AA membership. might overlook our late rent Repeatedly, I feel the Traditions payments and leaving the meeting are saying to me, “Who do you room a mess.” I thought we should think you are, anyhow?” By zeroing be excused from ordinary human in this way on my egotism and obligations simply because we were power drive, all the Traditions seem trying to do some good for ourselves designed to help me, personally, by staying sober and helping other stay sober. Again and again, I have people. (Millions of folks do both, seen other AA people demonstrate anyway, without ever needing to genuine humility. I owe to many join AA.) I tried to display my AA such AAs, both friends and opmembership like a personal badge ponents, gratitude for their exof honor instead of quietly trying amples. I can never repay you for to practice AA principles and letting saving my life, of course, but I can the result speak for itself. I showed try harder, at least today, to make it neither anonymity nor humility. worth saving. There were also times when I ex- B. L., Manhattan, N. Y.

June 1977

people are in the minority. When- she means. Even though her life was ever I become discouraged, I think sordid, her talk is still in good of one young man who came to his taste. She also says she’s been refirst AA meeting two or three years born, and it’s obviously true. Her ago. He made no attempt to hide story of the miracle wrought in her Beyond or gloss over the fact that he had been a thief and had served time in life through living the AA program is truly beautiful. That she is a real prison for his crimes. Today, he’s lady, there can be no doubt. Our Primary Purpose one of the most honest AA members I don’t care in the least what a I know. His very presence gladdens man or woman alcoholic has done my heart, for his is not only cash- in the past, but I do care if such past Our Preamble holds out the hope ofsomething register honesty, but honesty in every behavior continues after a number more than just a cork in the bottle facet of his h e . He’s even honest of years of sobriety. I’ve been told enough to say that he’s not always this attitude is intolerant. Maybe it honest! is. But if I’m to be honest, and I try I also think of a young woman to be, I cannot imagine myself ever A NYONE WHO has attended a few don’t know how they do i t and still AA meetings has heard the live with then~selves. AA Preamble, but do we all listen When 1 express this opinion, I who, in telling her story, says that during her drinking years she did anything to get a drink. She doesn’t being tolerant, as I understand the word, of dishonesty, malice, and promiscuity in those who have been to it? Do we listen when we hear often get the answer “Okay, so we go into unpleasant details. She sober AA members for many years. “Our primary purpose is to stay all know he’s dishonest or a phony doesn’t have to. We all know what B. B., Naples, Flu. sober .. .”? It does not say “to or promiscuous, but he’s sober. get sober” but “to stay sober.” And, And that’s what it’s all aboutin my opinion just as important, it sobriety.” states “our primary purpose.” 1 think there’s a great deal more Those who go by the book, as i than sobriety to be gained from the try to do, believe that every word is AA way of living. It goes without to be taken seriously, that every saying, of course, that sobriety is single verb, noun, or adjective was first. It’s understandable that the providentially inspired, and there- only concern of newcomers is their fore not one of them should be sobriety. That is the way it should , bypassed. It naturally follows, of be. However, after they’ve lost the course, that I don’t agree with those compulsion to drink, most of them who say, “The only reason I’m in begin to work the Steps. Watching AA is to stay sober.” the change in them is the most If sobriety was the only purpose inspiring experience of my life. of AA, 1 don’t think the word “pri- By the same token, the few who mary” would have been used. There stay sober for many years and either are AA members who stay physically cannot or will not try to correct sober for many years without going their character defects are the most any further in the program. I myself discouraging. Fortunately, such

July 1977

3. Chapter 10, page 147, says: “If you came to AA because of the efyour organization is a large one, forts of AA members alone, and Let’s see what the your junior executives might be pro- that no member of the “public” Big Book has to vided with this book.” Aren’t helped? Finally, now that you are in employers and junior executives AA, do you honestly think it is fair say about part of the public? How are we sup- that a drunk out there must wait for posed to get employers to read the you to come and twelfth-step him? Big Book if we don’t have public in- Or don’t you think public informa- Reaching the Public formation work to inform the employer in the first place? tion might help him to find us? I could go on and on, showing 4. Why were the chapters “To places in the Big Book, AA Comes Wives” and “To Employers” in- of Age, the “Twelve and Twelve,”

L ATELY, THERE HAS been much discussion about the pros and cons of AA public information and think that all PI work should be stopped. I am sure all of us would benefit by answering the following: cluded in the Big Book, if they weren’t meant to be used for public information? and articles by Bill W. in the Grapevine to affirm that not only do we need public information, but much difference of opinion about 1. Chapter 7, page 89, of the Big 5. If the Big Book itself is not in- the founders of AA expected us to where attraction ends and promo- Book says: “Perhaps you are not tended for public information, why help the still-suffering alcoholic by tion begins. acquainted with any drinkers who did the writers recommend that we letting the public know that we exist I definitely agree that our public want to recover. You can easily find show it to all these people and let and that they should send him to us. relations policy should be based on some by asking a few doctors, them read it? If you’re still opposed to AA’s attraction rather than promotion, ministers, priests or hospitals.” 6. Since the Big Book asks us to doing public information work, ask but sometimes, when people say Aren’t doctors, ministers, priests, encourage all these non-AAs to read yourself why. Are you making exthat public information efforts and hospital staffs part of the the Big Book, aren’t the chapters cuses for not supporting PI work? violate the Traditions, I suspect that public? How are we supposed to get “TO Wives” and “To Employers,” And are your excuses good enough they are in reality using the Tradi- such people to cooperate with us if and thus the Big Book itself, pro- to keep you from getting drunk, as tions as a salve on their consciences, we don’t tell them what AA is? moting AA according to one way of you surely will if our Fellowship dies to soothe their guilt over not getting Would you help if you didn’t even thinking? If the public wasn’t sup- because we didn’t carry the message ipvolved. know what AA was? posed to be informed about AA, to the public? While it is true that some local PI 2. Chapter 8, page 104, says: “We why did the early AAs finish the “Our primary purpose is to stay efforts may seem to promote AA, I want the wives of Alcoholics foreword to the first edition of the sober and help other alcoholics to think that most criticism of PI work Anonymous to address the wives of Big Book with the sentence “In- achieve sobriety.” “Each group has is unjustified. I have heard this men who drink too much. What quiry by scientific, medical, and but one primary purpose-to carry , criticism in its mildest form they say will apply to nearly r e l i g i o u s s o c i e t i e s will b e its message to the alcoholic who still , (arguments over semantic everyone bound by ties of blood or welcomed”? suffers.” “Our public relations technicalities) all the way up to the affection to an alcoholic.” Aren’t 7. Should we rewrite the Big Book policy is based on attraction rather belief that anything other than in- wives, husbands, and relatives part and leave out those chapters and than promotion . . .” We can draw dividual Twelfth Step work is pro- of the public? How are we supposed that last sentence? Do you honestly the line between attraction and promotion and should be stopped. to reach the families of alcoholics if believe that all the drunks who have motion, but we can’t expect the suf- These differences of opinion are we don’t have public information to been helped by AA would have been fering alcoholic to find us if we probably valuable, but I would like tell them who, what, and where we helped if AA had been a secret don’t tell him where we are! to ask some questions of those who are? society? Can you honestly say that R. G., Fort Knox, Ky.

September 1977′

The Traditions Are for Me They have one ultimate objectiveto support and protect the individual member

M ANY 01 US slide over the Twelve Traditions, believing they are concerned only with “orand ideas, always trying to remind myself not to seek personal credit for what I do, nor to feel I deserve it. But ganization.” Yet when we take a as an individual, I am entitled to hold closer look, we see the Traditions any opinions that seem right to me, have one ultimate objective-the and to defend them in appropriate welfare of the individual member, places. Also, I have the right to be through AA as a whole. For me, they wrong. are the foundation on which I work I try to put “First Things First” the Steps, additional tools that help and to take whatever time is needed me practice the principles of the to keep the primary purposeprima~. program in all my affairs. 1 remind myself I am one of many I try to put the common welfare trusted servants, with no special first. Even wheq I heartily disagree, talent or training beyond my desire I’m willing to yield and put my faith, to serve and be responsible to those not only in my Higher Power, but in I serve. group unity and the group conscience. Our Fellowship is a society of I try to remind myself frequently equals. This disease strikes the famous that nothing is really good, especially as well as the obscure, black and for me, unless others are considered. white, rich and poor, ignorant and I try to remember that the principles educated, female and male, young of the Traditions and the Steps are and old. To me, the Twelve Trathe important thing. not the indi- ditions keep us all united. Therefore, vidual expressing them. they must be spiritual rather than I try to be prudent and not to pro- organizational. mote even my most cherished beliefs M. S., Ballimore, Md.

A 13-page section in whichfive individuals express their opinions on issue of moment in AA

Our Primary Purpose and the Special-Purpose Group by John L. Norris, MD

chairman of the I N RECENT YEARS, no subject seems to have been discussed more often, in more detail, for longer interested individuals, but we have been hesitant to consider as groups those that might seem to exclude any to understand how they came about. In the early days of the Fellowship, before AA was well known and when AA General Service hours, and with more heat than the alcoholic, for whatever reason. its membership was made up largely Board question of special-purpose groups. Many members feel that no AA of male alcoholics, many women felt Both the advocates and the adversa- group is special and, therefore, that very timid about attending such ries of special-purpose groups hold no group should be labeled as such groups, and their husbands felt even very strong opinions on the subject, or even give the impression that it is more strongly about having them and those of us who have tried to “special.” However, the fact is that attend. The solution seemed to be occupy the middle ground can see the such groups do exist-in the United daytime meetings made up of women, logic on both sides. States and Canada, at least. There and many of these began to spring Our Third Tradition says, “The are women’s groups, stag groups, up all over our country. Beyond any only requirement for AA member- young people’s groups, and groups doubt, they served (and probably ship is a desire to stop drinking.” In for priests, doctors, lawyers, and still do serve) a very useful purpose, general, we have inclined to this view: homosexual or gay members. These and many of the women who started When other requirements are added groups feel that the “labels” serve in these groups went on to become that might seem to exclude some the purpose of attraction (double extremely active members of regular, alcoholics, these should be considered identification) and are not intended mixed groups of alcoholics. AA meetings and not AA groups. to imply exclusion of other alcoholics. The adversaries Of the special-pur- We have never discouraged AAs from Probably the earliest of the so- pose group would say that this is an forming special-purpose meetings of called special-purpose groups were instance where the good became the any or all kinds to meet the needs of women’s groups, and it is very easy enemy of the best, to u$e co-founder

Bill W.’s phrase. Once AA had ac- I mentioned earlier that we have primary activity of each AA group Group” were held and went into overcepted one kind of special-purpose never discouraged special-purpose and the most common way of carry- time, because of lengthy discussion group, it became difficult, if not meetings but have been hesitant to ing the message to newcomers and on the subject of special-purpose almost impossible, not to accept list as groups those that might seem to other members who want to main- groups. By request of this Conferothers. to preclude other alcoholics’ attend- tain recovery. When we make a dis- ence, the subject was scheduled for We have no difficulty in under- ing. Perhaps we might talk a little bit tinction between AA groups and full-scale discussion at the 1974 Constanding the kind of communication about the differences between an AA AA meetings, we are emphasizing a ference. The time allotted for it again and understanding that can exist meeting and an AA group. Our di- concept rather than the format of proved to be insufficient and a special among groups of people who share rectories state: “Traditionally, two what actually happens when AAs get session-lasting four hours-was other interests in addition to their or more alcoholics meeting together together. We think of an AA group called. The final action’was that the alcoholism. It has always been hoped for purposes of sobriety may consider as something that continues to exist AA General Service Office should that doctors, priests, policemen, themselves an AA group, provided even when there is no meeting taking list all groups in accordance with the young people, women, etc. who meet that, as a group, they are self-sup- place, because a group does many definition of an AA group listed on together in special groups will also porting and have no outside affilia- other things besides hold meetings. page 2 of all our directories. participate in the activities of regular, tion.” And in the beginning of our On the other hand, special-purpose In the final analysis, perhaps, mixed AA groups. We live in a world Fellowship in countries outside the meetings, which take care of the what we are really dealing with in made up of all kinds of people, who United States and Canada, we agreed needs of interested individuals, are special-purpose groups is commufunction in a variety of professions, on six points that describe what an usually informal gatherings with no nication among AA members and and it is in this world that we have to AA group is. They are: particular structure. how to improve it so that we can do a function as individuals. If AA is a “(1) All members of a group are At the 1973 General Service Con- better job of carrying the AA message preparation and support for normal alcoholics, and all alcoholics are ference, workshops on “The AA to alcoholics of all kinds. living, then it would seem that the eligible for membership. (2) As a most meaningful AA activity would group, they are fully self-supporting. AA GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1977 occur in groups made up of all kinds (3) A group’s primary purpose is to Special Groups of people who follow all kinds of help alcoholics recover through the professions. Twelve Steps. (4) As a group, they The proliferation of so many kinds have no outside affiliation. (5) As a ‘1 Want to Belong9 of special groups has been a matter group, they have no opinion on outof concern, and we sometimes won- side issues. (6) As a group, their pubder where this will end. Will we soon lic relations policy is based on attracbe having Catholic groups, Protestant tion rather than promotion, and they I AM SITTING at my group’s Thursday-night speaker meeting with about 200 other sober AAs, laughind groups, Jewish groups, atheist maintain personal anonymity at the and forgetting myself. I hear the groups, agnostic groups, groups level of press, radio-TV, and film.” speaker remind me what it was like, made up of members of one po- In addition, an AA group holds what happened, and how it is now. litical party or another? Certainly, regularly scheduled meetings and has In the nearly seven years since I had we hope not, and we don’t anticipate at least an informal structure with my last drink, I have learned how t o any such thing. However, we do feel several “trusted servants” who serve belong and how to feel a part of that we should be aware of a possible in rotation, and who look after the something bigger than I am, sometrend and perhaps bend every effort meeting room, Twelfth Step calls, thing decent and worthwhile. to encourage our similarities and not literature, program, and refreshments. All of a sudden, in the middle of our particularities. Without a doubt, meetings are the a string of bright, humorous asides,

the speaker gets an easy laugh telling love with the love that AA taught me. “but I for one don’t think it’s a bit understand it. It is what I continue about some “fag” or “queer” from When they started a gay AA group funny. I wonder what would have to struggle for, and to be hurt for. his past. It hits me like cold water. I in our area, the announcement drew happened to me if people had laughed I believe in this promise. am always a little shocked to hear my laughter, usually started by one per- at me at my first meeting.” Sometimes, when they start with people laughing, because I am one son, and one night the meeting was I was grateful to him that night for the queer jokes, I want to jump up of those “queers” they’re laugh- turned almost into a circus with the his courage and told him so. So did and yell out, “I am one of those ing at. hilarity that ensued. Interestingly several others. Who better than sober queers you all think are so funny. Once again, I feel put out of the enough, that night three new people AAs should understand the pain of Does anybody here know me? Does meeting. I again remember what 1 had stood up to say that this was exclusion? When are we going to anybody care that that word goes had forgotten: that 1 do not belong their first meeting. What an impres- grow up in AA? through me like a knife?” But I as much as 1 would like to think. I sion they got of AA! I did not join that gay group, part- don’t. True, my laughter is interget over it, of course. 1 tell myself Thank God, the first speaker took ly from fear of being “found out,” rupted a little. But after the meeting, that, after all, habits are hard to five preliminary minutes to say some- but also because I did not come here I join my fellows in the silent conbreak. And then, not everybody thing about it before he told his story. to stay apart. 1 want to belong to all spiracy against myself and try to get laughed. Still, I am afraid to look to “I suppose we all had a good laugh of AA and the whole human race. back the feeling that I belong. see who did. It might be somebody I at that announcement,” he began, This is the promise of sobriety as I J. N., Massachusetts

A A GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1977 Special Groups

Exclusive- or M o r e Inclusive? s PECIAL-PURPOSE groups, or groups formed by specific types of people, are not new on the AA scene. All-male or all-female groups sprung up, mostly in large metropoli- many over that age who have been tan areas, and we d o hear much ad- sneaking in regularly); and the verse comment about them. Although homosexual group, which may somethe members of these groups claim times be further restricted to only have flourished in many places for that they need to talk about things male or only female homosexuals. years without incurring too much not easily discussed in regular AA When I discussed the purpose of criticism within the Fellowship. 1 meetings, this contention is not ac- such groups with people who attend Many people go along with the idea cepted as graciously as it was when each or all of these types-and there that things some alcoholics want to made by members of all-male or all- is much cross attendance-they extalk about can be aired more honestly ! female groups. pressed a definite belief that they among members of their own sex. The special-purpose groups 1 refer could not be entirely open about Others may not think this is impor- to are of three types: the professional themselves in most regular AA tant for themselves, but they are not group, comprising doctors, lawyers, groups, and that they must have a generally inclined to question the clergymen, college professors, and forum in AA where they can be ensincerity of purpose of those who do other persons the group accepts as tirely open and as comfortable ds think it important. “professionals”; the young people’s possible. Homosexuals believe that In the last few years, other kinds group, usually restricted to alcoholics their sexual orientation and the speof special-purpose groups have under thirty-five (although I know cifics of their emotional relationships

loath to have their illegal involve- leave in the meeting place what they primarily to their alcoholism and less ment with drugs too widely aired. hear at the meeting when it is some- to attendant or secondary problems. Members of special-purpose thing they consider sensational, They must learn that their ultimatt groups are certain that many of their despite our tradition of anonymity. objective is to lead sober, meaningkind would never be able to get These are problems to be worked out ful lives in the world, not huddled themselves to AA if they had to enter by the group conscience of the reg- among their “own kind.” through a regular group. ular AA groups. The topic in every special-purpose Whether or not we agree with all But the special-purpose groups meeting should be recovery, first and) this thinking, the point is that many have their problems, too. Fortu- foremost, and members should be alcoholics do believe in it. And they nately, their leaders are generally encouraged to attend and fully parbelieve in it seriously enough to form aware of this. They have an obliga- ticipate in regular meetings as well these special groups and make them tion to help one another identify as their own group’s. work. more widely and so become able to As all of us in the program move If our own prejudices or fears move comfortably into regular AA. closer in consciousness to the AA about any of these people dominate There is much for them to learn in ideal, the need for these special-pur. our thinking, or if we feel excluded regular meetings, and much for them pose groups will diminish. Until from meetings of such groups, we to contribute. At some point, they then, let’s wish them every success. would not be understood or accepted will never be able to accept their ex- should begin to address themselves K. S., Atlanta, Ga. in regular AA meetings. Young istence in the AA Fellowship with people are convinced that their life- equanimity. Our problem in that case AA GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1977 styles, including sexual attitudes and is a need to examine our own value Special Groups past involvement with drugs, are not systems, because our program tells understandable to older members. And professionals feel they get more us quite clearly that we cannot afford to live with intolerance or hatred. We But AA Will Survive understanding from those they con- must be able to place principles besider their peers, particularly in matters relating to their conduct in their professions while they were fore personalities if any comfortable understanding is to be achieved. In working out a comfortable atti- M Y SPONSOR is a big, raw-boned guy, whose vigor and enthusiastic efforts on behalf of AA belie Jim was silent for a while. I could sense that he was sorting out the issues, trying to get a handle on his active alcoholics. tude for myself, I had to recognize by a dozen or so years the calendar perspective. “It came up today. This Furthermore, there seems to be first that people do get sober and stay count of his age. business of special-purpose groups.” genuine concern about anonymity. sober in these groups. As far as I can “It seems,” he announced to me I had heard the phrase before, but People with professional standing in tell, there is no more or less slippage one evening as we drove to a meeting, I was not sure I knew what it meant. the ‘community, especially where li- in these groups than in any others. “that we’ve got a problem.” “How can there be special-purpose censing is involved, are fearful of Next, I had to own up to the fact that “Oh,” I replied. “We?” groups in AA?” I wanted to know. identifying themselves as alcoholics regular meetings, as a rule, are not “I mean AA,” he continued. “At “Tradition Five says that ‘each group or talking about their drinking esca- equipped to handle homosexual stor- least, the groups in this area.” has but one primary purpose-to pades in a regular AA group. Homo- ies and frequently discourage the I knew he was on the board of di- carry its message to the alcoholic who sexuals, on the whole, do not want discussion of addiction to drugs rectors for the central office, and it still suffers.’ ” to reveal themselves as such in pre- other than alcohol. I also had to had met that afternoon. “That’s the point!” Jim exploded. dominantly heterosexual groups. admit that most regular groups do “What kind of a problem?” I “They’re violating the Goddamned And many of the young people are include a lot of people who d o not asked. Traditions!”

I smiled to myself. It has always golden word. over an outside issue.” Jim lowered carry its message to the alcoholic who been confusing to me to hear AAs “What Traditions are being vio- his voice. “I do get emotional when still suffers.’ That’s all we can do. talk about God as their Higher Power lated?” I persisted. anything threatens AA. I owe my That’s it!” Jim gave one of his deep in one breath and then go on to sling “At least four. Number One, to life to the program and . . . Well, I chuckles. Talking it out had helped a string of God-salted oaths in an- begin with! ‘Our common welfare saw it all happen there today – an restore his natural optimism. other. In spite of his gruff, growly should come first; personal recovery ugly mess. One of the other secre- “Is that really all? I mean, don’t voice and large, athletic frame, Jim depends upon AA unity.’ ” taries in opposition to the first group we have to d o something – about was a bit of a softy at heart, especially I’m always impressed with mem- got up and publicly threatened to cut this other thing?” where Mwas concerned. bers who can give verbatim quotes off all funds to the central office if “Sure. Plenty. We can seek out the “Hey, hold on now,” I cautioned. from AA sources. Impressed, but the directory listing was approved. group conscience – find out what “We aren’t supposed to get emo- not always convinced. That’s hardly the AA way, either.” most of us want to d o – even take tional about these things. That’s “How is it being violated?” “Power politics,” I groaned. a vote on it.” what you’re always telling me.” “How!” he snorted. “Very simple. “AA can sure do without that!” “Right on,” I agreed. We were Jim’s voice softened. “You’re If it’s controversial, you’ve got AAs “Numbers One, Ten, Twelve, pulling into the parking lot. right. But . . . this thing. It could taking sides. The movement these and . . . oh, Five, of course. You “This ‘trouble’ I mentioned. It cause trouble. ” people want to promote is not an quoted that yourself. ‘Each group isn’t the first, and it won3 be the last. “Tell me about it,” 1 suggested. AA issue. If we sanction identifica- has but one primary purpose-to But – AA will survive.” He went over the facts briefly. A tion with their objectives, we’ll wind Anonymous, California group secretary had shown up with up with names like the Democratic a number of supporters to demand AA Group, the Rotary AA, the AA GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1977 recognition as a duly constituted en- Women’s Lib AA. We’d be opening Special Groups tity of AA in our area. The name they the floodgates! Tradition Ten dishad chosen identified the purposes tinctly says-” of an outside organization, and they ” ‘Alcoholics Anonymous has no were insistent about having it included opinion on outside issues,’ ” we in the area directory. “Well,” I said, “what’s wrong with that?” chorused. “I know,” I said. “I’ve even learned that one myself.” I FIRMLY BELIEVED what I heard when I came into AA. I was told that special-purpose groups did not we were fond of saying special groups did not work. But by an uncanny process, I had ended up in a group “It’s a controversial movement,” “You left out the important part,” work, that we talked about our drink- that fit me like a glove. It was made Jim snapped. “Can’t you see that?” Jim said. ” ‘Hence the AA name ing and all those “other” problems up of people exactly like me – at “Not to me,” 1 replied. “We’re ought never be drawn into public took care of themselves. I was told least, like what I had been; it did not supposed to ‘Live and Let Live,’ controversy.’ ” that AA was not a lonely-hearts club have a whole lot to d o with what 4 aren’t we?” I was beginning to see why Jim was and that if I had unique problems, wanted to become in sobriety. I was “Of course. But they’re trying to so agitated. “Go on. That’s two I should discuss them privately with certainly comfortable in the beginwe AA. We’ve got to protect the ‘Traditions, First and Tenth.” a sponsor. I was also told to find a ning. I did not realize it, but I had Traditions.” “Well, there’s Twelve, naturally. group where I was comfortable. joined a very special group indeed! I have a lot of respect for Jim. I ‘Anonymity is the spiritual founda- So 1 joined a group of people with Then came the multifaceted phe-i also know that none of us is ever tion of all our Traditions, ever re- mostly the same sort of job history, nomenon of liberation for any and all completely right all the time. Also, minding us to place principles before ethnic background, religious ties, and minority groups. (Is there anyone I’m not the kind of pigeon who thinks personalities.’ This afternoon, we color as mine. We all lived in the left who needs liberating?) AA always everything his sponsor says is the had two personality factions clashing same neighborhood. In this group, reflects society, so the process of

branching off into special groups of its own accord. Whatever the out. began to occur more frequently. come, I will adjust to it. There are, Some began demanding their own however, no boundaries in AA for AA literature or massive rewrites of me personally. We have human the existing literature. What to do? problems and differences, but this Was AA going to fragment and dif- Fellowship is still one big, lovable I fuse its energy and perhaps ignore reality for me. co-founder Bill W .’s warning and lose If I went to a meeting of polkasight of our primary purpose? Many dotted, three-legged, bug-eyed alpeople are still pondering this one- coholics, I would feel at home. 1 including me. would simply hope there was another I am more interested in this idea meeting she attends once weekly is told the minister that he was crazy, group around. If there wasn’t,, I’d than I am worried about it. I feel useful. She honestly says this meeting that they could not both be right. He start one. confident that we will peacefully settle is more like group therapy. smiled and said, “Once again, you Let me play devil’s advocate for a the whole thing. After all, there is so Many AA people have been getting are right.” second. much flexibility in AA that groups help from outside sources for years. I I have attended special meetings Separatism is a real thing. The have been fitting into various re- They go to a variety of churches, read where I did not necessarily fit in and neighborhood ideal-people from gional, national, and worldwide all sorts of self-help books, go to have nevertheless felt at home. 1 similar backgrounds being togethersettings and. philosophies without therapists, and so on. Though we simply did not feel they could be my is acceptable in and out of AA. The difficulty all along. There are people feel that AA is our primary source group. But that goes for many regular theory that special meetings do not who say that it is different nowadays. of guidance in staying sober, we also groups, too. It never occurred to me work is an old adage, and perhaps we Is it really? use many of these other helpful that there was anything wrong with should reevaluate it today. Maybe its I talked to one member who was avenues when needed. Perhaps people the meeting. Whether or not I shared time has come. Perhaps a reevaluupset by his special-purpose group. today simply want to include other the group’s special interest, I still felt ation would help us to reach more He said they talked a lot about the elements in the program in a more the power of AA at these meetings. alcoholics. What if AA was simply ills of society. I said there was nothing concentrated fashion by giving the Change does not make me un- too young to provide specialized help wrong with political action but sug- meeting a special name. Are they comfortable any more. Bill’s often- in the early days, but could and gested he concentrate on his recovery attempting too much? Where does it quoted statement that AA must should do it today? If that was true, from alcoholism in AA and join a put us in relation to Bill’s sage advice change was a puzzle to me in the I would have to go along with the political action group for the other “Shoemaker, stick to thy last”? beginning. I feared that new things trend toward special-purpose groups. aims,. He said he had never thought This issue reminds me of the story just for the sake of newness were I really feel, however, that it is our of it that way. He seemed less worried of the couple who went to their min- counterproductive. similarities that make AA work, not afterward. ister for marriage counseling. The The labeling process for all sorts our differences. It is the,things we all Another friend told me she found it wife spoke first. She berated her of groups in our society is interesting did at one time or another that genhelpful to look on her special-purpose husband. The minister told her she to me. Some sociologists damn it and erate the laughter of recognition at meeting as a meeting, not a group. She was right. Then the husband had his some accept it. The label “alcoholic” meetings. Treating one person’s said she had a regular group where a say, telling about the horrors of liv- was a godsend for me. Knowing this pneumonia is reasonably the same as variety of different people constantly ing with her. The minister said he about myself restored my sanity. treating another’s. The doctor’s past kept discussion interesting. She needs was right! The wife screamed that Maybe I feel the old maxim handed experience helps him guide each peroutside thinking. It helps her to keep first he had said she was right and to me years back is useful here: If it’s son to health. The pneumonia doesn’t her sobriety green. However, a special then that the husband was right. She good, it will last; if it’s bad, it will die know whether the patient is male,

female, black, white, heterosexual, about Harvard and Yale through the or homosexual. The spiritual oneness roofs of their mouths. They weren’t that all AAs feel is priceless. It can’t exactly like me, but I enjoyed them or shouldn’t be divided along politi- all and stayed sober. cal, geographic, or ethnic lines. Where do I stand today? Well, I’ve I was told to go to a variety of changed a lot since my first meeting. meetings at first and then pick a A lot of twenty-fours have passed, home group. I see many people today and I am currently looking around at meetings who have never had a for a group to meet my needs as I ‘ home group. Who am I to question am today. I may start a new specialtheir sobriety? 1 have gone to an purpose group. It’s just that I can’t amazing assortment of meetings, find anyone else who is suitable for though, from older women in pill- its purpose. I think I’ll stay with a box hats to younger people in denim regular group and some day begin and leather. I’ve been there and loved the ultimate special meeting-that is, them all. I’ve been to groups of if I can ever find someone who is functional illiterates and skid-rowers really and truly exactly like me! and to groups of people who talk E. S., Manhattan, N. Y.

“Ofcourse I’m downtrodden – that’s my thing. “

DECENBER 1977

W E WOULD like to share our group’s – – experience of transition in structure, because it has We wanted to be autonomous. . . given us renewed strength and hope through our growth. It’s sort of “what we used to be like, what happened and what we are like now” at a group level. The Group Conscience in Action Our group was a long-standing, closed, speaker-discussion meeting that followed AA guidelines and purpose group and had been spondecision to try. It took a few months AA message. But our group’s new Traditions. That is, we conducted it sored by our central office. We were of putting our group conscience attitude-knowing just who we are according to the pamphlet “The self-supporting, yet we gave all con- “into action” for us to receive the -has made us feel very much a part AA Group” with the approval of tributions (above refreshment exrewards of “how it works.” of the sober structure of Alcoholics the group conscience. We had an penses) to the central office. It, in able steering committee and rotating turn, paid our rent and gave us our We put the autonomy question Anonymous. literature. before the steering committee and We’ve brought our individual reofficers, including general service, the group for a vote, and received covery to sober action through Grapevine, H&l (hospital and insti- Yes, we felt uncomfortable. tution), and intergroup representa- Though we had good sobriety and a group-conscience approval. We then group unity. We feel it helps the tives. Many regular members con- took our proposal to our local Fellowship as a whole each time a sound group conscience and meeting conduct, we felt we were treated service committee for recognition group matures this way. We’ve done sidered our group their home group, and we had a good mix in quality like a newcomer who still had to and approval, which we received. a thorough housecleaning and taken and quantity of sobriety. lean on a sponsor. Now that we’re autonomous, we a group inventory. Our informed We seemed to be staying sober So our members and officers pay our own rent, as well as con- group conscience is no longer frusand carrying the message by bring- moved, through our group con- tinuing to buy our own refresh- trated, for it can now act autonoing our recovery and sobriety to science. to become an autonomous ments. We have a group number in mously on the decisions it reaches. AA service through group unity. group-much as a pigeon might tell the records of the AA General Ser- We’ve put principles before person- Those present felt they were attend- his sponsor he was ready to stand vice Office, and we order our own alities and the AA Traditions before ing meetings where the genuine on his own feet. We wanted our literature from AA World Services local customs. Autonomy has made hand of AA was extended. You structure to reflect all of the Twelve and our own group subscription us feel more assured that the door might think we would be grateful as Traditions, especially the Fourth from the Grapevine. We handle our we hold open to the alcoholic who a group, given all this, and have own contributions, following the still suffers (and that’s the long- (“Each group should be autonomous serenity as officers and members. except in matters affecting other “sixty-thirty-ten” recommendation timer as well as the newcomer) is Yet we were frustrated, especially groups or AA as a whole”) and the (sixty percent to our central office, the true door of AA recovery and those of us on our steering com- Seventh (“Every AA group ought to thirty percent to GSO, ten percent fellowship. mittee. We were everything an es- be fully self-supporting, declining to our area general service’committee). To be sober members of an tablished group should be-but we outside contributions”). We now feel we are truly a group autonomous group in the Fellowweren’t autonomous! For a long The way we achieved our auton- and not just a meeting. Nothing has ship of Alcoholics Anonymous, we time, our group had been a special- omy was as important to us as our drastically changed in our meeting are truly grateful. conduct or our ability to carry the H. A., J. M., San Francisco, C a l g

12 . AA Grapevine, February 1978

Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities

The Bill W. Yale Correspondence – Bill’s letters declining an honorary degree, unpublished in his lifetime, set an example of personal humility for AA today and tomorrow

E ARLY IN 1954, after consider- acceptance of the honor have sown able soul-searching, Bill W. seeds that, in time, would have demade a painful decision that ran stroyed AA? These are some of the If your trustees approve this formula, I should then like to submit it to the Yale Corporation for their W. W.: Co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. For twenty years, this Felcounter to his own strong, self- questions that figured in Bill’s per- consideration. lowship has rendered a distinguished admitted desire for personal achieve- plexity and in his prayers. The wording can be considerably service to mankind. Victory has ment and recognition. The Grapevine is publishing the improved. We shall work on that been gained through surrender, The AA co-founder declined, correspondence between Bill and during the next few months, but in fame achieved through anonymity, with humble gratitude, an honorary Reuben A. Holden, then secretary every instance we shall be sure it and for many tens of thousands, degree of Doctor of Laws offered of the university. The exchange of has your unqualified blessing. the emotional, the physical, and the by Yale, one of the nation’s oldest, letters followed a personal visit to Thanks for your hospitality on spiritual self has been rediscovered most famous, and most prestigious Bill from Mr. Holden and Professor Tuesday and for your thoughtful and reborn. This nonprofessional universities. Acceptance would have Selden Bacon in January of 1954. consideration of our invitation. movement, rising from the depths brought him-and AA-enormous The following week, Bill received Very sincerely yours, of intense suffering and universal amounts of favorable publicity. this letter: Reuben A. Holden stigma, has not only shown the way The university, too, would have re- to the conquest of a morbid conceived respectful recognition from Yale University (Naturally, Bill’s full name was dition of body, mind, and soul, but press, public, and the academic New Haven, Connecticut used in all this private exchange. has invigorated the individual, social, world for presenting the degree. Yet January 21, 1954 In observance of the Eleventh and and religious life of our times. he turned it down. Dear Mr. W-: Twelfth Traditions, the Grapevine Yale takes pride in honoring this Would a yes from Bill have vast- I enclose a suggested draft of a is maintaining his anonymity at the great anonymous assembly of men ly changed AA as we know it today? citation which might be used in con- public level.) and women by conferring upon you, Would the change have been for ferring upon you the proposed This is the first draft of the text a worthy representative of its high better, or for worse? Could Bill’s honorary degree on June 7th. of the citation: purpose, this degree of Doctor of

Laws, admitting you to all its rights stones t o dominance and personal and hence my clear obligation to and privileges. power. decline this signal honor with all Like other men and women, we the immediate satisfaction and ben- From the office of the AIcoholic AAs look with deep apprehension efit it could have yielded. Foundation (now the A A General upon the vast power struggle about True, the splendid citation you Service Office), Bill sent this reply: us, a struggle in myriad forms that propose, which describes me as invades every level, tearing society “W. W.,” does protect my ano- February 2,1954 apart. I think we AAs are fortunate nymity for the time being. Neverthe- Mr. Reuben Holden, secretary to be acutely aware that such forces less, it would surely appear on the Yale University must never be ruling among us, lest later historical record that I had New Haven, Connecticut we perish altogether. taken an LL.D. The public would Dear Mr. Holden, The Tradition of personal ano- then know the fact. So, while I might This is to express my deepest nymity and no honors at the public accept the degree within the letter of thanks t o the members of the Yale level is our protective shield. We AA’s Tradition as of today, I would Corporation for considering me as dare not meet the power tempta- surely be setting the stage for a vioone suitable for the degree of Doctor tion naked. lation of its spirit tomorrow. This of Laws. Of course, we quite understand would be, I am certain, a perilous It is only after most careful con- the high value of honors outside precedent to set. sultation with friends, and with my our Fellowship. We always find in- Though it might be a novel deconscience, that I now feel obligated spiration when these are deservedly parture, I’m wondering if the Yale to decline such a mark of distinction. bestowed and humbly received as Corporation could consider giving Were I to accept, the near term the hallmarks of distinguished at- AA itself the entire citation, omitbenefit to Alcoholics Anonymous tainment or service. We say only ting the degree to me. In such an and to legions who still suffer our that in our special circumstances it event, I will gladly appear at any malady would, no doubt, be world- would be imprudent for us to accept time to receive it on behalf of our wide and considerable. I am sure them for AA achievement. Society. Should a discussion of this that such a potent endorsement Twelve reads as follows: “Anonym- For example: My own life story possibility seem desirable to you, I’ll would greatly hasten public approv- ity is the spiritual foundation of all gathered for years around an im- come to New Haven at once. al of AA everywhere. Therefore, our Traditions, ever reminding us placable pursuit of money, fame, Gratefully yours, none but the most compelling of to place principles before person- and power, anticlimaxed by my near William G. Wreasons could prompt my decision alities.” sinking in a sea of alcohol. Though to deny Alcoholics Anonymous an Because we have already had much I survived that grim misadventure, Siw days later, Mr. Holden replied: opportunity of this dimension. practical experience with this vital I well understand that the dread Now this is the reason: The tra- principle, it is today the view of neurotic germ of the power contagion Dear Mr. W-: dition of Alcoholics Anonymous- every thoughtful AA member that has survived in me also. It is only I have waited to respond to your our only means of self-government if, over the years ahead, we prac- dormant, and it can again multiply letter,of February 2 until we had a -entreats each member to avoid all tice this anonymity absolutely, it and rend me-and AA, too. Tens of meeting of the Committee on Honthat particular kind of personal will guarantee our effectiveness and thousands of my fellow AAs are orary Degrees, which has now taken publicity or distinction which might unity by heavily restraining those temperamentally just like me. For- place, and I want to report to you link his name with our Society in the to whom public honors and distinc- tunately, they know it, and I know on behalf of the committee that general public mind. AA’s Tradition tions are but the natural stepping- it. Hence our Tradition of anonymity, after hearing your magnificent letter,

they all wish more than ever they March 1,1954 During Bill’s lifetime, copies of could help temporarily. But I d o could award you the degree-though Dear Mr. Holden, the Yale correspondence were pri- think that publication would imply it probably in our opinion isn’t half Your letter of February 8th, in vately circulated within the Fellow- my permission and would therefore good enough for you. which you record the feelings of the ship, with Bill’s knowledge and con- be not a little ego manifestation on The entire committee begged me Yale Corporation respecting my sent. Jim A., who in 1965 was AA my part. to tell you in as genuine a way as declination of the degree of Doctor public information chairman for “Actually, when I declined the de- I can how very deeply they appre- of Laws, has been read with great a central office in a large West Coast gree, I did it with the long future in ciated your considering this invita- relief and gratitude. I shall treasure city, wrote to Bill, asking permission mind. I could picture a ~ossibletime tion as thoroughly and thoughtfully it always. to show the letters to anonymitybreakers “. . . as an examde that and unselfishly as you have. We understand completely your feelings Your quick and moving insight into AA’s vital need to curb its AA probably does not need their “The tradition o f . .. in the matter, and we only wish future aspirants to power, the good individual names to keep it going personal anonymity there were some way we could show thought you hold of me, and your or to make it more effective.” is our protective you our deep sense of respect for hope that the Yale Corporation In reply, Bill wrote, “Certainly, you may show that Yale corre- shield. ” you and AA. Some day, the oppor- might presently find the means of tunity will surely come. giving Alcoholics Anonymous a spondence in a limited way. But I Meanwhile, I should say that it suitable public recognition, are see you agree that it would not be when AA might find itself in some was also the feeling of the commit- something for the greatest satis- exactly right on my part to consent great contention and crisis. At that tee that honorary degrees are, like faction. to its general publication at this time, this letter, though bearing the knighthoods, bestowed on individ- Please carry to the president of time. Actually, I’m not so damn dead hand, might have a marked, uals, and that being the tradition, Yale and to every member of the noble as you suppose. In reality, I even a deciding, effect. . . . Anyit would seem logical that we look rather wanted that degree. . . . How- how, I would be disinclined to have board my lasting appreciation. in other ways than an honorary- Devotedly yours, ever, I think the principle of ano- it generally published at presentdegree award for the type of recog- Bill W- nymity will be so invaluable to us, that is, published under circumnition that we should like to give the especially in future time, that one in stances which will surely indicate to organization in accordance with the Recently, the Grapevine received my position should really fall over the reader that I have given my suggestion you made in your last a letter from an AA who was a backwards in trying to demonstrate consent.” paragraph. I hope this may be pos- trustee on the AA General Service the principle. By way of example, Under present circumstancessible. Board at the time of this offer to it might help in the years to come.” seven years after Bill’s death-there I send you the warmest greetings Bill. The former trustee, Cliff W. of Ten years before this, just one is clearly no possibility of the conof the president of Yale University California, recalls talking to Bill at year after the Yale correspondence sent that he called an “ego manand of the entire corporation and the board meeting following the ex- had ended and less than two weeks ifestation.” The Grapevine feels assure you of our sincere admiration change of correspondence. before the Twentieth Anniversary that AA members, now numbering and good wishes for the continued “I suggested that we make a pam- AA Convention in St. Louis in 1955, around eight times as many as were contribution you are making to the phlet of-thesektters, as his refusal Bill replied to a Canadian AA friend sober in 1954, have a right to know welfare of this country. letter was truly magnificent. Bill who felt that publishing the letters of Bill’s example of both courage Cordially yours, grinned and replied, ‘Not while I’m at that time would “help consoli- and humility. This correspondence Reuben A. Holden alive. I don’t want to capitalize on date AA and fortify the anonymity may help all of us appreciate the humility.’ ” Cliff suggested to the Tradition.” sacrifice Bill made for us, and for The series of letters ends with Grapevine that it would now be “I agree with you in part,” Bill the countless alcoholics yet to come Bill 3 acknowledgment: proper t o print the letters. answered, “that publication now to our Fellowship for help.

A A GRAPEVINE, SEPTEMBER 1978

money-and so had their treasury. money had been deposited. That At our next meeting, their repre- remark was followed by a counter sentative came forth with a solution: comment to the effect that the Three or four of their members had money could be returned with a letoffered to foot the bill. You could ter explaining our Tradition of selfhear sighs of relief and a trickle of support. Later that night, the situa- Some thoughts on selfsupport applause. That problem was solved. tion was explained to a full meeting as originally presented to the However, some of us remembered of intergroup representatives, and 28th General Service Conference our Traditions, and although we had the money was returned. no money, we had the gall to say this The disturbing fact here is that the wasn’t wise. Of course, our rescuers five or six people on that committee W EBSTER DEFINES p0licy as prudence or wisdom in the management of affairs. Prudence is But the idea of self-support implies more than just financial selfsufficiency. How often we have also had suggestions as to how the job should be done, and if they paid were what we like to call “good” members, and all had several years’ defined as the ability to discipline for it, they could certainly call the sobriety. This sort of thing has hapheard these words from the podium: oneself by use of reason. We might shots. Well, when the smoke cleared pened before, and it will happen “But most devastating of all was my say that we use the Steps to discipline (and it wasn’t all cigarette smoke), again. The AA policy became establoss of self-respect.” Would it not be ourselves individually and that, col- our policy of self-support prevailed. lished a long time ago. While we may devastating t o the Fellowship of AA The meeting-list booklet got publectively, we use the Traditions to if it were to lose self-respect and self- not have been fully aware then how discipline the group. lished-economically, you might say important it was to be in the growth determination because it was not (not in the style wanted)-but it So much for prudence. Wisdom, of our Fellowship, we do know now. self-supporting? Moreover, this on the other hand, means sense. I served us well. There still are temptations, as AA policy has gained for us the respect The other incident occurred not should like t o link that word with the gains more respect from the public of non-AAs everywhere, even word “dollars.” Dollars and sense long ago-only last year, in fact. A and well-meaning people offer conthough it sometimes seems to baffle member called me to say that inter- -a good pair to use when talking them. It seems t o baffle some of us, tributions because we have helped about self-support. It is a sneaky group was accepting outside contri- someone dear to them. It is easy to too. At least, I think it must-be- butions, and would I please speak to way to d o it, but just consider it a understand their offering-they are cause we don’t always follow this the people at that office, since they hangover from the old days. unfamiliar with our policies. What is policy in our own dealings, whether Our Preamble says that “we are had turned a deaf ear to his protests. disturbing is that so many of our within AA or with those outside. Let self-supporting through our own So, just “happening by” one night members also are unfamiliar with me cite two personal experiences, when their executive committee was contributions.” I don’t think any- our policies. one inside and one outside. in session, I asked them about it. The policy of self-support, like one would seriously argue the wis- Many years ago, I was treasurer of dom of this policy. We are all “Oh, yes,” said one member, “but every other policy set forth in our our intergroup. My problem was it was only $50.” familiar with AA history: In the Traditions, was established by us, that there was no treasury-about “Only $50,” said I. “What if it beginning, frustrated by lack of the members of our Fellowship. $40, as I recall. The pressing probfunds to carry the message, to extend had been 500 or 5,000?” Have you ever received a letter from lem was our need for meeting lists. the hand of AA wherever it was “Oh, that would be different.” our General Service Office telling We had just a few on hand, and needed, we hoped t o get help from “How would it be different?” I you what your policy should be in a those were out-of-date, with half the outside the Fellowship. That we groups not listed. Now, one group in asked. Silence. Looks were ex- certain situation? No. What you did failed was really a blessing in changed, and then someone com- receive was the shared experience of the area was known as the “two disguise. mented that it was too late to do other areas or groups whose group pants” group. They had all the anything about it anyway, since the conscience had solved similar prob-

lems. GSO does not establish policy. AA would always be there. It will You do. continue to be there only if we con- Our primary purpose is to carry tinue to support it. the message to the alcoholic who is Self-support breeds self-respect. out there suffering. We do this We, individually and collectively, through personal contact and shared carry our own weight. Even within experience. We also help this new AA, the same top limit on annual member by supporting the many contributions applies to the more afother services that he will need as he fluent among us and to those with begins to walk into a sober life. At limited means. the 1965 International Convention And who is responsible for seeing in Toronto, we said that we were re- that this policy is better understood? sponsible for seeing that the hand of You, that’s who! J. W., Washington, D. C.

September 1978

My Ego and Tradition Two

I WOULD LIKE to share with my Grapevine friends a small portion of my Fifth Step and the exfor the next two. Other AA members looked after the group. This period saw my thinking get more than a litgroup had not only maintained itself while 1 was ill; it had grown tremen- The following Sunday afternoon, when it came my turn to discuss what perience with Tradition Two that led tle squirrelly. I believed that I had dously and become a very popular was on my mind, 1 began, “For what me to take this Step. started the discussion group, that I meeting. The other Traditions came I am about to say, 1 will probably I try to live the gratitude I feel by had maintained it, and that I was re- into focus for me, and I realized that lose some friends, but . . .” And the carrying the message to the alcoholic sponsible for helping all those peo- God as I understand Him had used story was told. After the meeting, who still suffers, whether newcomer ple each Sunday. My second week me-I was merely an instrument almost all the members came up to or old-timer. After approximately back at the group was our business enabled through His grace to carry me and said little or nothing as they six months of sobriety, I felt the need meeting. I was elected secretary, but out His will. Though 1 am still a bit simply, lovingly put their arms for a Sunday-afternoon group. (To- 1 wanted the position of GSR, be- ashamed to confess this, at first I around me. They understood. ronto has over 180 meetings per cause it sounded more impressive. resented my Higher Power for tak- 1 chose to share this experience week, but not one filled that time After all, didn’t I deserve it? Need- ing the spotlight away from me. 1 with you because I kllow that someperiod.) When I spoke to a number less to say, my ego was hurt. took a mini-inventory and shared where someone is feeling what I did. of AAs, they all replied, “Sounds My Friend Upstairs was taking my findings with a wonderful man To such a friend, I say, “Others who great! Call me when it’s started.” care of me, though, as He has always who had “just happened” to speak have been there know the original Everything will happen when it is done. For a couple of weeks, I’d go on Step Five at a meeting earlier that anger and frustration. We know the meant to. Finally, a full year later, to other groups and unfailingly be evening. By the end of our discus- hurt ego and the guilt that follows. someone looked thoughtfully at me asked to read the Traditions. No- sion, 1 realized that God was again We know the God-given feeling of for a moment, then asked, “When body but myself noticed my voice working through one alcoholic to peace that finally comes when we acdo we get started?” With a lot of faltering on the Second Tradition: help another. What could be more cept the fact that we are only inhelp from a lot of people, the discus- “For our group purpose there is but beautiful! struments fulfilling His plan. You sion group held its first meeting only one ultimate authority-a loving My work was not done. The Ninth are not alone!” two weeks after that question was God as He may express Himself in Step was also connected with this. Y. T., Toronto, Ont. asked. At that time, we had two our group conscience. Our leaders members and about five visitors are but trusted servants; they d o not weekly. Three months later, we had govern.” More and more, that grown to ten members and twenty to began hitting home. twenty-five visitors weekly-enough Looking at things honestly, I to break up into two smaller groups. knew that a multitude of people pro- Now, there is one thing I failed to vided the action behind the discusmention: I was with the group for sion group, including every individthe first of those months but was ual who participated by coming. I confined to the hospital or my home admitted the obvious fact that the

OCTOBER 1978

The Only Requirement A timely reminder of our primary purpose

A RE YOU a member of AA if you say you are? ~ o t necessarily! Our Third Tradition states: “The bewilderment and would probably accept a logical statement explaining why their nonalcoholic, drug- or only requirement for AA member- pill-addicted friends are not acship is a desire to stop drinking.” cepted as members in AA. The last four words of this Tradition About this time, however, some suggest that there is a definite re- well-meaning but uninformed memquirement, in that there must be ber will interrupt with a quotation problem drinking involved. from Twelve Steps and Twelve All of us know members who suf- Traditions: “When in doubt, ask fered from both alcoholism and yourself, ‘What would the Master drug addiction. These people have do?’ ” There can be but one answer: always been welcome as long as The Master had a program for the alcohol is the primary problem. Any ills of all mankind; Alcoholics reference to pills or other drugs, ex- Anonymous has a program only for cept as it relates to the alcoholic the ills of alcoholics! problem, has no place in AA The Big Book says we suffered meetings. from a disease known as alcoholism, Many of our newer members com- not addiction to the drug alcohol. ing from treatment centers to AA Our Preamble makes it clear that find our Third Tradition difficult to “our primary purpose is to stay understand. They say that as pa- sober [abstain from alcohol] and tients of the centers they attended help other alcoholics [nonalcoholics AA meetings along with people ad- are not mentioned] to achieve sobridicted to pills or other drugs, and ety.” AA is a fellowship that specialthat they were told by doctors and izes in alcoholism-recovery assiscounselors that “a drug is a drug is a tance only, and if it should begin to drug,” that alcohol was their “drug lose its ability to specialize by of choice,” and that they were “ad- branching out into other areas, it dicted to the drug alcohol.” For the would thereby lose its effectiveness. most part, they seem sincere in their A. R., Clarkston, Ga.

December 1978

The group knew “our common welfare should come firsty’

Fellowship in Action

I THOUGHT I knew the meaning of fellowship before I came into AA, but I did not. Even now, I have Silence fell over the group. I felt very unhappy. 1 knew how disappointed I would feel if I could a hard time putting AA fellowship not make the beginners meetings into words. About the best I can d o (they are excellent). Also, these two is “One for all, and all for one.” members added a lot to the meet- I have seen AA fellowship func- ings; I liked them and would miss tion on many occasions, but one them. I asked God to grant me the episode was especially impressive. It serenity to accept the things I could happened at the second meeting of a not change-and patted myself on newly formed beginners group (for the back. The chairman, in his members with less than one year’s wisdom, had the courage to change sobriety). A question arose as to the the things he could. time for the meeting-whether to He said simply, “I am reminded meet at- seven, so all the beginners of a story about a shepherd who had could also attend the regular eight a hundred sheep. One night, when he o’clock meeting of the main AA brought his flock into the fold, he group, or to meet at eight, simul- found there were only ninety-nine. taneously with that group. After a So he left the ninety-nine, and went short discussion, a vote was taken, out to find the one who was left and only two of the twenty-three behind.” present voted for eight o’clock. I t Again, there was silence. looked as if the meeting was set for Then someone in the group said, seven. “1 think we’d better vote again.” The chairman asked these two Everyone agreed. The vote was members why they preferred an unanimous for an eight o’clock eight o’clock meeting. They had a meeting. good reason: Sadly, they said they One for all-all for one. That’s didn’t get off work in time to make it AA fellowship in action! by seven. J. S., Monroe, La.

J a n u a r y 1979

What if suddenly there was no AA? If, in some nightmare future, A A groups forgot all about the Twelve Traditions . . .

We Could Blow the Whole Thing

N OTHING IN my life had prepared me for the six months through which I had just lived. Not whom knew only the authority born of physical violence. Cliques were everywhere, and because of the exdress of the meeting. What a welcome sight that church was, as 1 walked briskly to the side door. beckoning everywhere. My enthusiasm was short-lived, however. A thorough search of the parish my education, not my drinking, not treme isolation, men’s nerves wore I could almost smell the coffee, house revealed a number of empty my recovery in AA. I’d been assign- thin. Recreation ended in drunken and I reached for the handle. rooms, one vestry meeting, and no ed to the field as a representative for brawls almost every night. In the The door was locked. In fact, AA to be found. my company, to oversee the opera- morning, sick and hung over, there wasn’t a sign of life anywhere. The eerie feeling that had begun to tion of an experimental system for everyone got back to work. I checked the directory, and it show- grow in me now turned to anger. mining copper in South America. It I kept asking myself, “What’s a ed clearly I was in the right place. A What the heck was going on here? I meant spending exactly 180 days cut nice AA like you doing in a place like glance at my watch told me the meet- left the church and headed my car off from civilization, living and this? ” ing scheduled should begin in ten back out of town, toward my hotel. working with a hard-drinking bunch At the end of my stint, there was minutes. I scratched my head- As I drove, I ranted and raved. Some of men from everywhere, assembled only one thought in my mind: How where was everyone?-and I walked way to treat a visitor! I was sure for the project. fast can 1 get to a meeting? As it hap- back to the car. nothing like this could ever happen Fresh from the office, a lovely pened, there was a day’s layover on I stood on the street for a few back home-we knew how to keep home and family, and an active life my trip home, and I knew there’d be minutes more, and when no one ap- AA together a lot better! I was halfin AA locally,’ I was suddenly thrust a meeting somewhere nearby. peared, I shrugged and got in, and way through the blistering letter I’d into a dark and treacherous ex- I remember the feeling of excite- turned on the light. Well, I thought, fire off to the AA General Service istence in a jungle camp, thousands ment as, in the rented car, I pulled there should be another meeting Office upon my return home, as I of miles away. out of the hotel parking lot. My In- somewhere nearby. Looking down pulled into the hotel lot and went to Right from the beginning, it was ternational AA Directory was safe at the list, I found a Step group across my room. Still grousing, I went to every man for himself. There were my side, and my anticipation grew as town. Within a few minutes, 1 pulled bed. bosses and sub-bosses, some of I found the street, and then the ad- up to a large church, its lights The next morning, as I stepped

P b

out of the shower, 1 hadn’t shaken parking lot. I walked inside, and I y’know, buddy, that’s just what it men! Of course, they were only the off the indignant rage that haunted saw only George T., who owned the did. It just went to seed and died.” tip of the iceberg. It turned out they me. On an impulse, I looked at my place, sitting at the end of the I couldn’t speak. I just stared had a regular organized bunch of watch. It was about half past ten in counter. He greeted me warmly. openmouthed at George. drunks all over the country. New York, and 1 knew GSO would “Well, hello, buddy. Where’ve you After a minute, he) went on. “I “Well, the rest was predictable. be open. I picked up the phone, not been? It’s been an age since I’ve seen guess it was in the spring, just after Before you could blink, they sent out trusting my anger to last till 1 return- you!” you left on that trip of yours, that we a long ‘restructure bulletin’ from ed home, and placed the call. 1 shook his hand eagerly but got a letter from New York appeal- this new World AA Office, and they The operator and I listened to the decided to skip the small talk. ing to all AAs for help. They said it laid down a whole set of rules and recording: “The number you have “George, what’s going on?” I began felt like they were under attack from new procedures, and began to reached is not in service at this at the beginning and told him of all all sides, and the structure was badger the groups for pretty heavy time.” My shock was indescribable. the strange things that had happened beginning to fall apart. That rash of ‘donations.’ In a few weeks, almost A verifying operator obtained the to me. anonymity breaks, y’know, that a third of all the groups in the whole same message, and I hung up. Now, George never really changed ex- started last fall-and that national Fellowship had already folded. They for the first time, 1 was genuinely pression, and when I finished my telethon didn’t help, with all those died like flies! The rest were all conafraid. There was obviously some- tale, he just looked at me. Then, AAs getting their faces on TV. fused and couldn’t cope with the thing really wrong, and I wasn’t sure staring into his coffee, he said, 1 knew what to do. Funny, all I could “Y’know, buddy, 1’11 bet you’re the think of was that old saw “Don’t last guy on earth to hear the news, drink, and go to meetings.” What a and I’m sure sorry I gotta be the one laugh! Later, I turned the car in at to tell you. It’s all over, buddy-AA the airport and boarded a plane for is just a figment of your alcoholic home, arriving late that evening. imagination now. It’s all gone.” Naturally, the first thing I did I stared at him. “What are you when 1 was settled in with my family saying?” Seems like all our friends at the load, plus all the bickering that was to get on the phone to some of “Just that, buddy. There is no churches just started closing out our broke out. Finally, I guess my AA friends. There was no one more AA-not here, not anywhere!” meetings faster than we could get everybody just gave up. There’ve home anywhere I called, and 1 felt “But-but how can that be?” 1 new places. Didn’t want any part of been some halfhearted attempts . the oddest sensation. 1 was suddenly stammered. the ‘new AA,’ they said! around town to keep it going, on an in the Twilight Zone. Everything 1 “Well now, that’s a long story,” “Then, in April, there was that independent basis-y’know, in knew about the AA program, all the George said, like a man retelling last General Service Conference. homes, here at the club-but believe tools I’d been using for the past fck something for the umpteenth time. Boy, it must’ve been something! me, it just ain’t the same, if you years, were suddenly gone! “It was a case of benign neglect, 1 See, there was this bloc of delegates know what I mean. Nobody feels The next morning I was out early, guess you could say. Sorta slow, like that got together, nobody seemed to like a part of anything anymore.” and 1 drove to the roadside coffee- a cancer, it was. You know, there know how, and just took over! They I was stunned. When I finally house that had become the unof- was always lotsa groups-thousands said it was about time the real group found my voice, I said, “George, ficial AA club. It had always provid- of them-and folks to carry the conscience had its day. Threw out what happened to the Traditions? ed an all-day meeting, of sorts, and message all over the place. And that the whole board of trustees and did That’s why we had the Twelve Tradisurely there someone could tell me GSO office in New York to send out over the whole general service struc- tions!” what was going on. stuff. Who’d ever think a thing like ture. Yep-they really did it, vote by George blinked. “The Twelve There was only one car in the that could just fall apart? But vote. What a bunch of supersales- what?” he asked. . . .

Of course, it’s all a fantasy. I’m pen if we all decided to let somebody not even a mining engineer. And one else safeguard these twelve foundathing I’ve learned in AA is not to be tion stones? an alarmist. Still, around the groups If you woke up one morning, and 1 attend, it does seem that we AAs found there was simply no more AA, sometimes get a little funny about where would that leave you? the Traditions. That’s what prompt- Yeah, that’s the feeling 1 got, too. ed me to wonder: What would hap- R. S., Queens, N.Y.

As I t Says in the Preamble… One AA ‘s opinion on alliances beyond our primary purpose

I HAVE HEARD speakers take AA’s of halos slip down around people’s Twelve Steps and remodel them necks and choke them drunk. AA’s neatly into the twelve Beatitudes. Preamble means exactly what it says: Two nights ago, at a meeting, a “Our primary purpose is to stay sospeaker declared that God was his ber and help other alcoholics to sponsor, and he flicked quotations achieve sobriety.” AA’s primary purout of the Christian Bible without pose is not to increase church attenmaking any reference to the Big dance. AA’s Twelve Steps are not Book or “Twelve and Twelve.” I comparable to the Ten Commandonce attended a meeting that made ments, the twelve principles of the me feel as though I were attending a Koran, the twelve Beatitudes, the recruiting drive for a nunnery. I twelve guidelines to economic sanhave also witnessed the tremendous ,.ity, the twelve principles of traffic pressure put upon AA for the offi- safety, the guidelines to the twelve cial adoption of the St. Francis cranial nerves, or, as I once heard prayer. someone say, the twelve personality My Higher Power does not be- characteristics of the twelve Aposlong to any sect, denomination, pol- tles. They are what they are: the itics, organization, or institution, Twelve Steps of AA, simply and nor do I. When I declare myself at honestly declared to be the means an AA meeting, I leave my religious that have led a filthy, degraded skidbeliefs, associations, and quotations row bum like me back to the life of out of it. gratitude, wholeness, productivity, I came to this program looking sanity, and last but not least, sofor sanity, not sainthood, and in my briety. fourteen years, I have watched a lot E. H., Stephenson, Va.

April 1979

On dual addiction From Goshen, Ind.: From New York, N.Y.: I am writing in regard to a subject From Cleveland, Ohio: While browsing through an old that has repeatedly come up around I came to AA with a dual addic- Grapevine (December 1977). 1 ran the tables at meetings locally and tion and was set free of alcohol in across a comment in PO Box 1980 elsewhere, I’m sure. The subject 1973, but I chose to remain addicted describing the shocking experience concerns AA and the drug abuser. 1 to pills. I was convinced 1 couldn’t of a member with eleven years of find that many an alcoholic actually cope with life unless I had some sobriety who went to a meeting (clos- resents having a drug abuser attend chemical to insure my peace of mind ed) and was asked to leave because closed AA meetings. and to manage my life for me. All “no dual problems allowed.” This Being an alcoholic and drug during five years in AA, pills were member mentioned interpretation of abuser myself, I know for sure that doing for me what I was convinced I the Third Tradition and said, “1 am had 1 not received the instant couldn’t do for myself and what this an alcoholic”-but might also have warmth and acceptance I have Higher Power everyone called God referred to the Preamble, which received at any and all meetings 1 surely couldn’t do. I was afraid to clearly states, “The only require- have attended, I would have pro- give Him a try. When 1 heard others ment for membership is a desire to ceeded to go get drunk or take a pill. speak of their addiction and how a stop drinking.” Until the subject was brought up, it Power greater than themselves had While there are continual discus- never entered my mind that my dual set them free, 1 turned them off. I sions among a number of local addiction should or would be held needed those pills! groups about whether drug addicts, against me. It is important to me that Now, some ten months after havovereaten, and other dually ad- for once in my life I belong, and ing given up my bottled and predicted people should be allowed to share in a common problem with scribed higher power, I’m grateful to participate in closed meetings, it others. What worries me is that this AA for keeping me dry long enoughcannot be said often enough (and controversy could easily push some- to get honest with myself about the our Preamble is read at the begin- one with “a desire to stop drinking” dishonesty of my dependence on ning of most meetings) that “the on- into taking a drink or a pill. Please pills. Through the help of a few lovly requirement for membership is a read the Preamble again. I don’t ing and concerned members of AA, I desire to stop drinking.” P. E. wish to start any controversy on this was set free of my addiction. It was subject, but it is real, and 1 can’t ig- pointed out to me that what was supnore it. Anyone who comes to AA posed to get me well and keep me with a desire to stop drinking, I well ended up making me sicker. I welcome with an open mind. s. M. find now that 1 can’t even begin to work the program if I am physically and mentally under the influence of any kind of mind-altering drug. To finally look with a clear, drug-free mind at what AA has to offer is for me a miracle beyond description and an experience 1 deprived myself of too long. R. S.

0 NE OF OUR members was complaining about a project his district meeting had adopted a few For a short while, a friend of mine belonged to a group that was operated as an absolute dictatorship “I don’t know,” the GSR replied. “1 think we should, but I have nothing to say about it. You’ll have weeks before, which was turning out by one member. No matter who held to ask our treasurer. She decides to be expensive, impractical, and office, he ran the group. He decided where our money goes.” downright embarrassing. “Dave everything-where the group should Where was their group conshould never have proposed it,” he meet, how meetings were conducted, science? Or the conscience of the said. “I knew it wouldn’t work the what literature it could buy. “I group that submitted to a dictator? minute he brought it up.” ‘ couldn’t believe it!” my friend ex- Or that of the district meeting that “Why didn’t you say something claimed. “They called a ‘group con- voted for something the members then, and head it off?” science’ meeting, and it consisted of didn’t want, because no one would “I didn’t want to start a contro- this fellow taking charge and telling voice any opposition? versy. We’re not supposed to have the rest what he would and would Our Second Tradition gives us controversies in AA. There’s some- not let them do. If other members clear guidance on such matters. It thing in the Traditions about it.” tried to ask a question or make a says: “For our group purpose there He should read the Traditions comment, he insulted them.” is but one ultimate authority-a lovagain, with thought for their mean- The GSR (general service repre- ing God as He may express Himself ing. There is nothing in the AA sentative) of another group was talk- in our group conscience. Our leaders Traditions that discourages the full ing over group concerns with his are but trusted servants; they d o not expression of differing opinions DCM (district committee member), govern.” within our Fellowship. And at least who asked why the group, which was We break that Tradition any time two of the Traditions, as I interpret in good shape financially, was not we permit an individual member to them, give us strong encouragement supporting the area committee or the impose his will on the group; any to discuss and debate before we act. AA General Service Office. time we let a doubtful proposal be

adopted by keeping silent when we are completely at liberty to engage in the sharing session, a veteran of AA our sanity, our freedom, and should speak out; in fact, any time all the controversy we want or need. service, who opened the meeting whatever measure of happiness and we prevent a loving God from ex- Another reason some of us shrink with a much lengthier version of contentment has been our lot. Our pressing Himself in our group con- from expressing any opposition in these words: only points of difference are about science, by failing to discover what AA is respect for our beautiful “I have looked over the topics what is best and how to achieve it. the group conscience is. custom of treating one another with assigned for this meeting, and most A fine AA member, active in the : How can we learn the group con- courtesy and kindness. I know of no of them could be loaded. We must Fellowship for nearly forty years, science except by discussion? Sup- other association of human beings not get into anything controversial. likes to tell about an episode at the pose I propose a course of action I composed of members who behave These subjects, as stated, could open First General Service Conference, in profoundly believe is good for AA. with such consideration. It is one of up a can of worms. So 1have restruc- 1951. Something came up that the I believe it so wholeheartedly that I our strongest attractions for new tured this meeting, set up new guide- delegates felt strongly about. There am incapable of seeing any flaws in members. lines, and reworded the topics, to was disagreement, and the debate the plan-a kind of mental blindness Tradition Twelve, when fully ap- insure that only positive statements grew louder and louder. that can occasionally afflict almost plied, can lay these fears to rest and will be made.” “It wasn’t a fight. No one got any of us human beings. But you are enable us to share our divergent Every subject presented for mad. But it sure was a rousing argumore detached and can perceive ob- ideas in a spirit of mutual affection discussion had been requested by ment,” he recalls. “I was horrified. jections. Perhaps you have informa- and respect. “Anonymity is the persons attending. They knew the Was this how AAs should act? I tion I lack, and know of instances spiritual foundation of all our Tradi- topics were important to AA, and wondered why our co-founder Bill where something similar was tried tions, ever reminding us to place they wanted all the information, ex- W. didn’t put a stop to it, and lookand turned out badly. It is clearly principles before personalities.” perience, and opinions they could ed around to see how he was taking your duty-to me, to everyone who When we disagree in AA, we are get, both pro and con. They realized, it. Bill was leaning back, beaming, will make the decision, and most of spiritually anonymous, for we are as the moderator did not, that in the plainly delighted. ‘This is wonderall, to AA-to share your knowledge not disagreeing with another indi- 9 larger sense we are always in total ful!’ he chuckled. ‘This is AA at its and thoughts with us. Only when all vidual, but with an idea. If we are agreement about the only important best!”‘ facts and opinions have been truly following the AA program, issue. We all want what is best for Bill W. was not afraid of controbrought into the open can a true ex- and placing principles before per- AA. We could hardly feel otherwise, versy within AA. On the contrary, pression of group conscience be sonalities, honest expressions of since we owe to this program of he saw it as necessary to the healthy reached. opinion will cause no feelings of Alcoholics Anonymous our lives, growth of our Fellowship. The fear of honest discussion hostility. E. E., Tulsa, Okla. within AA sometimes springs from a Fright at the prospect of conmisunderstanding of Tradition Ten: troversy is not confined to those new “Alcoholics Anonymous has no to AA. Some years ago, a region opinion on outside issues; hence the held a meeting limited to members AA name ought never be drawn into who had served AA in responsible public controversy.” service posts, nearly all of them with This refers only to outsidematters many years of sobriety. Their only -issues of concern to the general purpose in coming together was to public, like Prohibition or politics- discuss AA concerns and gain not to our internal AA affairs. And knowledge and insights leading to it bars only public controversy. In improved AA service. Their hopes the privacy of our AA gatherings, we were frustrated by the moderator of

L. ‘ ,’ AA Grapevine, October 1979 which I believe includes any type of tion in society. I firmly believe this is A presentation to a past a necessary part of carrying the General Service Conference publication or communication sys- Copyright O AA World Services, Inc. tem designed to be available to the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. general public. Allowing that to hap- This is particularly true in our inpen is breaking the anonymity dividual relationships with the medi- Tradition. cal and legal professions, the court Anonymity The Traditions allow, but do not require, me to break my anonymity systems, social agencies, and others that come in contact with still-sufwhen and if I desire at any other fering alcoholics and may consider level. The only restraint on this is referring such individuals to AA. All that it is necessary to stay within the too often, these people have knowlspirit of the Traditions, which edge only of the “slippers” and tion appears to have been the need sliders who are never quite able to for anonymity at the public level. should lead us, in each case where “Anonymity at the general there is a question, to consider our make the program. Their enthusipublic level . . . our chief I t is true that in many areas motive. In other words, is the motive asm for AA cannot help but be members are identified in AA enhanced by personal knowledge of protection against meetings, open and closed, by first in line with our policy of attraction and the purpose of carrying the alcoholics who have recovered. ourselves ” name only. This is, of course, a mat- In my effort to state the difference ter of personal or group choice. I message of AA, or is the motive tainted with personal gain or de- between anonymity at the public find nothing in any Conference- level and at the private level, there is approved literature to indicate that signed to bolster an already monumental ego? no way that I can improve upon the 0 UR FELLOWSHIP is alive and well today because a vast majority of AA members and this is necessary or desirable, nor d o I find any prohibition against using full names in communications with- It is also necessary that our motive for maintaining personal anonymity statement made by Bill W. in a January 1955 Grapevine article, at the private level be examined. Is reprinted in the pamphlet “AA groups have been willing to volun- in AA. our motive avoidance of the stigma Tradition-How It Developed” and tarily comply with the Twelve Tradi- It is important to keep in mind the tions. And if the Fellowship is to be of alcoholism, or maybe a slight in Appendix B of Alcoholics distinction between breaking ano- Anonymous Cotnes of Age: “This is here tomorrow and thereafter, it will nymity and breaking the anonymity reservation as to whether we will, in fact, maintain sobriety? why we see anonymity at the general be for the same reason. For this Tradition, and the difference be- Is it possible to carry this message public level as our chief protection reason, it is important that we tween saying, “I am a recovered to alcoholics when we maintain strict against ourselves, the guardian of all always be diligent in our attempt to alcoholic” and saying, “I am a personal anonymity at the private our Traditions, and the greatest keep our actions within the frame- recovered alcoholic and a member of level? symbol of self-sacrifice that we work so wisely established by our Alcoholics Anonymous.” Regard- It is my feeling that where per- know. Of course, no AA need be predecessors. ing personal anonymity, we need to anonymous to family, friends, or It appears to be doubtful that, consider, not only what is required sonal harm is unlikely to result, members of Alcoholics Anonymous neighbors. Disclosure there is usualwhen the Traditions were adopted, by the Traditions, but also what is ly right and good. Nor is there any much consideration was given to the allowed by the Traditions. who have maintained sobriety for substantial lengths of time have an special danger when we speak at possibility that the wording of the I believe the Traditions require group or semipublic AA meetings, Eleventh and Twelfth Traditions that I d o not cause or allow my full obligation to let the fact be known, on a one-to-one basis, that it is possi- provided press reports reveal first might be interpreted to prohibit name to be used, together with the names only.” breaking personal anonymity at the fact that I am a member of Alcohol- ble for an alcoholic to maintain sobriety and fill a responsible posi- R . A . , Kansas City. Mo. private level. The main considera- ics Anonymous, at the media level,

October 1979

Autonomy thought it might be a good idea, and basic AA and the specifically alcosaid he would bring it before the holic problems we all share. In our

w trustees. Thirty days later, we had group, we tend to be rather HENEVER I read Tradition share, but our perspectives are our first meeting. Our meeting is philosophical, concerned with the Four, “Each group should be various, and the lenses through now three years old and going day-to-day problems we have, as we autonomous . . . ,” the word that which we view it are not all alike. strong. Only the higher power we see them against the background of leaps to-my mind is “spontaneity.” And what could be more spon- discuss so often could have caused our alcoholic illness. Our basic for- As I grow older in the Fellowship, it taneous than the determination of me to turn in that day, for I have mat differs in no way from that used seems to me that what I value most is one or more persons to start a new never been a joiner, and certainly in other meetings in this area, and if the healthy and spontaneous expres- meeting? Even after much reflec- not a starter. there is a new person at the meeting, sion of sincere feeling from my tion, there comes a moment when we I believe that each meeting should, we become very basic. Nevertheless, fellow AAs. We are accustomed to feel, “Yes, it’s the thing to do.” One and does, have a special character of I think we have the special character the unstudied behavior of pets and day, I was walking along in front of its own. Most of us have learned that I spoke of. I think we should cherish children, but adults often bear a local church. I was only casually while we enjoy any meeting, we are these differences in the same way we unusual and unnecessary burdens of acquainted with the pastor, but more comfortable in some than in affectionately accept the quirks and inhibition that hamper the free com- something about “responsibility” others. A few meetings are very peculiarities of our friends-the very munication of ideas and attitudes. In on the bulletin board caught my at- spiritual, tending almost to the quirks that are a part of their special AA, we begin to find ourselves. We tention. I immediately turned in, religious. Others concentrate on charm or wisdom. begin to discover that we truly are entered his study, and said, “I want P. C.,Lafayette, Calv. like others, but that each of us is to start an AA meeting here.” He unique. It is the same world we seemed only mildly astonished,

December 1979

ing.” This Tradition is the direct change in AA’s approach, because result of mistakes AA members and we try to meet the newcomer “where groups made over the years in deny- he’s at.” So long as we maintain at ing help to the suffering alcoholic the individual and group level the who was “different.” Fear, the AA basics-the Twelve Steps, the difficult-to-remove character defect, Twelve Traditions, the view of reared its ugly head, along with false alcoholism as a threefold disease, pride, which said, “They have to do the spirituality of our programit my way!” Each of us seeks sobri- AA will survive and readily absorb ety and an understanding of the these AAs with “new” problems. Power greater than ourselves, but AA does change as the people in AA the way can be devious and full of change-but the basic foundation AA! ‘ stumbling blocks for some. Are we deliberately creating another remains firm and unchanging, providing a broad program to handle obstacle for the newcomer to AA by almost any new problem through the our judgmental attitudes? one-to-one sharing at the group “bottom” so that future newcomers Over the years, the kinds of per- level, and the more personal sharing could identify earlier in the progres- sons seeking out AA for help have of sponsorship. sion of the illness. changed, and this has caused a D. K., Oakland, Calif. More recently, newcomers began arriving at AA’s doors in their early

I T is BECOMING increasingly apparent that the “pure alcoholic” is a thing of the past. The 1977 AA twenties and even teens, and the cry was “I spilled more than you drank. You’re too young to be an survey showed decisively that new- alcoholic.” But these young people comers t o AA more and more are ap- were somewhat different, and form- ‘Is This All There Is?’ proaching this program with the ed their own groups in AA. Then problem of alcohol-and something persons with different sexual preferelse. This situation is not a novel ences appeared, and the attitude was one. Years ago, when ex-convicts “They’ll contaminate us. We don’t began coming to AA, the cry was need them.” Again, separate groups “Oh, we can’t handle their problems. AA is only for alcoholics.” Very effective AA hospital and inhave formed for these persons. Now, we’re seeing alcoholics with dual drug problems, combining, for A N AA FRIEND was describing what resulted from his being distracted during his boyhood asfrantically pushed. So when the “bellows boys” allowed their attention to waver, the stitutions committees resulted from example, pills or hard drugs with signment of bellows-pumping for music drifted into nothingness, and these newcomers. Later, when new- alcohol; and once again the cry is the local church organ. By way of ex- then the boys had to “pump like comers who still had jobs came to “They’ll ruin AA.” planation: Bellows-pumping behind hell,” as my friend put it, to get the the program, the cry was ‘:But It’s time we bring to mind with the scenes forced air through the music started again. they’re not real alcoholics.” The up- some force the Third Tradition: pipes of the old pipe organ; without Do you find yourself in this spot in shot of these persons’ impact on AA “The only requirement for AA this air, no music was created, no the AA program? Is your music was to raise the alcoholic’s membership is a desire to stop drink- matter how many keys the organist drifting off into flat chords or into

nothingness because of your failure that might lead to low-key day-tot o pump energy through the day living is lack of attention to Step bellows? Then, is it necessary to Eleven-or so it has been in my life. “pump like hell” to get serenity, When 1 “came to believe,” I was standards, values, and enthusiasm sure 1 would always seek to improve back into your sobriety? my conscious contact with the God When my life of sobriety is, not of my understanding. It had taken quite as contented as it was, when a such a long time to come to believe, little of “Is this all there is?” sets in, and it was such a miracle; somehow, when I am distracted from daily I felt I would never forget to nurture reading of our literature, when my that miracle. 1 don’t stop believing behavior does not seem to be con- when I slight the daily meditation, forming to my own standards and but the closeness of contact is not the values, I begin to ask what the con- same. tributory factors might be. That closeness-that total aware- There is a great deal of merit in the ness-makes daily living an advenstandard answers from those whose ture instead of a chore, gives us that opinions we have learned to respect: something that newcomers want, not enough meetings; not enough levels our attitudes toward little daigratitude; not enough honesty; not ly irritations, and makes it possible enough twelfth-stepping; lack of to accept the things we cannot daily inventorying; failure to take change. Steps Four and Five; failure to think When the bellows need pumping, often of how it was in the world of I have to go back to that quiet place active addiction (without dwelling and fill them once more, knowing on it). that if I don’t keep the music flow- The music, the vibrancy, the alive- ing. this way of life may lose the ness of our program are surely sparkling tones and reverberations dependent on good, positive at- -it’s too beautiful a way of life to titudes in all seven of those areas. chance that! More than any other omission R. T., Denver, Colo.

J a n u a r y 1980

, ‘The Traditions are internal’ The purpose of the Traditions is to From Chicago, Ill.: preserve unity. Unity is not achieved We have many traditions that by having everyone look alike, do have been passed down to us. One the same things, say the same words. example is our Thanksgiving holi- That is uniformity. Unity is internal; day. On the first Thanksgiving Day, uniformity is external. The Tradithe belief was that God had favored tions are internal. the Pilgrims with a safe arrival at a Perhaps it would be well to see new land, where they would find that we do not simply pass on a lot of freedom; the practice among the external symbols, such as reading Pilgrims was to acknowledge that “How It Works,” drinking a lot of belief to God and one another; and coffee together, scheduling a lot of the attitude was one of humility and activities together, and saying the thankfulness. The food served was ‘ Lord’s Prayer together, while we only an external symbol. forget the true meaning of fellow- We have often, unfortunately, ship-“Our common welfare should carried on the external symbol and come first”; while we forget that forgotten or lost the original tradi- “each group has but one primary tion. I believe that some of the same purpose-to carry its message to the type of thing can happen and, in alcoholic who still suffers”; while some instances, has happened to the we forget to place principles before Twelve Traditions of AA. To me, personalities. J. T. the Steps and Traditions describe a manner of living; they do not From Hicksville, N.Y .: prescribe a way of doing things. As What happens when it’s announcthe Steps offer us an opportunity to ed there’s a Traditions meeting? become individuals who can relate to More often than not, there are a few God, ourselves, and others, the grumbles and, mysteriously, lower- Traditions offer us an opportunity than-usual attendance. to express these beliefs, practices, How are we to survive without and attitudes as a group. unity? “Personal recovery depends upon AA unity.” If we could survive without the Traditions, they never would have been written. M.

February 1980

co-founder Bill W. said, the middle AA meeting) without the possibility ground usually wins out. that somehow their pictures might The second point concerns the get onto TV. public level. I have refused to go on And what about my ego if I go national TV, because the producer full-face on TV? I know me. I’d be would not guarantee anonymity as I looking around for a place t o buy a The Message Is Recovery perceive it. On TV news, I have used my voice in the background for pictape of the show or, preferably, get a freebie. Better for me and my sobritures of coffee cups, hands pouring ety to let that one alone. Better for coffee, etc., and I have spoken at AA if we let the spiritual principles many public information meetings. of our Fellowship be discussed freely There is no question in my by anonymous members, and grant

A NONYMITY is a positive force, which holds Alcoholics Anonymous together. It is a “protective a bit too soon, only a month after I entered AA, to burble on t o our minister that I was ready for any mind-contrary to the feeling held by some other AAs-that going fullface on TV, even though using the their use t o other people, as we do. Our surveys seem to indicate that personal contact between an AA .mantlew guaranteeing to all mem- alcoholics he might contact. For- term “recovered alcoholic,” is not member and an alcoholic outside the bers the right to decide whether they tunately, for me and for any reflec- being anonymous, especially when program is still the most effective wish to disclose their membership in tion on AA, sobriety stayed with me. mention is made of one or more of way of attracting new members.- I AA. It also protects what members Several members of our church the slogans identified with AA. So believe that our free disclosure of say at meetings. group since then have tried AA. far as I know, there is no other or- AA membership in our private lives Anonymity gives me the freedom Some are sober in AA; others, ganization where people stay sober. will do more to dispel the stigma of to be just a member of a group, an although dry, are not going to After one of our well-meaning being an alcoholic than will going alcoholic sharing with others the meetings; some are still “out there.” friends has gone full-face on TV as a full-face on TV as recovered alconature (spirit) of my disease and In my business, there is no ques- recovered alcoholic, there have been holics, with the danger of comrecovery from it without concern for tion of keeping my AA membership non-AAs as well as AAs who have promise to the name and spiritual status, finances, or many of the pit- secret if there is someone who might commented, “Oh, I see so-and-so is foundation of Alcoholics Anonyfalls that abound in other arganiza- need the program. This attitude in AA.” And when asked, “Did he mous. It also does not reflect well on tions. seems right to me, because a former say that, or did he say he was a the effectiveness of AA if a “recov- There are two things vitally im- drinking buddy once told me that recovered alcoholic?,” the response ered” alcoholic drinks again after portant to me. One is that I personal- she was an AA member, waited pa- has been: “Well, you know that’s such an appearance. There are now ly am free t o tell people that I am an tiently until I was receptive (very just a technicality!” many people and organizations conalcoholic and that I go to AA to stay sick), and took me to my first Can we be technical about the cerned with alcoholics and alcohol-. sober. I am free to do this ifit may meeting. I did not call the local in- spiritual foundation of the program ism, and we are grateful for their serve a purpose in helping someone tergroup office. that gives us life? In my mind, the sharing, public appearances, and who has a problem with alcohol, However, our principle of ano- answer is no. referrals. Let’s hope they continue in whether it is the alcoholic or some- nymity says that I have no right to Again, in regard to newcomers their efforts. one close to the alcoholic. There’s an discuss anyone else’s AA member- who believe their neighbors “don’t As a member of AA, I can share inner voice that tells me, sometimes ship. Each member has the right to know,” it can be frightening to think only what drinking did to me and after the fact, whether the disclosure decide whether to use an assumed that disclosure of their alcoholism what AA has done for me. As a was really to help or was an ego trip name at meetings or t o be quite open may be made. It’s bad enough to member, I have been given a trust to on my part. Granted, it was perhaps about his or her membership. As our consider going into “that place” (an foster this Fellowship and pass it on

in at least as good condition as it was interest. Through its power, living when it found me. has been made manageable. In re- To me, the whole AA program is a turn, I respect the spiritual essence spiritual entity vibrating throughout of anonymity at the public level, but the world, on an organizational level am always willing at any other time unfettered by theological ter- and place to pass on to others the minology, language barriers, and message of recovery so hard-won by geographical boundaries. It has our founders and so freely given to renewed my life and, for nearly me. twenty years, has been my leading R. H., Hollis, N.Y.

SEPTEMBER 1980 as my intense love for our wonderful says, “He ought to go somewhere program of recovery. Drug addicts else. He isn’t a pure alcoholic like who talked up endlessly at meetings me.” I hate myself when I realize I used to frighten me. Overeaters ex- am agreeing in the back of my mind. asperated me, especially skinny Why do such feelings keep sneaking INclusive ones. Two-hatters always seemed to me to be bragging when they menin? Bill calls talk about the “pure Not Exclusive tioned their alcoholism-field jobs in their AA talks. Although I am no alcoholic” comical and foolish. He relates in the “Twelve and Twelve” longer frightened over the future of how the early members met to decide “my” program, I am glad that two- whether to let someone attend who hatters don’t seem to be advertising had another problem; after they may – as individuals – take their W AY BACK in 1958, Our COfounder Bill W. wrote an arti- experience to the alcoholism field, cle for the Grapevine called “Prob- and that we are glad they do. at meetings as much as they did ten years ago. 1 have found out in time the decided that they had no right to condemn that person to death, the person became a fine, active lems Other Than Alcohol,” in which He clearly writes that we may take wisdom of letting new people rein- member, carrying the message to he talks about “goofballs” and our experience into any field what- vent the wheel. They must, in order “scores of people.” heroin and the “needle” and the ever, provided we guard anonymity to mature. They can’t accept an idea I don’t know any “pure” AAs. I trouble caused in groups when we and refuse to use the AA name for from books; they need the ex- certainly am not one. So why do we lead these other addicts to believe money and publicity. perience of seeing the idea in action. persist in reinventing this particular they can be members of AA. He suggests that narcotics addicts I did, and I must occasionally let wheel? Well, for one thing, we don’t He warns in this piece (available in who are not primarily alcoholic others find things out for them- want our program weakened by scatpamphlet form from the AA Gener- should share our Steps and Tradi- selves. Old-timers become bleeding tering our efforts over areas where al Service Office) about taking on all tions in their own groups. He envi- deacons too soon when they give un- AA does not belong. the problems of the world. He also sions a dilution of AA otherwise, but solicited advice on everything, no I went through a fairly political describes an early “special interest” sees no harm if such addicts are also matter how well qualified they are to phase during my recovery. I got busy group called the Alcoholic Founda- alcoholics. do so. Newer members often need for a few hot causes I felt strongly tion (now AA’s General Service Now that I’ve summarized this ar- the bumpiness of ‘negative ex- about – but I never thought of Board of trustees), formed to take ticle by Bill, I want to ask two simple periences. Nothing but trial and er- soliciting my friends at my group on on organizational work that no AA questions. Why does some confu- ror could have convinced me that all behalf of my beliefs. I won’t even group could hope to accomplish. sion about these topics still exist in my learning did not have t o occur the specify the beliefs here, because they He goes on to talk about clubs and many groups? Why do some of us hard way. don’t belong in the Grapevine. I was how they should be run separately fear that the future of AA may be As I became more comfortable, I angry about these issues for a couple f r o h any AA group. He describes threatened by the army of drug- was amazed to notice the desire of of years, but they never lapped over “drying-out places” run by in- abusers who are invading AA groups some people to interpret our Tradi- into my AA life. I finally felt I had dividuals outside AA and talks and by the army of sober members tions in a way that might exclude done my share and turned these about the early members (including who are going into the alcoholism others from meetings. But I wasn’t problems over. The program was at himself) who got into educating the field? entirely blameless. I am still occa- work, and my anger had gotten borpublic and confused everyone about Fear is often a cover word. It can sionally annoyed at my own secret ing to me. AA’s purpose. He says that if AA hide my insecurity, jealousy, low ego-tripping when some crank looks Maybe my experience with politmembers follow the Traditions, they self-esteem, and resentments, as well at a drug-abuser in a meeting and ical activity explains the trouble I

had understanding why those other of people wasting energy on an issue people did not go to other fellow- she thought was dangerous, would ships with their other problems. I smile engagingly and say, “Ah well, ‘have belonged to many organiza- it will keep them off the streets at tions, as well as to AA, but I have night .” kept my AA membership exclusively If you have five poker players focused on my alcoholism and my ready for a game and one bridge Higher Power. player comes in, he won’t stay long. ‘ And why did I think some mem- I have lost my desire to shut anyone bers who worked in the alcoholism out before he himself decides to field were bragging when they men- leave – but I reserve the right to extioned it? Some of them may indeed plain how to play poker in case the have been bragging; but now I bridge player is interested. I no suspect my own motives when I longer feel that two-hatters will form think of excluding them from shar- a professional elite force within AA. ing their work problems at meetings, Some of the members I know in the the same as other members do. alcoholism field would scream like 1 have watched many debates in mad if they thought AA was enour Fellowship. I watched the great dangered. They have to understand “Is alcoholism a disease or an ill- the program thoroughly in order to ness?” fight; I participated in the survive. “recovered or recovering” contro- If something tells me that a versy; 1 attended dogfights about the thought or a remark of mine is difference between a character designed to cut anyone out of the defect and a shortcoming; I remem- AA picture, I must examine it ber “to curse or not to curse” at carefully. If I am convinced that meetings; and I am not sure we have there is no danger to AA as a whole, unscrambled the cigarette-and-blue- I must own up to my ego problem smoke issue yet. and my fear. If there is a clear The two-hatter battle has ebbed danger, I must talk it over with that slightly but needs watching, and our person or group. number one concern now seems to We were once afraid of people be the dually addicted. If you think it who slipped after anniversaries. I is not our problem and we should get never hear it suggested anymore that the rascals out, I disagree. Anything they weaken AA. As long as trouhappening in society at large is bled people come to us, I hope we usually reflected in AA meetings and will always be ready to share our exbecomes our problem. perience with them as creatures of But I am not upset by these issues God who are, among other things, now. I have come to agree with my alcoholics. Irish mother, who, when she heard E. S., Manhattan, N.Y.

October 1980

Extra requirements? From Grants Pass, Oreg.: If our only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking, I wonder why so many groups seem to be set on placing a second requirement. Is it really necessary to have IDAA, ILAA, stag, women’s, gay, young people’s groups, etc.? Aren’t these groups becoming exclusive rather than inclusive, by mandating a second requirement? Sure wquld like to see some input on this, as I don’t understand how we justify more than one requirement. G. D.

AA G R A P E V I N E , J A N U A R Y 1981

general service representative [GSR] would have that right. But district on every district meeting?” committee actions often affect all “No, we aren’t interested in that the groups, or AA as a whole. I sugstuff and don’t want to waste gest that refusing to be informed on meeting time on it.” such matters violates the Fourth “Then I am forced to conclude Tradition and leads to violation of that your group is violating Tradi- the First.” tions One and Four, those concerned This affair had a happy ending. yith your relations with AA and The Great Forthright Rebellion colother groups. The First Tradition lapsed, and the group joined the says: ‘Our common welfare should others in using the answering sercome first; personal recovery vice. Now, the members even let depends upon AA unity.’ If an in- their GSR report on district meetings dividual becomes angry and sepa- – sometimes, if he pounds on the rates himself from AA, or a group table and demands to be heard. Traditions at Work E refuses to cooperate with other groups in a common cause, that isn’t putting our common welfare first. Unity is lost. “Many of us use ‘group autonomy’ as justification for anything a A friend on the West Coast told me about a group whose name should have been Legion, because its problem has been repeated so many times, in so many places. Its problem was Ross. He was one of the found- A NY AA GROUP – probably because it is composed of human beings – has problems from committee that had arranged for the answering service, came to speak at the Forthright Group. In introducgroup wants to do, but that is only the first part of Tradition Four. The entire Tradition says: ‘Each group ing members, and he loved his group devotedly. The only thing he loved more than the group was running it. time to time. Most of them could be ing this fortunately unflappable should be autonomous except in In the interest of peace and harsolved or, better still, prevented, if all member, the leader sharply criticized matters affecting other groups or mony, the other founding members concerned would look for the appro- the district committee, announced AA as a whole.’ You believe the let him, for it was obvious there priate Tradition and apply it. For ex- his group’s plan to boycott the new district committee engaged an would be no peace and harmony if ample, take the case of what we’ll project, and said they had a perfect answering service without informing anyone dared question Ross’s abcall the Forthright Group. right to do so, because “every group the groups. In fact, the matter was solute authority. Its members were roaring mad at is autonomous.” thoroughly discussed at the district They knew all about the Second the district committee. How dared “I believe I can explain all the meeting four months ago, and a Tradition: “For our group purpose that sneaky outfit hire an answering things that are troubling you,” the committee was appointed to in- there is but one ultimate authority service for AA without asking the speaker said mildly. “But first, let vestigate. At last month’s meeting, a loving God as He may express local groups or even telling them? me ask two questions. You mention- we had a detailed report, and the Himself in our -group- conscience. ‘

Well, the Forthright Group wouldn’t ed the first part of our Fourth Tradi- GSRs voted to start using the Our leaders are but trusted servants; hold still for it. They’d get a telephone listing of their own. They’d tion, group autonomy. Does this group follow the Traditions?” answering service. Every group in the district – except yours – knew they do not govern.” And for many years, they ignored it. I ! put ads in the paper. They’d . . . “Always! Absolutely!” the leader all about it, from the GSRs. But you Ross governed. He nearly govern- About that time, a member of replied. won’t let your GSR report. On the ed his beloved group to death. All another group, known to be on the “Do you get a report from your basis of group autonomy alone, you over that coastal city, new groups

began springing up, started by men adopting a plan of self-improva ted, “but I still think it says some- idea of bringing nonalcoholics into and women who had found sobriety ment. Others can use them, and do AA, but not the desire to help them. where in our literature that anyone in Ross’s group (that’s what every- – gamblers, drug users, overeaten, can be an AA member if he says he With the assistance of the ex-deleone called it) and had left it when and many others – very successful- is. How about that?” gate, they started a weekly meeting they could no longer tolerate his dic- ly. In groups where they can concen- – in no way connected with AA – I tatorship. trate on their problem, not ours. “You’re right, except for one where addicts to other drugs could thing,” the past delegate said. “You 1 The reign of Ross ended when his fellow founders realized the latest “But do you think it would really help the addict, or the compulsive left out part. The statement is made learn to apply the same principles all I

1 at the beginning and end of the self-help groups use. Working on split-off had reduced group mem- overeater, to come to AA meetings chapter on the Third Tradition in this project as individuals – not as 1 bership almost down to themselves and hear us talk about alcohol? Or Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. AA members – they were not

I and Ross. Lovingly, but with ab- would it help you stay sober if your Let me read exactly what it says: breaking any Tradition. solute firmness, they told Ross that AA meetings were filled with 66 6 . . .AA is really saying to every The Traditions exist to keep us out in future the only voice of authority gamblers and pill users talking only serious drinker, “You are an AA of trouble. As a fine old thirty-year would be the group conscience. And about gambling and pills when you member if you say so.” ‘ And the member puts it, “Anytime your the group has been thriving ever need to discuss sobriety? Encourag- chapter ends with ‘. . .any alcoholic group gets in a fight, among your since. ing any people who have no problem is a member of our Society when he members or with other groups, look I know of one group that was with alcohol to join AA is unfair to says so.’ Clearly, the right to declare to see what Tradition you’re breakalmost torn apart by the insistenceof them, because we aren’t qualified tb oneself an AA member was always ing. Nine times out of ten, you’ll a few members that nonalcoholic give them the help they need, and un- meant to apply only to alcoholics, find that’s the only reason for the drug addicts should become members of the group. “We can’t deny fair to us, because their presence may keep us from getting the help we ‘ ! not to the whole human race.” Don and his friends dropped the fracas.” E. E., Tulsa, Okla. these people our program!” a mem- need.” ber named Don argued. “Where ”If AA is only for alcoholics, why does it say you have to be an alco- don’t the Traditions say so?” Don holic to join AA? We keep hearing, demanded. and I think it’s in our literature, that “They do. The Third and the anyone can be an AA member if he Fifth Traditions make it very clear. says he is. So how can we keep The Third says: ‘The only requireanyone out?” ment for AA membership is a desire All this was repeated when the to stop drinking.’ We can’t bar anygroup invited a former delegate to one who has a problem with alcohol meet with them in a last-ditch effort and wants to stop. But people with to heal the breach. no alcohol problem don’t want to “We couldn’t deny a program of stop drinking. Why should they? recovery to anyone, even if we “The Fifth Tradition says: ‘Each wanted to,” the ex-delegate pointed group has but one primary purpose out, “because it is based on univer- – to carry its message to the alcosal truths. AA doesn’t own the con- holic who still suffers.’ It says alcocepts of two persons with the same holic, nothing else. That is our only problem helping each other, of field, and we should stick to it.” reliance on a higher power, or of “That makes sense,” Don admit-

January 1981

Drug dilemma-two views From Weirton, W.Va.: From Peoria, Ill.: In the pamphlet “Problems Other R. G. from Lafayette, Calif., Than Alcohol,” Bill W. says that believes it a dangerous trend to “we have to avoid distractions and “divert the original intent of AA inmultipurpose activity.” So why do to an all-embracing fellowship inwe allow multipurpose speakers? If cluding persons with non-alcohola person is dually addicted, why not related problems” (PO Box 1980, inform that person, “This is AA. August 1980). Please speak on alcohol only”? Should AA expand the program Please understand that AA saved to include drug abuse (or whatever), my life. I could not have lived I, too, will be dismayed. But if the another minute without AA. I can- AA program’s rifle shot aimed at not sit back when I see anyone try to alcoholism (R. G.’s metaphor) hapchange Alcoholics Anonymous. pens to ricochet to benefit the drug G . A. abuser, can we deny that benefit out of some vague fear of program diffusion? Whether AA is the best source of help for the drug abuser, 1 d o not know. I doubt it. Still, I am loath to slam any door in the face of one sincerely trying to live straight. Besides, hasn’t this matter already been settled in Tradition Three? I refer to the episode described on pages 141-142 in “Twelve and Twelve.” “What would the Master do?” B. L.

February 1981

“. : ‘Special’ L – groups-four views From Seattle, Wash.: From ~ i h e a ~ o l i s , Minn.: G . D.’s letter set me to thinking. In response to “Extra require- We AAs are all united by our alcoments?” (letter from G. D. in the holism, but there is still a lot of room October 1980 Grapevine) . . . I was for diversity in our Fellowship. told when I first joined AA that the Some of that diversity is expressed in problems and controversies being special groups – men, women, discussed in AA had come up in the Young people, etc. This has gone on past, and that was the reason we had to write the Twelve Traditions. since AA’s early days, presumably with the blessing of the founders (for i I don’t feel that the e groups are a second requirement of any kind, but Well, I have never believed any- example, see the story of Jim S. on one or anything until I have tried it. I rather that they are an option for the page 483 of the third edition of the individual member. Just as we can found a few other single, male alco- Big Book). holics, and we had a single-male choose how many meetings to at- – My home group is one of about tend, who we would like to be our group, just for our special problems. twenty gay groups in Seattle. Being sponsor, etc., we can choose the type What happened was that we all gay and male was an important Part of meetings that we would like to atagreed with each other and were get- of my life as a practicing drunk, and tend. ting further away from the truth dealing with life as a gay man is an So the years have gone by for me every time we met. We were very for- important part of my recovery in in AA, and I have gone to no exclutunate, for we decided to heed some AA. However, there is no such thing sive groups until, in recent years, I advice of various sponsors – to dis- as “gay AA.” There is only AA, and quit smoking. Now, my regular band before we got drunk and to some meetings consist mostly of gay weekly meeting is a nonsmokers’ disreturn to our regular groups. recovering alcoholics. While I can’t cussion group. I have absolutely There – to our complete amaze- speak for groups of doctors, etc., I nothing against smoking, but the ment – we found that we had the imagine that this attitude of nonex- smoke irritates me. It is a delight to love and advice of male, female, elusion is true of them, too. G . D. attend an occasional nonsmokers’ young, mature, and all the other will always be welcome in my home meeting along with regular meetings. diverse people, whose wide range group; I hope that I will always be L. C. and experiences were available to welcome in his. J. K. our recovery. From Las Vegas, Nev.: When I meet the other men today From Naples, Fla.: Some of us come to AA with at AA functions or just run into I, too, used to resent these “spe- “problems other than alcohol” that cialized” groups. When I came into preclude us from hearing the AA AA, I was young, and yet I resented message unless our “other” problem it when a young people’s group was is also addressed. I believe that many started in my hometown. I wanted to who think this other problem is be a part of the whole program, and special do get our message sooner if not set aside in some way. So, from it comes from their peers. Many do the beginning, I simply did not at- branch out into “regular” (whatever them on the street, we all ag;ee that tend any kind of “exclusive” we’re glad we stayed sober in spite of that is) AA meetings after the first groups, after visiting a few of them. few months. I also like to say (as I ourselves and that “the only require- What it took me a long time t o ment for membership is a desire to have heard others say) that our Big realize is that this is an individual Book is a “toolbox” with a “wrench stop drinking.” R. B. to fit any nut.”

AA GRAPEVINE, FEBRUARY 1981

Tradition Seven our unity or effectiveness. It is not gratifying to note that, in Self-support not only avoids cor- a true sense, many of our groups are rupting influences, it includes prin- not contributing. In a good many ciples that contribute to our spiritual cases, the amount from those congrowth, such as self-respect and tributing falls short of even the outfreedom to express our feelings, as dated standard “A Penny a Day for Self =Support well as t o question our own motives, without fear of retribution or worry over loss of operating funds. Sobriety.” The rate at which we are broadening the base is tediously slow. But here again, I believe there It fosters the justice and sense of is sufficient evidence to indicate that fairness that come from voluntary whenever the groups are properly insharing in the costs according to our formed, they themselves want to be own abilities and our own con- fully self-supporting. science. With each of us doing our In my judgment, there is no area part, the principle of group auton- in which prudence plays a greater omy is automatically practiced and part in giving a spiritual meaning to protected. a temporal act than in the area of Self-support gives us a sense of self-support. It can help us become 0 UR TRADITION of Self-support (long form) indicates that “the AA groups themselves ought to be volved in keeping AA active and alive, attractive and growing, and spiritual and democratic. By broadbelonging and the satisfaction of being part of a fellowship that we have helped to foster and nourish. sensitiveh our understanding of the meaning of love and service. It can help us become responsible in our fully supported by the voluntary ening the base of group support – It brings serenity to our souls approach to unity and recovery. It contributions of their own members. that is, by increasing the amount through doing our share today. This can strengthen us in the conviction . . . that any public solicitation of contributed and the percentage of action both helps us and, at the same that our concern for those who are funds using the name of Alcoholics groups contributing, up to a fully time, provides a positive influence in yet to come is part of the caring and Anonymous is highly dangerous”; self-supporting level – we can be the destiny of others. sharing that ultimately coniribute to that we should maintain “prudent assured that those services will be Self-support makes for prudence our own spiritual progress. reserves”; and “that nothing can so through the exercise of reason and It is my belief that, as we individsurely destroy our spiritual heritage From a spiritual standpoint, self- skill in the management of our prac- ually broaden our own horizons as futile disputes over property, support can help us avoid the cor- tical financial affairs. through a more active enjoyment of money, and authority.” rupting influences that come from: It is gratifying to note that, in a the spiritual values of self-support, I believe the perpetuation of this (I) establishing dues or fees, (2) rely- true sense, we have broadened the we will collectively improve in our Fellowship, the continuation of its ing upon outside donations, or (3) base of group support. We have efforts to broaden the base of group growth, and the maintenance of its resorting to the sale of our recovery reduced the cost of literature. We support. And if we can do both, I effectiveness are fundamentally as- program for profit or personal gain. have kept costs in line. We are pro- feel certain that God will bless all of sociated with our willingness to So long as we can rely upon our viding good services. Our Fellowship us for having done our part in conshare in the financial costs within the own group contibutions and so long is growing. And in days of rampant tributing an increased measure of spirit of the Seventh Tradition. as we can limit the amount on indi- inflation, these accomplishments happiness to the “Road of Happy I think self-support is concerned vidual contributions, the problems provide more than sufficient evi- Destiny” that this Fellowship has so with having group contributions associated with perilous wealth and dence, I think, of the spirituality as- generously provided. provide the funds for the services in- authoritative powers will not erode sociated with prudent management. F. B., Spanish Fork, Utah

A p r i l 1981

– Special not exclusive From Sacramento, Calif.: G. D. comments in the October 1980 Grapevine that input would be appreciated regarding “extra requirements” for AA membership. I am a member of IDAA (International Doctors in AA). I am also a member of my Indian AA group in Sacramento and a member of a multiethnic group – predominantly white. IDAA, for instance, is not exclusive. We meet only once a year, but everyone at our annual meeting is also a member of other groups. We just happen to have special interests in AA – interests related to our practice, the treatment of our patients, and ourselves. We discuss these things in IDAA strictly in context with Alcoholics Anonymous. So with my Indian AA group. We h a p pen to feel comfortable with our own people. The only requirement for membership in any of these groups is that we are alcoholics and that our lives have become unmanageable. That’s all there is, G. D. – really no big deal. L. c.

AA Grapevine, @arch 1981

Shaping of Principles While early A A members were going through the personal and group experiences that eventually produced S HORTLY AFTER joining the Manhattan Group in 1945, 1 met Marty M. when she gave a talk in the the Multilith pages out a window of the sanitarium where she was confined. Retrieved, the book made a she arrived back at her hideout to find Bill W. waiting for her on the front steps. Without coat, hat, or the Steps and the Traditions, they old 41st Street clubhouse. She and 1 more favorable impression at second gloves, he was pounding his arms had no idea that they were shaping were soon friends, and the following reading. and stamping his feet to keep warm. principles destined to hold good for year, an enterprise she was involved She was given an evening’s leave He had, of course, finally figured the million-plus A A members of with proved to be a godsend for me. from the sanitarium to go to her first out where he would be if he were 1981. In writing the Steps, they Marty was one of the “six ink- AA meeting, at the Brooklyn home Marty on a slip. And sure enough, simply looked back and figured out stained wretches” (as co-founder of Bill and Lois. Marty herself the shamefaced Marty and the shivwhat they had done right. They ar- Bill W. called them in the first issue recalled the occasion while speaking ering Bill now stood looking at each rived at the Traditions mostly by the of the Grapevine) who started our a few years ago at the Bill W. an- other in the snow. reverse route – looking back, seeing magazine in 1944. In 1946, I had a niversary dinner held annually by He spoke first. “Ready to stop’ where they had gone wrong, and bad slip; afterward, another of the the New York Intergroup Associa- drinking yet?” then setting a course in the opposite “wretches” helped me avoid booze- tion. Since the group in Brooklyn “I don’t know,” Marty replied direction. fighting by letting me type as she dic- was all male, she found herself sur- truthfully. Decisions reached through the ex- tated Grapevine articles on Sunday prisingly timid and fled upstairs, They stood silent for a while. “I periences of one early woman A A afternoons in her Greenwich Village afraid to go down to the meeting. hope you do soon,” Bill finally said. affected the growth of at least six apartment. (Yes, I’m very sentimen- Eventually, Lois came up. She put “You and I have a long way to go Traditions, including the anonymity tal about this magazine you are her arms around Marty and said, together.” It was an almost uncanny aspect of the Eleventh. The story is reading and about its founders.) “I’m so glad you’re joining us. prophecy. told here by a man who came to A A Because of my slip, I was trying to We’ve all been waiting for you.” Actually, he drove her to New six years after she did. He was drawn find spiritual knowledge I had miss- And they descended the stairs Jersey to sober up in a loaned house partly by one of those still-unvoiced ed. Marty suggested that I read Em- together, arm in arm. Always there- he and Lois were then living in tem- Traditions. In an earlier Grapevine met Fox’s The Sermon on the after, Marty said in her talk, she porarily. And Bill’s hope was realizarticle, he remembered, “One morn- Mount, which she described as “the knew Lois was as much her sponsor ed: That year, 1939, marked the end ing, I found rnyse(f crying and say- AA bible before we had the Big as Bill. of Marty’s drinking. ing, ‘I’ve got to get out of this hell. Book.” Then, she told of having a slip a Immersing herself in AA activity, some way. ‘ That promise of privacy, Marty’s own first encounter with short time later. She hid out from Marty also was hungry for general that pledge – implied in the name the Big Book had not seemed too AAs in the apartment of an old information about alcoholism. She AIcoholics Anonymous – to keep promising. Before its publication, a drinking friend, going out only to had good reason to appreciate how my shameful record absolutely con- typescript of it was given to her, and get booze. Once, she trudged with lifesaving knowledge could be. In fidential made it possible for me to its message left her merely rebel- her package through a bad snow- her school days, she and a chum had show up at the local A A office.” lious. As one story goes, she hurled storm, and almost dropped it when both been stricken with “consump-

tion,” then a disease as stigmatized scientific knowledge being amassed ever published the full name of a liv- ed the danger – not only to alcoholas alcoholism. In deep shame, her at Yale would be of little value unless ing AA member. ics with power drives like his (selfchum’s parents locked up Marty’s it was applied and that it must there- In an interview in that issue, Mar- admitted), but also to the Fellowship friend in an upstairs bedroom, and fore be made available to the general ty told why she’d decided to reveal as a whole. So he had stopped the told everyone the girl was at a finish- public. The Yale savants agreed and publicly her membership in AA. It practice. But now he and Dr. Bob ing school in Europe. But Marty’s made Marty head of their National was “for the good of others,” she honestly thought Marty and her parents sent her to the care of a Committee for Education on Alco- said. Remember – this was 1944, committee made a worthy exception. physician in Arizona. He told her the holism (NCEA). Among members two years before Bill W.’s Grapevine name of her sickness was tuberculo- of the committee were Dr. Bob and article on anonymity and other sis. He said she had no reason to be Bill W., identified as founders of principles that would become our “Bill had courted ashamed, and he explained what she AA. Traditions, and six years before the publicity.. .But should do to recover. She learned all Other members included: Dr. Fellowship accepted the Traditions soon…he recognized she could about the illness, followed Harry Tiebout, the psychiatrist who at the First International Conven- the danger” the doctor’s program of recovery, ran Blythewood Sanitarium and had tion, in Cleveland. and got well. Within one year, how- given Marty the Big Book; Austin In 1977, Marty told me she had at ever, the childhood friend, closeted MacCormick, penologist, later to be- first been reluctant to break her In a short time, NCA had to begin in disgrace upstairs at home, was come, like Dr. Tiebout, a nonalco- anonymity at the public level, not fund-raising. Although the appeal dead. holic trustee on our General Service because the stigma ever scared her, letters did not really say AA was in- In 1943, Marty attended the first Board. And oh yes, Dorothy Parker, but because she felt that a “lady volved, reference to our co-founders Summer School of Alcohol Studies Mary Pickford, Fulton Oursler, and lush” would never be acceptable to and mentions of AA left that impresat Yale University. There, she took the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, to the public, that it would endanger sion. Some of the letters asking for fire and began to blaze with the idea name just a few more. her credibility and so damage her money went to AA members. And of educating the public about alco- As Grapevine fans know, the very cause. very quickly, the Alcoholic Foundaholism. She was well qualified for first Grapevine, dated June 1944 In answer to Marty’s doubts, Bill tion Headquarters (forerunner of this task, with experience as a suc- (facsimile copies are available today and Dr. Bob pointed out that hers the AA General Service Office) was cessful public relations and advertis- for $1.00), featured a big front-page was a unique opportunity to spread deluged with complaints from upset article by Haggard and Jellinek, the AA message as a living example. AAs. This sticky situation came to headlined “Two Yale Savants Stress So, with some trepidation, she de- be called “the Marty M. incident” ” ‘Two Yale Savants Alcoholism as True Disease.” cided they must be right. (This story and eventually resulted in much Then, for the first time anywhere, is also told – naming no names – good for our Fellowship. Stress Alcoholism the Grapevine announced on its by Bill W. in the article “Why As early as 1940, the foundation as True Disease’ ” front page in the October 1944 issue Alcoholics Anonymous Is Anony- had started asking AA groups to the formation of NCEA – to be mous,” and by Lois W. in the book support headquarters work with known within a few years as NCA, Lois Remembers, published by Al- contributions. And in 1945, the ing executive and with talent as a the National Council on Alcohol- Anon .) foundation trustees decided once public speaker. ism. The Grapevine article noted For over a year, Marty tried it. She and for all to accept no further funds The first converts to her campaign that NCEA’s executive director, was not the first, of course. In 1940, from non-AA sources, nor even were Howard W. Haggard and E. Marty M-, and her secretary, Bill had courted personal publicity, large bequests from members. M. Jellinek, founders and directors Marion M. (whose full name was not telling newspaper folks he was a Now, this new outfit, NCA, seemof the Yale Plan of Alcohol Studies. given), were both AA members. It founder of AA. But soon he saw ed to be publicly using its AA con- Marty persuaded them that all the was the only time that this magazine others doing likewise, and recogniz- nections to try to raise big money.

No wonder AA members were puz- distinction, perhaps realized best by AA.” She never did. She never eighty-nine, enjoyed themselves like zled. those who have come to full appre- received any pay for recovering from school buddies off for a holiday, The whole AA-NCA connection ciation of the value and spiritual alcoholism, nor for her personal summoning incredible energy from had to be rethought. Dr. Bob came nature of the humility called for by Twelfth Step work, nor for taking deep, unseen springs and a rich fund to New York, and he and Bill had our anonymity Traditions. the other Steps necessary to stay of memories. But mostly, they seemlong, honest, friendly discussions Bill and Dr. Bob quietly got off sober. Today, thousands of AAs ed eager for the new experience with Marty. Then, the trustees of the the Yale committee. It was a mutual- employed in the field of alcoholism ahead. At the Convention, Marty Alcoholic Foundation held a special ly amicable separation. All involved are grateful to her for blazing a path gave her last public talk. meeting and issued a statement to all saw that the functions of AA and before them. The epilogue to that Convention AA members and groups. It was NCA were entirely different, requir- For many years, Marty gave any- had a double significance in AA and printed in the October 1946 Grape- ing completely separate methods of where from 200 to 350 lectures a year Grapevine history. vine, saying that “. . . several local operation. Public education about in the U.S., in Canada, and abroad. She addressed many legislatures and Four days after the New Orleans Convention closed, Helen Evans and national organizations are solic- alcoholism is not the same thing as iting contributions of money from helping alcoholics on a one-to-one testified before dozens of their com- died of cancer in Tucson, Ariz., July the public through . . . letters from basis. mittees. Her major book, New 10, and Lois W. left the Mississippi which the public may infer sponsor- But the unofficial friendship was Primer on Alcoholism, has been riverboat Delta Queen that day to fly ship by Alcoholics Anonymous. . . . never ruptured. Bill and Dr. Bob issued in five languages. to Tucson. The July 1979 Grapevine No individual or special group . . . continued, when asked, to say they About twenty years ago, Marty has told about Helen, Bill W.’s half has been or will be authorized to personally approved of the NCA ef- went to Chicago for a meeting of the sister (a nonalcoholic), who in 1945 solicit funds under the sponsorship forts, although AA itself had t o be National Tuberculosis Association. took over three jobs nobody else or sanction o f . . . Alcoholics Anon- clearly dissociated from those ef- That weekend, some national emer- would have: (1) She was the Grapeymous. . .” forts. And NCA never stopped plug- gency forced the chief speaker to bow out. He was the President of the vine’s first paid employee, at $40 a month; (2) she was Bill’s part-time The Traditions so dear to us today ging AA as the best way known to were clearly shaping up out of expe- recover from alcoholism. United States. Marty was quickly secretary as he began writing the arrience, including mistakes. And The NCA board and those of al- tapped to replace him. She made a ticles eventually refined into our Marty was a central character in the most all its local affiliate councils fiery, impassioned address about the Traditions; and (3) she was part-time experiences that gave rise to such have nearly always contained a greatness of a society that cared secretary to Marty. Traditions as those on our primary strong nucleus of AA members, act- about people, and thousands cheer- The Convention had been over for purpose, self-support, outside enter- ing not as AAs, of course, but as ed her. She did not say so, but her sixteen days when Marty M. died, on prises, public controversy, nonpro- private citizens. Each wears two message was straight from the heart July 22, after a cerebral hemorfessionalism, and anonymity. hats, in effect: that of a volunteer in of AA, as well as from her childhood rhage. She never again identified herself a non-AA alcoholism agency and experience with another stigmatized In closing her New Orleans talk, as an AA member when lecturing on that of an AA member. Marty de- illness. Marty said, “Truly we have a bond, her job or in the public prints or on scribed herself as “AA’s first two- In 1968, Marty left thedirectorship in the disease – a strange way to the air. But at AA meetings, she hatter,” since she was paid for her of NCA, but, as founder-consultant, have a bond! – that is deep and always did, of course, and stuck educational efforts in alcoholism. continued working just as hard. strong. It flows constantly through strictly to her own personal expe- However, she never was paid one I was on the plane that took Marty us, and passes on to anyone who will rience, never speaking as an “au- cent for being in AA. and Lois W. to New Orleans in July hold their hand out.. And it doesn’t thority.” In public appearances, she For a while, a handful of AAs did 1980 for our 45th Anniversary Inter- stop flowing. I just think we’re the identified herself simply as a not understand this, so they criticiz- national Convention. The two luckiest people in the world!” recovered alcoholic. It is a subtle ed Marty for “making money o n women, aged seventy-five and Anonymous, Manhattan, N.Y.

A A G R A P E V I N E , A P R I L 1981

Thirty-five years after the long form of the Traditions was printed in the Grapevine, a longtime friend of AA looks at our survival, past and future

early servants paused long enough to to have you come and speak. Tell us record the lessons they had learned. where you used to hide your bottles These became the Twelve Traditions and tell us about that hot-flash Is AA’s Future of Alcoholics Anonymous. Cofounder Bill W. described them as spiritual experience of yours. But please don’t talk anymore about the “distilled experience of our those damned Traditions.” Guaranteed? past.” They are also, I would humbly add, the fervent hope of our Gradually, the Traditions began to take hold. As might be expected, future. the groups tried to do things their The Twelve Traditions were first own way. When they found their published in 1946. A shorter form of own way wanting, they turned for the Traditions emerged a year later. guidance, sometimes as a last resort, In 1953, the Traditions, as we know to the Traditions. They discovered them today, appeared in the book to their pleasure that the Traditions Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. offered essential truths, which servby Michael Alexander The Twelve Traditions were not ed the interests of the groups and the Class A (nonalcoholic) trustee an instant success in the Fellowship. Fellowship. They then perceived that According to Bill, “There was much the Traditions were indeed the key to apathetic indifference.” He found the unity that our Fellowship so that “only groups in dire trouble vitally needed. took them seriously.” Other groups, In 1950, the Fellowship estab- T HE TWELVE Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous are the “lessons of an incredible experiwished to join; proclaim that the groups were autonomous; carry the AA message as the primary group especially those with their own rules and regulations, were openly hostile to the Traditions. They saw no use lished the Twelve Traditions as the foundation upon which AA would rest. Five years later, the Fellowship ence.” So says the explanatory text purpose; endorse no other causes; for “official” guidance from Gen- adopted the Conference Charter, of the First Tradition. decline outside contributions; re- eral Headquarters (forerunner of the under which the Twelve Traditions The lessons evolved in a short main nonprofessional; stay unor- AA General Service Office). may not be changed without the span of time. It was the period from ganized; avoid public controversy; At this stage, Bill began to travel written consent of three-fourths of 1935 to 1945. In that brief interval, attract rather than promote; and and talk in support of the Tradi- all the AA groups in the world. It is the Fellowship determined to: put observe anonymity. tions. He reported that “the mem- safe to say that the Traditions will our common welfare first; rely on Our Fellowship also determined bers listened, but were obviously stand for a long time to come. the group conscience; open the not to die. bored.” From some, he received let- Though of utmost importance to Fellowship to any alcoholic who At the end of the first decade, our ters that said, “Bill, we would love us, the lessons in the Twelve Tradi-

tions are hardly unique. Most can be humility that can guard us in every- portant lessons for the survival of Because I am dedicated to the found elsewhere: in Shakespeare and day AA affairs and protect us from the Fellowship. The lessons were preservation of our Fellowship, I am in Plato and surely in the Bible. The ourselves. If AA were really guided learned in the crucible years during intellectually and spiritually bound difference in our case is that we were by the Twelve Traditions, we could which the Fellowship was forged. In to observe and abide by the Twelve forced to learn them the hard way – not possibly be split apart by the words of the early members, Traditions. They are my shield in our struggle for AA’s survival. politics, religion, money, or by any those were harsh, painful, fearsome, against the unknown dangers of an The book Twelve Steps and old-timers who might take a notion and harrowing years – years in uncharted future. They permit me to Twelve Traditions tells us: “Over to be big shots. With none of us which the fate of the Fellowship was look forward with confidence that the years, every conceivable devia- throwing our weight around in put into daily doubt. I hope we shall the Fellowship will continue to ention from our Twelve Steps and public, nobody could possibly ex- never see their kind again. dure. Traditions has been tried. That was ploit AA for personal advantage, sure to be, since we are so largely a that is sure. band of ego-driven individualists. “For the first time, I saw AA’s Children of chaos, we have defiantly anonymity for what it really is. It played with every brand of fire, only isn’t just something to save us from to emerge unharmed and, we think, alcoholic shame and stigma; its wiser. These very deviations created deeper purpose is actually to keep a vast process of trial and error those fool egos of ours from running which, under the grace of God, has hog-wild after money and public brought us to where we stand fame at AA’s expense. It really today.” means personal and group sacrifice Bill saw the Traditions as a “con- for the benefit of all AA. Right then, fession that our Fellowship has its I resolved to learn our Twelve Tradisins.” To him, the Traditions were tions by heart, just as I had learned “a guide to better ways of working the Twelve Steps. If every AA did an4 living” and “an antidote for our the same thing and really soaked up various maladies.” The Traditions, these principles, we drunks could as Bill viewed them, called for per- hang together forever.” sonal and group sacrifice in ways Do other members of the that make the Traditions, in his Fellowship see the Traditions the words, “the greatest force for unity way the imaginary Mr. Grassroots that we know.” does? No one can say for sure. AA In his book AA Comes of Age, members are free to think as they Bill created a composite member of please. There are no classrooms in the Fellowship named Mr. Grass- which the Traditions are taught nor roots, who lived in the imaginary tutors who teach them. Moreover, city of Centerville, U.S.A. This is no one can force the Traditions upon what Mr. Grassroots had to say groups or members. By our own deabout the Traditions: “I found those sign, neither the Traditions nor Twelve Traditions still on my mind. anything else in AA is enforceable. Each of them I saw is an exercise in The Twelve Traditions offer im-

July 1981

had always wanted something. I was AAs did not preach to me, either, not yet at the point of recovery and that was also very important where I could see myself as someone indeed, crucial. Ever since, I have who had always been trying to get tried to follow their example when something for nothing, just about all other alcoholics show up at my his life. group with pleas for help. In spite of the mysteries and my I remember a young man who had doubts, I could see clearly that the been around AA awhile but was ungroup had made my welfare part of able to stop drinking. He charged intheirs. It was baffling, but it kept me to the group one night drunk, corcoming back. nered me, and threatened me with a Our common welfare should come first; One night, a drinking drunk came punch in the nose for some imagined personal recovery depends upon AA unity to the group. Up to then, my idea of slight. I was prepared to defend mydisruption of a meeting was some- self if need be: but first, I tried body’s sneezing while the speaker another way. “You can punch me was talking. But the drunk that night out if you want,” I said, and looked was not sneezing. Finally, after him calmly (!) in the eyes, “but is repeated warnings, a few of our that going to get you sober?” There members escorted him out of the hall was no further violence. I don’t and up the street to the coffee shop. I know what influence that episode Belonging was quite put out, to think that a had, but he took his last drink shortdrinking drunk should dare to come ly thereafter. He is now sober over to our meeting. ten years. T HE WOMAN who had invited me to lunch with some AA members, in the summer of 1960, intro- I had some more drinking to do after my first couple of weeks dry, but when I was ready for AA in the I conveniently forgot that I had come to meetings drunk. Also forgotten was one of my favorite rou- Groups have to keep coming to grips with the question of what to do about the disruptive drunk. I heard duced me as a newcomer. The others fall of that year, AA was ready for tines, while the meeting was in prog- of a case recently where a drinking greeted me and went back to their me. ress – standing in a corner at the drunk had been disrupting a group, meal. I told my newfound friend One of the most inscrutable mys- front of the room with my face to the but no one wanted to be the “bad Jane that I wasn’t hungry. Actually, teries for the longest time was how wall. Or else, in the middle of the guy” and do something about him. I was shaking apart and unable to the group knew exactly what my meeting, I would run and hide in the At last, one disgusted member called eat. Every time I tried to get the cup number one problem was even be- coat closet. There was one man in the police – and left the meeting to my lips and the coffee sloshed out, fore I could tell them. And there particular who would coax me back without waiting for them. When Jane “just happened” to turn away. seemed to be no limit to their under- to the meeting. Jack was practicing they arrived and asked who had call- My brain was in a fog, but I standing of my many other prob- the First Tradition then, and I am ed, not one of the old-timers or midrecognized her tactfulness. By draw- lems. It became a bit spooky. happy to say he still is. timers present would take over the . ing me into the fellowship at that Again, I was startled when individ- Of tremendous importance was responsibility. It was up to a member . table, she was leading me to the unity ual members of the group told me the fact that the group never lectured with no more than a year’s sobriety. of AA. they cared about me. Right away, me. Lectures on drinking, or rather She was more interested in staying That was my introduction to the the antennae went up: What did they on not drinking, had left me cold sober than in being a “good guy.” First Tradition. want from me? It seemed that people and determined to do it my way. The (Calling the police does not auto-

matically mean arrest. It means that clusive (the AA way). bound condition permitted me to bringing me out of isolation and the disrupter will be escorted out and As a final thought on the subject, I understand that my home group was back into fellowship. I must rememgiven warning.) know of an AA group that invited its an integral part of the local inter- ber that once I place myself outside Groups find that it is simply not clique members to form a welcoming group, the Grapevine, the AA Gen- my group, I have lost contact with healthy t o allow disruptions t o go committee. The results were surpris- eral Service Office, and our General the source of my strength. . on. If a group’s integrity is not ingly good. Service Conference. The grand il- Groups and personalities may placed first, there soon might be no I was drawn into AA unity by a lumination came when I finally was change, but AA unity does not group to disrupt. As for the disrupt- number of other means – for able to see that, not only was my change. I must be wary, though, not er, while he (or she) may need help instance, the special warmth of be- group part of those bodies, but they to take it for granted. It is not a – may even want it – to permit him ginners meetings, the reassuring were an integral part of my group. magic formula that operates outside to take over only enforces his delu- handshakes, the unstinting words of Every once in a while, it seems I the sphere of human activity. AA sion that he is the center of the uni- encouragement. By and by, the liter- am growing and changing so fast unity, like sobriety, has to be worked verse and still all-powerful. ature and the Steps began to take on that I have outstripped my fellow at. Our entire worldwide Fellowship meaning. Perhaps, the single activity AAs. At such times, I have only to has to work at it. More to the point, I most significant in making me part remember Jane, who put out her have to work at it. “Groups and personalities of Alcoholics Anonymous was my hand to me, and Jack, who kept W.H., Manhattan, N.Y. may change, but involvement in institutions service AA unity work. Another unifying tool was the does not change” area meeting book. Each morning, I would plan the meeting I would at- Some AAs feel that cliques are a tend that-night. I regarded my job (I major disruptive force within was lucky enough to still have one) groups. I am not sure that they are, as incidental to the meeting. In the although my own experience leaves course of the day, I would take the me skeptical. Once, I got into a book out often to reassure myself clique that seemed very attractive that AA did exist. Even today, I from the outside. What I found was catch myself fingering the book in that one of their favorite games was my pocket and enjoying that same passing judgment on newcomers, feeling of belonging. deciding who would make it and Membership in Alcoholics Anonwho would not. It was particularly ymous used to mean belonging to my horrifying because it forced me to home group alone. My comprehenadmit that I, too, judged new- sion was so limited that I could not comers. The only difference was that see the connection between my home I did not do it out loud. group and a group on the other side The valuable insight I gained there of town. It was to be many years was that I was clique-minded; that before I would see the connection is, my attitudes toward my fellow between my home group and state, alcoholics were still exclusive (the regional, and international convenold way of thinking), rather than in- tions – many years before my fog- ‘

AA Grapevine, August 1 9 8 1 sonal desires and ambitions for the A nonymity what had been happening to me in AA. That was good, but if micro- benefit of AA as a whole. Each of phones or cameras had been handy us, as an individual, is asked to do when I was a relative newcomer, I’m this – not a committee, nor the AA not too sure I wouldn’t have used General Service Office, nor the AA ‘The Spiritual Substance’ them. Being the center of attention gave me a nice, warm feeling. (It General Service Conference. We are asked to give up things like reminded me of something else I had fear, pride, and anger, to avoid con- A presentation to the 1981 troversies, so that we can work together more effectively. We are General Service Conference “We are asked to asked to let others express their opinions and to realize that these opingive up things ions are worthy of consideration. T HE FIRSTsentence of the chapter on the Twelfth Tradition in the “Twelve and Twelve” says, “The these people were showing concern for me, loving me without knowing anything about me except that I had like fear, pride, We are asked not to judge others. We are asked to trust one another spiritual substance of anonymity is a big drinking problem. They were to mind our own business. We are and anger” asked to let others tell us if we are sacrifice.” The placing of principles friends. I didn’t choose them carebefore my personality is the sacrifice fully – they just were. I was anony- doing something worthwhile. All of I believe I am asked to make. mous and so were they. That spon- this, for this alcoholic, takes a lot of When I attended my first AA taneous gift of love given freely is formerly used to feel warm.) self-discipline but may help me cultimeeting, no one asked me where I something I hope I never forget. At this period, the Traditions were vate some humility. If the process is lived, what I did for a living – they Later, when my gratitude for be- pointed out to me. It was time to painful – as the experiences of our didn’t even ask my last name. I had ing sober put aside my fear of the think about my reasons for doing pioneers often were as they became been told all of my young life to stigma of being an alcoholic, oppor- what I was doing. My understanding aware of the need for principles to choose my friends carefully, and yet tunities came along for me to explain of the spiritual meaning of anonym- guide us toward unity – the reward ity was beginning to form, although is worth it. The reward is our con- I didn’t know it. tinued ability to carry the message. I have used those two common ex- If it seems necessary for me to say periences because they are to me the how many times I have been asked to basic reasons for anonymity – “the speak recently, to comment on how spiritual substance” it is all about, many people I sponsor, or to remark the giving without thinking of that I am the sponsor of someone return, the getting off center stage who is successful in the program for the welfare of others. Wanting to if I do not put enough trust in somedo that is the ultimate goal. one else’s ability to take over my ser- ‘The Twelfth Tradition states: vice responsibility – if a service “Anonymity is the spiritual founda- project is successful, and I make sure tion of all our Traditions, ever re- it is known that it was originally my minding us to place principles before idea, no matter who accomplished it personalities.” We are asked in all of – I am not placing principles before our Traditions to sacrifice our per- my personality. I am in the way of

real unity. I am hindering my own In “Why Alcoholics Anonymous growth, my group’s growth, and Is Anonymous,” published in the thus AA’s growth. Grapevine in 1955, Bill W. said, What I must remember is that if “We take these attitudes not at all something I say is helpful to some- because we claim special virtue or one, the important thing is the help wisdom; we d o these things because – not that I said it. If the job is ac- hard experience has told us that we complished, that’s important – not must – if AA is to survive in the disthat I did it. traught world of today. We also give I believe that each one of us has up rights and make sacrifices much to give. Using our common because we ought to – and better sense, we know we need one yet, because we want to. AA is a another. I also believe that if we give power greater than any of us; it must freely without regard to prestige or go on living, or else uncounted recognition, the God-given talents thousands of our kind will surely we each have will enable our die. This we know.” Fellowship to grow. The word sacrifice sounds some- None of the thoughts I have pre- what unpleasant when I first see or, sented are new; I have just expressed hear it, but the reward it brings in them in my own way. However, I this case is really joyous if each of us believe the words “ever reminding who love our Fellowship gains more us” in the Twelfth Tradition are spiritual maturity. there for our good. D. H., Wilmington, Del. ,

August 1981

Anonymity within AA four personal experiences with Traditions Eleven and Twelve

mented on the Eleventh Tradition as follows: ” ‘Since our Tradition on anonymity designates the exact level where the line should be held, it must be obvious to everyone who can read and understand the English language that to maintain anonymity at any other level is definitely a violation of at the level of press, radio, and this Tradition. A FEW WEEKS ago, an AA friend called me t o ask if I had the phone number of Helen, a member been sitting in meetings with her for at least six or seven years. But during all that time, she has been content to films.” There is nothing in the Tradition that remotely suggests anonymity a t ” ‘The AA who hides his identity

from his fellow AA by using only a given name violates the Tradition in good standing and a regular at give her name as Helen – plain, un- the group level. In fact, Dr. Bob, just as much as the AA who permits groups all three of us attended. He adorned “Helen” – isolated and AA’s co-founder, went so far as to his name to appear in the press in was anxious to contact her about uncommitted. charge those who withhold last connection with matters pertaining . speaking at a meeting he was lead- .– Here in the northern Virginia area names at AA meetings with violating to AA.’ ” 111g. (and elsewhere, I understand), the the Tradition, as witness this passage The problem may be that too I did not have her number. And practice of “first names only” has from the book Dr. Bob and the many AAs fail to read the Tradino, I did not know her last name. My become all too common. In fact, I Good Oldtimers: tions. Every meeting that I attend on friend finally gave up and asked am tempted to start a new fellowship “In an article in the February 1969 the Eleventh Tradition reflects a someone else. known as “Anonymous Anon- Grapevine, D. S. of San Mateo, Cal- misunderstanding on the part of a The Iady was no newcomer; I have ymous,” in which only first initials ifornia, wrote that Dr. Bob com- significant number of members.

More members seem to interpret the globe apart at its seams. More- During my early days in AA, I was gatherings, cocktail parties, or busithat Tradition chiefly in terms of the over, they make clear that enough gratified to hear many people freely ness meetings, even in casual enprotection afforded the individual, spectacular anonymity breakers identifying themselves by first and counters, they do not hesitate for rather than the protection of AA could someday carry our whole last names. They were telling me that even a second to give their last itself from those who would exploit Society down into that ruinous dead they were proud and happy to be names. They reserve that unintenit if given the chance. end with them.” members of AA and were secure in tional but nonetheless graceless act Co-founder Bill W. made the Bill goes on to say: the knowledge that they were among of concealment for their friends in reason behind this Tradition crystal “Of course, no AA need be anon- friends whose understanding, love, AA. clear in his article “Why Alcoholics ymous to family, friends, or neigh- and loyalty knew no bounds. And in this act of withholding, do Anonymous Is Anonymous”: bors. Disclosure there is usually And yet others apparently did not they not surround themselves with “The old files at AA Headquar- right and good. Nor is there any feel that way. an aura of aloofness that creates an ters reveal many scores of such expe- special danger when we speak at It struck me then, and it strikes me artificial distance between themriences with broken anonymity. group or semipublic AA meetings, now, that at no other place are these selves and their fellows? Most of them point up the same provided press reports reveal first people so anonymous. At social W. F., Centreville, Va. lessons. names only.” “They tell us that we alcoholics Why do not members – and 1 are the biggest rationalizers in the refer to older members, not new- Anonymity world; that fortified with the excuse comers who may be understandably we are doing great things for AA, we reticent in this regard – give their can, through broken anonymity, re- last names at AA meetings? sume our old and disastrous pursuit For many, it may well be just a of personal power and prestige, public honors, and money – the same habit. (Could it also be a function of the alcoholic proclivity toward ex- ‘The Spiritual Substance’ implacable urges that when frus- cess?) trated once caused us to drink; the At a recent closed meeting of my A presentation to the 1981 same forces that are today ripping group, at least half a dozen members stated flatly that they would not General Service Conference hesitate to give their last names at an AA meeting. But every single one of them introduced himself or herself by first name only. T HE FIRST sentence of the chapter on the Twelfth Tradition in the “Twelve and Twelve” says, “The these people were showing concern for me, loving me without knowing anything about me except that I had *

For others, it may be fear. They spiritual substance of anonymity is a big drinking problem. They were are afraid that word will get out, that sacrifice.” The placing of principles friends. I didn’t choose them careother members will purposely or in- before my personality is the sacrifice fully – they just were. I was anonyadvertently break their anonymity to I believe I am asked to make. mous and so were they. That sponpeople outside. It is an unjustified When I attended my first AA taneous gift of love given freely is fear, as can be verified by the expe- meeting, no one asked me where I something 1 hope 1 never forget. riences of tens of thousands of AA lived, what I did for a living – they Later, when my gratitude for bemembers who do use their last names didn’t even ask my last name. I had ing sober put aside my fear of the inside meetings. And yet the practice been told all of my young life to stigma of being an alcoholic, opporitself adds fuel to the fear. choose my friends carefully, and yet tunities came along for me to explain

what had been happening to me in sonal desires and ambitions for the AA. That was good, but if micro- benefit of AA as a whole. Each of real unity. I am hindering my own In “Why Alcoholics Anonymous phones or cameras had been handy us, as an individual, is asked to do growth, my group’s growth, and Is Anonymous,” published in the when I was a relative newcomer, I’m this – not a committee, nor the AA thus AA’s growth. Grapevine in 1955, Bill W. said, not too sure I wouldn’t have used General Service Office, nor the AA What I must remember is that if “We take these attitudes not at all them. Being the center of attention General Service Conference. something I say is helpful to some- because we claim special virtue or gave me a nice, warm feeling. (It We are asked to give up things like one, the important thing is the help wisdom; we do these things because reminded me of something else I had fear, pride, and anger, to avoid con- – not that I said it. If the job is ac- hard experience has told us that we troversies, so that we can work complished, that’s important – not must – if AA is to survive in the distogether more effectively. We are that I did it. traught world of today. We also give asked to let others express their opin- I believe that each one of us has up rights and make sacrifices “We are asked to much to give. Using our common because we ought to – and better ions and to realize that these opingive up things ions are worthy of consideration. sense, we know we need one yet, because we want to. AA is a We are asked not to judge others. another. I also believe that if we give power greater than any of us; it must like fear, pride, We are asked to trust one another – freely without regard to prestige or go on living, or else uncounted ‘

to mind our own business. We are recognition, the God-given talents thousands of our kind will surely and anger” asked to let others tell us if we are we each have will enable our die. This we know.” doing something worthwhile. All of Fellowship t o grow. The word sacrifice sounds somethis, for this alcoholic, takes a lot of None of the thoughts I have pre- what unpleasant when I first see or formerly used to feel warm.) self-discipline but may help me culti- sented are new; I have just expressed hear it, but the reward it brings in At this period, the Traditions were vate some humility. If the process is them in my own way. However, I this case is really joyous if each of us pointed out to me. It was time to painful – as the experiences of our believe the words “ever reminding who love our Fellowship gains more think about my reasons for doing pioneers often were as they became us” in the Twelfth Tradition are spiritual maturity. what I was doing. My understanding aware of the need for principles to there for our good. D. H., Wilmington, Del. of the spiritual meaning of anonym- guide us toward unity – the reward ity was beginning to form, although is worth it. The reward is our con- I didn’t know it. tinued ability to carry the message. Anonymity I have used those two common ex- If it seems necessary for me to say periences because they are to me the how many times I have been asked to basic reasons for anonymity – “the speak recently, to comment on how spiritual substance” it is all about, the giving without thinking of many people 1 sponsor, or t o remark that I am the sponsor of someone A Deeper Understanding return, the getting off center stage who is successful in the program for the welfare of others. Wanting to if I do not put enough trust in somedo that is the ultimate goal. one else’s ability to take over my ser- ‘The Twelfth Tradition states: “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever revice responsibility – if a service project is successful, and I make sure it is known that it was originally my I HAD ALWAYS thought, as my years in AA went on, “The other fellow’s anonymity is more imporhonest with the people inside AA? I didn’t ask myself that. I had no idea how I really felt until minding us to place principles before idea, no matter who accomplished it tant than mine. I don’t really care came a day I had subconsciously personalities.” We are asked in all of – I am not placing principles before anymore. I’m really glad people out- feared for years – the day a man our Traditions to sacrifice our per- my personality. I am in the way of side know I’m in AA.” was felled by a heart attack at a ban- Ah yes, but was I being equally quet, during a convention held by

the AA area where I live. Another blage of AAs, shaken by this self- nize who I was, and second, to ac- capacity. member had just received a revelation of a yearning for “ano- cept that human being. Then, I And I thought I was cunning and medallion honoring him as Canada’s nymity” within AA, even at the risk could go on with the AA program. devious! My Higher Power outdid first AA – when it happened. And of another’s life! Surely, I thought, How little we know, thank God, me when He sent me to that AA banthe banquet chairman yelled over the this must be the ultimate in egocen- of our individual destinies, the paths quet, to help save a life – and to microphone to 1,000 assembled tricity, this cold, callous “I’m okay, down which we are led so that we find deeper understanding of myself guests, “Is there a doctor in the James – pull up the ladder” atti- may be of service, in whatever and the anonymity principle. house?” tude. L. R., Victoria, B.C. I paused, irresolute. Somebody But then I remembered the years it else would come forward, I thought. took me to accept the real, hurting Yeah, that’s it – they’ll have a non- me behind the iron MD mask – not a ‘ Anonymity alcoholic doctor in attendance for a professional, just a terrified amateur crowd this size. Nobody moved. at life, groping painfully in the Then I knew I had to reveal myself blackness toward recovery from alinside AA, to all these congregated coholism. fellow members, as the doctor and I remembered all the AA meetings ‘Just Another Drunk’ the heart specialist I am. I’d attended as plain L- (never I hated it. I seemed glued to my Dr. L-), silent through indignachair. But I heard a thundering com- tion sessions aimed at “pill pushers” mand inside my head: “Look, and “weird shrinks.” One word Buster, a man is dying! Move!” And about my medical training, I feared, T RADITION TWELVE never meant much to me until I left the security and non-anonymity of my home for sobriety. I didn’t even have “the only requirement for membership.” They didn’t give me pity – they ‘ move I did, going first to the man, would inhibit the thrust of the meet- group. By “non-anonymity,” I gave me love. They ignored my then with him into a braying ambu- ing, blunt the help I needed so des- mean that my home group knew me, symptoms and treated my disease by lance, pumping his chest and blow- perately from my fellow members. aN of me; I had nothing hidden from telling me, no matter what I said was ing into his lungs over and over, until I remembered how angry and them. wrong with me, “Don’t drink, and he was rolled, pink and pulsating, evasive I was whenever anyone They had taken me in, a nonper- go to meetings.” onto a waiting hospital stretcher. homed in on my background or son drunk in the final stages of al- And in meeting after meeting of The ambulance men gave me a education. I wanted no part of that coholism and all the despair that sharing their experiences, they ride back to the AA banquet. “Well, at an AA meeting. goes with it. They had patiently, and taught me slowly, one meeting at a doc, you sure deserve a good dr-” I remembered the eighteen months sometimes not so patiently, listened time, how to begin to take one Step Their eyes wandered away ‘from my a dedicated psychiatrist worked with to my eternal poor me’s and why at a time, and they came to know me face. “Uh, a good time. Yes, doc. me through Steps Four and Five un- me’s. All I asked for when I first got thoroughly. Have a real good time.” til, with his incredible patience, he to AA was pity. I didn’t know My home group, a beloved fami- I crawled back into the assem- managed to teach me first, to recog- enough or have sense enough to ask ly, watched me grow and get well.

My sponsor watched me become a Steps. I read the Big Book with care. sponsor. I felt their love and pride in I read copies of the Grapevine that me and their joy in my growth in AA had been carefully selected back sobriety. I felt it and knew it because home and brought along. Those I, in turn, experienced those feelings pages are just like meetings, and in a with newer members. It was a happy town where I had no phone numbers time, and my open and honest shar- to give comfort between meetings or ing in my home group made me well at odd hours, they played a vital role known and oh, so very comfortable. in keeping me sober and comfort- Jobs and responsibilities were able. given to me as I became more I found I became intensely aware capable. Eventually, I was able to do of two spiritual ideas: myself as a a few worthwhile projects to help the “personality” with a chance to still-suffering alcoholic. I felt sober grow, because 1 was truly anonand successful, and this very peak ymous in each new group; and the experience led me to come out West AA “principles” I had to turn to, where a new job awaited. because I did not have my known For over a year now, in several and loved home group to fall back states, I have begun anew with sever- on. I was on my own, alone and al AA groups and many members. unknown, and at the same time not I’ve gotten a glimpse of that idea of alone. An AA miracle! anonymity as a spiritual foundation. At those first few (and I do mean Somehow, living alone in each few) meetings when my travels new and strange place and going, began, I was just another drunk, tryunknown, to a meeting, I was really ing to stay sober. No one knew how just another drunk. It was a hum- wonderful I might be, nor how sick bling and good way to start all over. and rotten I might be, either. But the I listened to the same wonderful love was there and was given to me. words coming from the mouths of Somehow, it was very powerful. I strangers, and I knew that only their was amazed to find myself accepting faces were unknown to me. it humbly and with an awareness of This understanding of them – a the goodness of anonymity. spiritual understanding and a know- After those first meetings, I ing of them because of the AA pro- shared my story and myself, and so I gram – gave me a glimpse of the then helonged to each new group. meaning of the Twelfth Tradition. It Though I was no longer anonymous was a hint of the meaning of humil- to those fellow members, I had ity, and I found it satisfying. I think gained a precious bit of learning it became satisfying because I now about anonymity as a “spiritual had to use the tools I’d been given. I foundation.” needed to live the slogans and the A . M., Santa Cruz, Calif.

September 1 9 8 1

and then on our common experience mention of the Traditions used to be of suffering and rebirth. I had heard the signal for my mind to close down that AA love talked about, of tight? To pay attention to the Tracourse, and I had read about it, but ditions – to say nothing of the Steps it was beyond my understanding. – would have meant looking more Therefore, I did not trust it. closely at myself, and that was What I wanted to hear was that frightening. When the subject was the board of trustees governed us, “trusted servants,” it was too painaided and abetted by GSO (the ful, since I already had to work so General Service Office). I knew ab- hard to believe that God (as 1 undersolutely nothing about those AA stood Him) would not let me down. bodies but was convinced that they It is only within the last five years For our group purpose there is but one were similar to the Federal govern- that my distrust has been forced to ultimate authority-a loving God as He may ment’s HEW (Department of Health, yield to the grace of a loving God Education, and Welfare). Those (the healing grace of AA). Did I do express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders three bodies became identified with anything special to gain my freedom are but trusted servants; they do not govern one another, and I distrusted them at long last? Yes. I kept as close as all. I was convinced that the “upper possible to AA (as I understood it) echelons” of Alcoholics Anon- and prayed like the dickens for the gift of faith. And I stayed away from Governed by Love ymous were out to undo me. Today, I am inclined to believe one drink for one day at a time, so that my lack of trust – my fear – that when the door finally opened, I

T HERE ARE NO bosses in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not even straw bosses. Who ever heard of such a conned my way in the saloons. Even after many months of not drinking and of attending AA meetings, I was often took the form of physical illness, preventing me from accepting AA commitments that would have was ready to step through into the light of trust and unity. What about practical application? thing? Everybody knew (so I used to still trying to discover which involved me with our general service As Alcoholics Anonymous a p think) that without bosses, hateful meetings the “masters” went to. structure or our local intergroup. proaches a half century of wisdom as they were, no operation could What masters? It followed logically I used to feel more at home visit- and experience, why do we still need possibly succeed. that if there were servants, there had ing locked wards and correctional the Second Tradition? I It is twenty years since I had my to be masters. Quite a lot later, the facilities than I did in my home The fact that our membership has last drink and came into AA. I am fog lifted just enough for me to be- group. My attitude was that I did not grown to its present one million plus still not overfond of bosses. And gin to understand that there is only have to trust patients and inmates, inspires me every now and then with that is fine, because, thanks to the one Master, “a loving God as He but by the very nature of things, they the notion that the time has come for Second Tradition, there are still no may express Himself in our group had to trust me. I was quite unaware a more formalized governing strucbosses around. conscience.” of my peculiar brand of bossism. At ture. I am especially grateful to our Early on, I started hearing about It took fifteen AA years before I my homegroup, I distrusted the very newer, younger members who never our “trusted servants.” If they did could open my mind and heart suffi- process by which I was elected to of- fail to encourage me to think twice. not run things, who did? It was ter- ciently to identify the chief principle fice many times; I even suspected the In my area, there is a continuing ribly important that I find out so 1 governing us and holding us together group of ballot-tampering when influx of younger people whose could flatter and con my way into in unity. It is simply love, based first others were elected. eagerness to get on with life I take as sobriety, just as I had flattered and on our common need for survival Is it any wonder that the mere a personal challenge. They bring a

natural impetuousness, too, that AA did not affiliate with natioi that members of his group got General Service Conference. sometimes prompts them to push for agencies so that it could be of mc restless during the secretary’s an- There are also some important change for the sake of change. (And help to more people. I attempted nouncements and weren’t listening. personal guidelines for me in the ‘ why not? I had the same urgings as a explain our principle of cooperatic “I told her to get a big sign,” he Second Tradition. I should try to newcomer .) without affiliation (Sixth Tradition), said, with sincerity, “like a cue card, keep my outlook clear so that I can “I think our group should have but he insisted on pointing out what that would read ‘SHUT UP, PLEASE.’ remain in touch with myself. I ought two overall chairmen.” That state- he called a “fringe benefit.” Ac- But she thought the group con- to remember that I am not my own ment was made to me by a newcomer cording to him, it would enable us to science would not go along with it. ultimate authority. I ought also be whose bid for the chairmanship of do away with our “unprofessional” What does group conscience have to aware that when I am too hard on his group had fallen through. “Each elections. “Having God as your ulti- do with it?” myself, I am practicing a form of chairman,” he continued, “would mate authority is all very good,” he Good question. Group conscience bossism, and bossism doesn’t work have his own steering committee, declared, “and I am not saying that was first defined for me as the in- for me. and one could check up on the other. Alcoholics Anonymous should be formed opinion of the majority of Finally, it is a proved-good idea to In that way, we’d really get things any the less religious. But your elec- the membership. We are all familiar keep my own doors open, two of done in this group.” tions ought to be more businesslike. with the workings of group con- them in particular. My fellow alco- (Can you imagine your home Honestly now, how much longer can science at the level of the local holics have a right to know that my group with two steering committees? you go on telling your membership group. Its most elemental form is ex- experience and sanity (such as it is) Mine has its hands full with just that their bosses don’t run the pressed when the group opens the are available for sharing. And I am one .) show!” doors of its meeting place. Just responsible for making my sobriety With the increasing visibility of God bless our non-AA friends. ‘ about all progress starts with the accessible to them. our Fellowship, more pressures are We would never have gotten this far opening of doors, doesn’t it? Let me share my newfound trust brought to bear, and the cry to pro- without their help. But we do need to That same definition would also with you. It will help me toward fessionalize seems to grow louder. A listen carefully. We also need to apply to the group conscience of another day’s sobriety and perhaps well-intention:& nonaicoholic busi- listen to one another with the same area or district committees, of the lead you into a new understanding of nessman cornered me at a party one care. For instance, a young member AA Grapevine, of the General Ser- our Second Tradition. evening. He wanted to know why came to me once with a complaint vice Board (trustees), and of the AA W. H., Manhattan, N.Y.

October 1981

Principles-Yes! Personalities-No!

I WAS BECOMING disillusioned with AA. After three years, I was beginning to go to meetings angry ance, impatience, judgmental attitude. I began to “Live and Let Live” again – what a relief! I began to reand leave whispering “hypocrite” member that none of us are perfect, under my breath. none of us, indeed, are saints, but we I knew some members well. I can learn from and share with one knew their private lives: One was another. always smoking marijuana; another’s I rediscovered what to me are the life consisted of multi-affairs; still principles of AA – the Steps and the another was quite dishonest in her Traditions. And 1 began to underbusiness. Each time they spoke at stand a new aspect of “principles meetings, I found myself intolerant before personalities” (Twelfth Traof whatever they said; I disagreed dition): No matter how much I disfor almost any reason and certainly liked or was angry at other AAmemdid not take what they had to say bers, the principles could still come into consideration. Their lives were a from them, through them. And mess – how could they teach me often that’s exactly where they did anything? come from. I learned that those I dis- I was frightened of losing my posi- agreed with most were often saying tive feelings toward AA and thought something I desperately needed to a break might help a bit. I began at- hear – and that’s why I didn’t want tending different meetings – meet- to hear it! I found that when I put ings where I knew the members less aside a personality and listened, the well and knew nothing about their principles often came bursting personal lives. through. I began listening again. I began Imagine! God even works through hearing again. And I began working those people I disagree with or don’t on my own program again – on my especially care for. own character defects, like intoler- Anonymous, North Carolina

$” ‘ October l g 8’an alcoholic, he or she has an abso- are happy whenever they help anylute right to be a member of Alcohol- one. ics Anonymous. Our Third Tradi- “While all such programs as NA “\ tion is clear and uncompromising about that: “The only requirement are welcome to use our Twelve Steps, 1 do not want anyone but for AA membership is a desire to alcoholics in my group’s closed stop drinking.” If we have a prob- meetings. I want only those who lem with alcohol and want to solve it have a desire to stop drinking to have through sobriety, we qualify for AA a vote and a voice in the future of my membership. Any other problems group. I want my AA group to have we may have do not affect that only ‘one primary purpose – to qualification in any way. carry its message to the alcoholic Well, that’s fine, you may be who still suffers.’ ” thinking. I don’t know of anyone The phrase “dual addict” did not who disagrees. So what’s the diffi- appear anywhere in the letter. The 1 culty? writer was referring to two kinds of The difficulty is that so many of people: nonalcoholic drug addicts, The Hurt That Shouldn’t Be our dually addicted AA members misinterpret any reference to nonaland alcoholics. He was not ignoring or neglecting the dual addicts. In his coholic drug addicts as an attack on mind, they were right there along A thoughtful look at the dual addict. Perhaps because with the other alcoholics. (He and I they have suffered so many slights have been close friends and fellow a widespread misunderstanding and have been so cruelly hurt so workers in AA service for a good about dual addicts in AA often, they see rejection where it was many years and have discussed this never intended. subject often, so I am not guessing The delegate to the AA General about his thoughts.)

A RE HUNDREDS, perhaps thou- different ideas about the meaning of sands, of AA members suffer- words, specifically the phrases ing painful feelings of rejection and “drug addict” and “dual addict.” Service Conference from a Southwestern state encountered this, to his astonishment and dismay, a few Immediately after his letter reached the groups, the delegate received a hurt and angry protest from an AA resentment based on misunderstand- Let me first explain how I propose years ago. In one of his monthly let- member in a nearby town. “What is ing? Is this situation creating dis- to use these terms, what they will ters to the groups in his area, he ex- the poor dual addict to do,” it asksension in AA where pone should ex- mean in this article. pressed his conviction that only ed, “when our delegate is trying to ist? “Drug addict” means a person alcoholics should be members of throw him out of AA?” From a steady flow o f incidents addicted to some drug or drugs other AA. His letter said, in part: The horrified delegate, who had over a period of years, I am afraid than alcohol. He or she is not an “Our AA Service Manual states never entertained such an idea for a these things are true. But we can cor- alcoholic. that the AA ‘Twelve Steps, as’ all second, reexamined his missive word rect them, as we have corrected so “Dual addict” means a person spiritual truths, may now be regard- for word, looking for anything that many things throughout AA’s his- who is an alcoholic, and who also ed as available to all mankind.’ So could have inspired such a response tory, with love and patience and~un- has an addiction to a drug or drugs Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers – and didn’t find it, because it derstanding . in addition to alcohol. Anonymous, and any other group may use our Twelve Steps, and we wasn’t there. “The only explanation I can see,” The problem seems to be rooted in The dual addict is an alcoholic. As

he told me, “is that I think of dual wanted and needed in AA. meaning but misguided physician have seen the evidence that many do, addicts primarily as alcoholics and Yet the publication was deluged started him on tranquilizers to help and how sorely it hurts. And it is a they think of themselves primarily as with protests that the author was at- him stop drinking. After ten years in situation that holds a danger of drug addicts. When I wrote that I tempting to make “second-class citi- AA, he is recovering from both ad- harm to AA. wanted only alcoholics in my group, zens” of the dual addicts or to bar dictions. If my delegate friend was right in I thought I was including the dual them from membership in AA alto- “Cutting the dually addicted from suggesting that the ways we think addicts, and he thought I was ex- gether. One correspondent indig- AA,” he wrote, “is denying them about dual addiction might be the cluding them.” The delegate reflect- nantly reported that he had “receiv- their chance of recovery. Should I, root of the problem, he may have ed on this for a few seconds, and ed calls from five people concerned as a longtime member of AA, refuse given us the solution. We can change added, “And that is tragic.” with their eligibility to continue in them membership?” I wrote him at our ways of thinking about that, as Another longtime AA friend of AA, because they had abused other once, assuring him of my total o p we have done about other things in mine, who lives in an Eastern state, drugs in addition to alcohol.” position to the thought of refusing order to recover in AA. had a similar experience. He attend- Some months ago, the Grapevine AA membership to any alcoholic, All alcoholics have other probed an open AA meeting at which printed an article I wrote about using whatever his other problems might lems in addition to alcoholism the AA Traditions in our own be. money problems, personality prob- “. ..our Traditions, groups. A short part of it dealt with one group’s disagreement about I did not agree with the proposal of one correspondent. He thought lems, sex problems. No one, including the alcoholics themselves, thinks exactly as they are opening its membership to nonalco- we should “expand the Traditions to for a moment that those extra probwritten, already holic drug addicts, and explained include dual addicts.” But our Tra- lems could bar them from AA. why this would violate Traditions. ditions, exactly as they are written, They’re alcoholics. They belong! If include dual addicts” Specifically and repeatedly, the arti- already include dual addicts, be- the alcoholics’ other problems hapcle made it perfectly clear (or so I cause they include all alcoholics. pen to involve drug use, no one, both speakers were dual addicts, and thought) that I was referring only to This whole matter greatly disturbs themselves included, should think both talked only about their drug nonalcoholic drug addicts. There me, for it points to division within for a moment that those extra probhistory, with virtually no reference was nothing whatever in the article AA that need not be. We alcoholics, lems could bar them from AA. to alcoholism. This disturbed him, about dual addicts. and especially the dually addicted They’re alcoholics. They belong! principally because he feared any The mail I received in response alcoholics, have already suffered all I wonder whether all of us in AA alcoholic there for his first AA meet- was from dual addicts, AA the wounds that any human being haven’t been thinking and talking ing would have heard nothing he members, absolutely certain I was should be expected to bear. Within and worrying too much about dual could identify with, and might think advocating the immediate expulsion AA, we should be able to look to one addiction. Perhaps we should pay AA had nothing to offer him. My from AA of every member who has, another with perfect confidence that less attention to the ways we are diffriend described this event, and his or has ever had, a problem with we will receive the love and accep- ferent from one another and concenfeelings about it, in an article in his drugs! It seemed incredible to me tance denied us everywhere else. trate more on the one monumentally area’s monthly publication. He sug- that the article they read was the The thought that any alcoholic important way we are alike. gested that in view of Traditions same one I wrote. lives with the expectation of being We are all alcoholics. That’s what Three and Five, dually addicted AA One letter was heartbreaking, for rejected by his fellow members of really matters. speakers should put the main em- it expressed no anger but was ob- AA is one that fills me with sorrow. I E. E., Tulsa, Okla.

1. phasis on their alcoholism. He was at pains to make it clear that he considered dual addicts not only fully viously written out of a deep sense of hurt and perplexity. This AA member had become a dual addict, as entitled to AA membership, but many of us did, when a well-

time before I could become a mem- about a!cohol. Indeed, they enber of Alcoholics Anonymous. couraged me to listen. And what As I think back to my early days, I things they had to say! I had never am so grateful to those AAs who sur- heard such talk. I was used to coverrounded me with caring and with the ing up my trouble with alcohol; they comfort of their fellowship. I am so revealed theirs. I was used to lying grateful for the way they led me into about how much I drank and how AA unity – for the things they said often and where; they were open and and the things they did not say. For honest about it. I was used to shame example, they did not ask me wheth- and remorse and guilt because of my er I was an alcoholic (nor.did they drinking; they showed me, through tell me that I was); they did not ask their candor, that they were free of me when my alcoholic drinking such burdens. How very attractive The only requirement for began; they did not tell me to quit they made AA membership! AA membership is a desire to stop drinking drinking when I came to meetings After the early days and once we drunk; and they did not ask me have joined Alcoholics Anonymous about any of my other problems and gotten some sobriety under our (Lord knows, I had plenty of them, belt, does the Third Tradition have A Motley Crew and they were mostly undisguised). There were things about my life any further meaning? In a piece that Bill W. did for the . that, once known, I was sure would Grapevine back in the 1950’s, ,he

0 NE OF THE fears that dogged me at the beginning was that I would not meet the requirements for Like many of us AAs, I was not a joiner. I reveled in my role of lone wolf. I was anti-church, -politics, exclude me from membership. For most of my life, I had been a petty thief, a chronic liar, and a cheat. I spoke of membership in terms of participation. Since there are no application blanks and no formal decmembership. Every night at a meet- -marriage, -Rotary, and -PTA, and I certainly was not about to admit larations, AA membership boils ing, the definition of Alcoholics was a lonely, isolated person. Why those things to AA members, but down to whether or not we want to Anonymous was read, and I heard was I so anti-everything? One reason something told me that they already participate in the adventure of “the only requirement.” But my was fear of rejection. But I was at knew. I did not question their amaz- recovery. sense of uniqueness told me that the the end of my rope. Did I dare risk ing insight. It seemed quite in order. Perhaps this Tradition’s most imrequirements for me would be dif- rejection by a society that I knew in- And they did not use the character portant use is to remind those of us ferent and more difficult. I conclud- tuitively was the last outpost, my last defects they sensed to keep me at a who are here that we have not always ed that they would be sprung on me chance at life? distance, either. They always brought been here. Just as the bewildered and at some critical moment. Either I Thanks be, my fear of expulsion me up to the front of the meeting shaking newcomer is making his (or would pass with flying colors and be was gradually dispelled as people room and sat me down in their her) start today, the Tradition instantly upgraded, or I would have went right on telling me to keep com- midst. By their actions, they not only nudges me to remember my own beto pay somebody off in order to ing back. They also told me that they welcomed me into their membership ginnings. The chances are good, hang on t o my AA membership. had found it a good idea to join a but continued to draw me into A4 then, that I will be willing to do for From my vantage point of twenty group, so I gave my name to the sec- unity. him what others were willing and sober years later, it seems a pretty retary. It was one thing to be a Another crucial thing about those eager to do for me. bizarre attitude. At the time, it made member of the group, but I was sure early days was that the members of I have heard the Third Tradition very good sense. that it would be a very, very long the group did not require me to talk cited as proof that a relapsing

member had no desire to quit in the taken literally? It sure can. nize the responsibilities that go with first place. Who can say who has a There are other words and some AA membership. One such respondesire to stop drinking and who has half-truths that bear thinking about. sibility is to help in the support of my not? Since I am not a mind reader (in One such half-truth goes like this: home group, my local intergroup, spite of the way I act sometimes), I “AA does not need me; I need AA.” and the AA General Service Office. . don’t know. In my view, that is one of the most Financial support? Yes, bills do have My first time around in AA, I had unfortunate things we AAs have to to be paid. And another kind of supa desire to stop drinking. I also had a say to one another. The intent, I port: volunteer work, which is the desire not to stop. My foremost guess, is ego deflation. But don’t we foundation of our services. desire was to save my job. I had a have the Twelve Steps for that? One of my deepest insights into mdlange of desires: I wanted a ward- AA doesn’t need me? But where the meaning of membership came robe, an apartment, and someone to would AA be without me, without just a few years ago. For the first love me; I wanted fame, profes- you, without all of us? It needed me time, I realized that AA had given sional acceptance, and lots of most especially when I was a me the right to be me. I realized, too, money. No sobriety came out of that newcomer. If it failed to attract me that in accepting that right, I was mishmash. I got drunk again. into its membership then, it would also accepting the responsibility of Along the way, I conveniently have been one member less strong. I furthering AA’s primary purpose. forgot that part of my record and was frightened the first time I heard Alcoholics Anonymous is a motbecame quite sure I could tell who that saying. It left the impression ley collection of people and parahad a desire to stop drinking and that at some point in my recovery, I doxes. In order to get in, we must who did not. It seemed obvious that just might be denied membership. first have been thrown out, either of any AA member who got drunk For years, I remained so wrapped society or of our own private order after all everybody had done for him up in layers of self that I could not of things. To stay in this Fellowship (or her) did not have a real desire. appreciate the privileges accompa- of outcasts, we must admit to the Further, when he came back from nying AA membership – for in- one thing we never wanted to admit his drunk, how could anybody ever stance, my right to attend meetings, to, and then that least attractive believe him again? to hold office, and to get to know defect becomes our most attractive One of the fringe benefits of people (and to let people get to know quality. Fascinating, isn’t it? membership and sobriety in AA is me). Also, it took a while to recog- W. H., Manhattan, N. Y. the gift of time. In our enjoyment of this gift, we learn about the nature of alcoholism and how we can arrest it; we learn about Alcoholics Anonymous and how it can help us to lead happy, productive lives. This Tradition reminds me that I did not have to buy my way in either with money or with any type of favor. “There are no dues or fees for AA membership.” So reads our Preamble. Can that statement be

AA GRAPEVINE, DECEMBER 1981

clubs, and even shop in different from older members that sobriety markets. Their children attend differ- was not a competitive activity and I ent schools. Neither family interferes was not in competition with anyone. with the other; neither attempts to Competition had frightened and d o force its will upon the other; and they pressed me since school days, in the get along fine together. They are two eighth grade. I had been picked to separate units with one common pur- engage in a civics debate, was too pose – the raising of a family. upset to prepare for it, and finally Every AA group is a separate unit, failed both myself and my team. In I but all have one common goal – to the years that followed, I was to fail I stay sober and help the still-suffering in just about every essay into comalcoholic. The chief way that groups petition. I had no self-confidence. accomplish that end is through meet- Yet once I became active in AA, ings. When I had my last drink in the old perfectionism would tell me Each group should be autonomous 1960 and started coming to meetings periodically that my sobriety had to except in matters affecting other groups sober (for a change), most groups be longer, better, and more activityor AA as a whole were putting on pretty much the studded than anybody else’s. The same types of meetings. For exam- best (or worst) examples are those ple, the group I joined as a new- times when I became “Mr. AA.” By Our Right to Be Responsible comer had an open meeting one night and a beginners and a closed telling other AAs what to do, by acting and sounding as if I knew everyanother night. thing, I was questioning the auton-

E VEN FOR ME, with my vast (!) store of knowledge, “autonomous” was a big word. Once my me a notch above everybody else. What I did not know, and was not to comprehend for many years to In recent vears. there has been a proliferation-of g;oups and types of meetings in my area: Step, Tradiomy of fellow members. I was neither adding anything to the attractiveness of my home group nor brain started functioning somewhat, come, was that AA groups had a tion, Big Book, pitch, topic, chal- making AA as a fellowship very at- I remembered from my study of his- right to not understand all kinds of lenge, problem-sharing, First Step, tractive to newcomers or to visiting tory that the ancient Greek states things, provided their lack of under- Eleventh Step, advanced beginners, nonalcoholics. I had practiced autonomy. What on standing did not adversely affect , round robin, special-interest, non- Non-AAs often ask how we exist earth did ancient history have to do other AA groups or Alcoholics smoker, and various kinds of infor- and function without government. with a bunch of drunks in the twen- Anonymous as a whole. mation meetings. Quite recently, a In one sense, we govern ourselves; in tieth century? I had the same right – and I need- group started a meeting called Feel- another, we submit to the govern- One of my early conclusions was ed it. This Tradition finally began to ings. ment of God as we understand Him. that people in Alcoholics Anon- make sense to me when I started What better testament to the We AAs, of course, are more conymous were show-offs, given to re- thinking in terms of the autonomy of growth and expansion of Alcoholics cerned with the question than the sounding expressions such as “ulti- the family unit. The Brown family Anonymous! And all those meetings non-AA community is. We ought to mate authority” and “autonomous.” lives next door to the Green family. are held by groups that are not in be. Our very lives depend upon our They could not possibly understand Each family has a different set of competition with one another. understanding AA to the best of our any of those words, drunks that they social values and different ways of A feature of my first home group ability. were. Part of me knew that I was a doing things. They go to different that had a lot to do with my getting It is also quite important for me drunk, too, but my education placed churches, belong to different political sober was the constant reassurance that I understand the difference b e

tween autonomy and anarchy. Every office in my home group, or beyond own ends. For instance, when I was right to take on whatever job the once in a while, I hear someone say, the group level; my responsibility is “Mr. AA,” I used to explain my group gives me. And I am content “This is M- we can do anything to encourage others to seek office. anarchist actions as being “for the with the responsibility to do that job we want here.” That battle cry is As a sober human being, it is my good of the group.” Another favor- in the very best way I know how. Exbacked up by reference to group right to help the down-and-outer on ite line of mine used to be: “If any- perience has shown me o v a and o v a autonomy. If the Fourth does not the street; and I have a responsibility thing is going to get done right in this that when I respect my group’s carry enough weight, the Ninth is in- to help in the functional and spiritu- group, . . .” autonomy, it will respect – and voked. The Ninth Tradition, you re- al support of my home group and I am no longer an autocrat-in- celebrate – mine. member, is the one that says AA other AA services as well. It is my residence. I am content with my W. H., Manhattan, N.Y. ought never be organized. right to sponsor a newcomer; my The anarchist, by the way, might responsibility is not to adopt him. It be the one who stands at the rear of is my right to read AA literature and non-AA literature on the subject of alcoholism; my responsibility is to “:. all those meetings share my personal experience of are held by groups recovery with my fellow AA that are not members. in competition” By trying to observe both the rights and the responsibilities of group and personal autonomy, I rethe group and buzzes all through the affirm my role in AA unity and help meeting – or the one who has the to lead newer members into commeans but will put little in the basket fortable enjoyment of group unity. because the guy in the next seat has a Speaking of unity – I once joined better-paying job and should be the an AA group that had a selflarger contributor – or the one who perpetuating steering committee, consistently arrives late and just made up of a founding father and misses having to help set up, leaves friends. They did not interfere with early and just misses having to help elections or group activities or the clean up. It could be argued that we types of meetings held. They did not have a right to take due advantage of actually do anything to disrupt the rights of autonomy. And so we group unity. They just were there, in do. But if there is such a thing as the the group’s midst, holding their right to have a right, might we not closed-door confabs; nobody ever also have the right to have a respon- knew what they talked about behind sibility? those doors. They didn’t actually At an Mmeeting, it is my right to deprive the group of its autonomy speak up and share; my responsibil- until their refusal to rotate became a ity is to make sure I do not hog the factor in the group’s downfall. time and thus deprive others of their Autonomy is a very tricky thing. I right. It is my right to hold elected can too easily rationalize it to my

‘ Money- It’s Not a Dirty Word

A TTHE END of my first AA meeting, an announcement was made: “We have no dues or fees, but meeting need not be a no-no. Tradition Seven says, “Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, we do have expenses.” And a basket declining outside contributions.” was passed. In the basket were a lot Self-support begins with me, of one-dollar bills, so I put one in because I am a part of us -the also. Nothing was said about what group. We pay our rent and utility kind of expenses a group had; there bills, buy coffee, snacks, chips, and was no indication that you could put AA literature. We support our cenanything but a dollar bill in fbe tral office, our area committee, and basket. our General Service Office. If it were Today, I know something about not for those entities, many new peogroup expenses, because someone ple would never discover the cared enough to take my hand and miracles of AA. tell me to get involved. I have also One motive for trying to carry the found out that if a nickel is all I message to alcoholics is gratitude, have, it is as important a contribu- and one tangible measure of gratition as a dollar; that it’s okay to give tude is money. Let’s have the more than one dollar; and that con- courage to talk about money and the tributions of time are as necessary as necessary part money plays in keepmoney. ing AA alive and well. The discussion of money at a R. S., Baton Rouge, La.

January 1982

Not addicts. Lacking a neutral word which have led members to addicto describe a person who is addicted tion or a return to drinking. to mood-altering chemicals in any It is equally important for drug form, we should use these words as addicts to know that alcohol is a they are most commonly defined. danger to them. They can get clean In the usual sense of the word, only to seek refuge in alcohol and then, I am not an addict. Never hav- wind up as full-blown alcoholics, or ing abused drugs other than alcohol, find that a few dripks lead them right Alcoholic? Addict? I do not feel comfortable labeling myself or being labeled an addict any more than I could comfortably back to their favorite “medication.” I know that some of you are probably saying, “Wait a minute! I am call myself a mountain climber if I an addict and an alcoholic! I had never scaled a peak! couldn’t control my drinking, and I One A A ‘s suggestion: Yet I freely admit that I d o have was equally hooked on pills (or Let’s keep our an addictive personality. I know that whatever).” Of course. Many of us if I exposed myself to mood-altering were. Given our addictive personalterms straight drugs other than alcohol, there is ities, it is quite possible that many of perhaps a ninety-nine percent chance us truly do have a dual or multiple A WOMAN said at a recent meeting, “I am an alcoholic before. I think most of us have. It usually arouses some pretty strong that I would become addicted, simply because I tend to abuse anything that lessens the stress of coping with addiction. But let us keep our terms straight. Every addict is not necessarily an and an addict. ” She sounded almost feelings pro and con. Yet I think the daily life. I am, therefore, a poten- alcoholic, nor is every alcoholic proud of the fact. But listening to problem here is less one of false tial addict. My friend, who admitted automatically an addict. That is her story led me to ask her later just labeling than one of degree and she had never lost control of her much like insisting that every what she meant by her statement. semantics. drinking, is likewise a potential woman is a mother simply because The woman explained that she An alcoholic is usually defined as alcoholic. She knew that if she kept she has the capacity for childbearhad been addicted to heroin and a person who habitually and com- on drinking, she would probably ing. You have to perform the act to heavily into using other drugs as pulsively abuses alcohol. An addict, become addicted to alcohol. earn the title! well. But, by her own admission, she on the other hand, is usually defined Most alcoholics would agree that Semantics aside, we must each be had been drunk only twice in her life, as a person who habitually and com- we all have the potential to become wary of the potential for dual addicin between drug bouts. Yet she pulsively abuses drugs other than addicted to other drugs. It is impor- tion. Alcoholic and addict alike steadfastly maintained that she had alcohol. It is a widely inclusive term. tant that this be brought up at AA must stay away from all mood-altera dual problem and was as much of On the street, there are more specific meetings, so that we can learn to ing chemicals unless we want to find an alcoholic as someone like me, names such as acidhead, pothead, recognize the dangers of innocent- ourselves back in the hell from which who drank every day for years. Fur- speed freak. seeming prescription drugs and over- we escaped. That is the deadly factor ther, she maintained that even Many who consider alcohol just the-counter medications, some of we all need to be aware of. though I had smoked marijuana another drug (which it is) use the B. W., Red Bluff, Cali/. only once in my life and had never term addict to include people who even gotten high on it, I was as much abuse alcohol as well. Yet there is a of an addict as she was! specific, widely recognized name for I had heard that line of reasoning the abusers of alcohol – alcoholics!

January 1 9 8 2

At the coffee klatch before and after of the old-type meeting, unwilling to the meeting, I can learn a little bit let go of it, quit the group. He had more about how to get along with lost track of his group’s primary people. The group affords me a set- purpose. He had lost track of his ting in which to be restored quietly to own primary purpose, as well, by . some of those social niceties that forgetting that the welfare of the alcoholism all but destroyed. group came first. . There is one part of a meeting The message of the group is to be where a group is often likely to drift carried primarily to the still-sufferaway from our primary purpose, it ing alcoholic. But who is that perseems to me. That is the secretary’s son? I used to imagine that the debreak. Do you ever really listen to scription applied only to the drunk the secretary’s announcements? I on the street, or the person shaking it have heard some marvelous things. out in a detox, or the baffled and Each group has but one One secretary announced that there angry prison inmate. One night at an were no dues or fees but she had a lit- AA meeting, it occurred to me that primary purpose – to carry its message . ter of kittens for sale or giveaway there is another alcoholic covered by to the alcoholic who still suffers and anyone interested should see her this Tradition. I was in treatment for at the end of the meeting. Another a physical disorder that was acting secretary announced a housewarm- up and leaving me vulnerable t o the ing for one of that group’s members, inroads of the poor-me’s. Solvent, ‘Carry This Message’ and “Be sure to bring something sober, and free, I was still in very with you.” Recently, a member an- real need of the group’s message.

S OMETHINO I wanted above everything else when I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous was money. an alcoholic alcove, that one fine day in the dim future, I would be invited to appear before AA highernounced from the floor that she needed a couple of strong men to move her baby grand to her new Did you ever take a few minutes to think about the language of the Traditions? If ever it could be sai! A small loan would have done, say a ups (whoever they might be). “You home. She would pay a going wage that a piece of writing was inspired, few thousand (a fair amount twenty have been very good about not and treat them to sandwiches. it should be said of them. Look at years wo), acceptable in cash, drinking all this time,” they would Would not such announcements be the wording of this Tradition. It says check, or money order. I ran head- say. “Now that you are initiated into more appropriately made at the cof- that the group should “carry its o n into the Fifth Tradition. our ranks, we can get on with our fee shop, or through the neighbor- message.” Since the group’s primary purpose real primary purpose.” With that, hood grapevine, or at the local club- What message? How do we carry did not agree with mine, our rela- they would place in my hands the house where AAs gather? it? When? Where do we carry it? tionship did not last long. I got lease to a new apartment, the name A more serious threat to a group’s Who will receive this message? drunk. and vital statistics of a new mate, observance of Tradition Four arises Those were questions that confused When I came back a few months and lots of money. when personalities become more im- and disturbed my early years. They later, in a state of surrender, I was I have survived t o understand that portant than principles. In one in- needn’t have. They form the chief convinced that I would have to do my home group has but oneprimary stance, the group conscience decided subject of discussion at practically things the AA way. But not totally purpose. It may serve another pur- to change the type of one of its meet- all our AA meetings. But then, I was convinced, mind you. The reserva- pose as well, but one that is simply a ings, because it was not fulfilling the in a long-term fog. , tion remained, neatly tucked away in natural by-product of participation. needs of the group. The chairperson How do we carry the message of

recovery? There are perhaps as tice of the Twelve Steps is flexibility; many ways as there are AA mem- a key word here is adaptability. How bers. The most common way is we carry the message often depends through attendance at meetings, on where we live. The group has only whether or not we talk up. We carry one primary purpose, but its mesthe message when we speak to one sage can be carried in g variety of another on the street, when we shake ways. hands in the supermarket, when we Once, at a discussion on this Tracall and share on the phone. Serving dition, someone asked whether the the group as a speaker or an officer primary purpose of the individual was the same as that of the group. The definition of Alcoholics Anon- . “My group.. is the ymous (our Preamble) says that our primary purpose in our Fellowship only place where I am “is to stay sober and help other sure of getting alcoholics to achieve sobriety.” The Twelfth Step says that after the AA message we “had a spiritual awakening as the loud and clear.. .JJ result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics . .;” A burning question in my early is carrying the message; so is con- years of sobriety had to do with why tributing time as a volunteer at our 1 was spared while other alcoholics local intergroup or central office. were destroyed by our disease. I sat What about the non-AA com- in on many discussions where we munity? Do we need to carry the puzzled over the mystery. The message to its members? There are answer we kept arriving at was that, some who ought to know that I am whatever the reason we had been sober – for instance, my employer spared, AA was telling us that if we and my social contacts. Letting the wanted to stay sober, we had better community know that I am sober is be of some use to others, that is, one thing; revealing my AA mem- carry the message. My primary purbership is another. Generally, the pose as an AA member must be my most effective way of carrying the willingness to do exactly that. message to the non-AA community Personally, I sometimes get my is through our local public informa- priorities mixed up. My group intion committees. variably straightens me out. It is the In order to come to a better under- only place where I am sure of getting standing of the Traditions, I had to the AA message loud and clear and recognize that they are not rules, but undiluted. guidelines. A key word in the prac- W. H., Manhattan, N.Y.

February 1 9 8 2

of the authorities. In my mind, their I understood that it was actually a attitude translated into affiliation. If clubhouse for AAs. I’d had a sponsor in the beginning, The present-day newcomer didn’t this and many other matters might get the distinction. “Isn’t that all have been gotten into a truer per- just a lot of semantics?” he said. spective. “You know what people mean when “What about the AA boat ride?” they say that.” asked the newcomer. “Isn’t that a No, I don’t always know what case of AA endorsing an outside enterprise?” A local AA group was sponsoring “The number one intent of An AA group ought never endorse, a boat ride on the river for recre- our Traditions.. is to guide finance, or lend the AA name to any ation, to raise funds to defray group our groups and our Society related facility or outside enterprise, expenses, and also to make a contribution to our local intergroup. as a whole in the ways lest problems of money, property, Was AA endorsing the line that of unity” and prestige divert us from owned the sightseeing boat? No. The group was simply paying for use of our primary purpose the boat, as it does for meeting people mean if they don’t tell me. So quarters. The misunderstanding in I explained that the term “AA club” the newcomer’s mind was the result would imply AA ownership – thereof hearing the activity constantly by involving AA in “problems of referred to as “the AA boat ride.” money, property, and prestige.” What is a newcomer to think? That’s why it has been found wise to Dolng What We Do Best And if those of us who have been incorporate clubs for AAs as around for a while keep repeating separate entities, not owned by any T HE EARLY history of Alcoholics sponsoring became fascinated with Anonymous includes classic ex- it. He read the chapter in Twelve amples bearing directly on the for- Steps and Twelve Traditions and such terms, what will we eventually think ourselves? We still hear references to “AA group or collection of groups. If a group wants to meet in such a clubhouse, it pays rent as it would to a mation of the Sixth Tradition: the then started asking questions – as I clubs.” Our early experience with church or a civic hall. offer made our co-founder Bill W. should have when I was a newcomer. them and with AA groups that meet The Sixth Tradition alerts us to to ally himself with a hospital as an I was so fogbound for years after under the same roof had a lot to do the dangers of the appearance of af- “AA counselor”; those education coming in that, even though I heard with the forging of the Sixth. When I filiation. A few years ago, an AA binges when we succeeded in confus- and read about our policy of nonaf- came into the Fellowship in 1960, I group in my area was obliged to ing the public (and ourselves) as to filiation, there seemed to be no ques- started attending meetings at the Old move from quarters it had occupied just who we were and what it was we tion but that AA was tied in with 24th Street Clubhouse. It had just for many years. Against the recomwere trying to do. hospitals and prisons. Every time 1 moved to its new home, one block mendation of several of its mem- That’s the past. What about to- went, trembling, to visit or to speak south, on 23rd Street. I was told it bers, the group voted to move into a day? at an AA group in an institution, I was an AA clubhouse. That was the center for drug rehabilitation. The This Tradition was brought into was strongly aware of the courtesy way I thought of it and the way I rehab center was advertising to enfocus for me when a newcomer I was and the kind familiarity on the part spoke of it. It was a long time before courage the use of its facilities by

civic and social groups. The group bers might have viewed the bail-out make it sound just like taking inven- ever on guard against three major did not affiliate with the center but action as a charitable one and set tory.” shortcomings: (a) the crusader’s ardid hang its AA sign directly under aside their groups’ primary purpose. That is pretty mhch what the Tra- dor, (b) the one-sidedness of the the drug program sign. The impres- “Are you saying that we have to ditions come down to – an ongoing zealot, and (c) perhaps the villain of sion of affiliation, if not endorse- be on our toes all the time? That we inventory of the who, why, what, the piece, the savior complex. ment, was created. have to watch everything we think when, and where of groups and of “None of that is going to happen At least, the group did not change and say?” AA as a whole. The Sixth is warning to me,” said the newcomer, as he its name and take the name of the Yes, and what we write, too. A us against a natural tendency to em- walked away, “now that I know rehab center. Our General Service friend of mine once innocently sent brace all manner of causes, noble or about it.” Conference has reminded central of- AA members a note that concerned a ignoble. It warns us to be aware of I sincerely hope not. I’ve been fices and intergroups, as a guideline, local intergroup activity but was our limitations: AA cannot be every- done in by all three! that it is a good idea for new groups written on his company business let- thing to everyone. It reminds us to be W. H., Manhattan, N.Y. not to name themselves after the terhead. There were no repercusfacility or institution where they sions, but the impression could very hold their meetings. Too often, im- easily have been created that the intergroup office and his office were affiliated. “The Sixth is warning us The number one intent of our Traagainst a natural tendency ditions, of course, is to guide our to embrace all manner of groups and our Society as a whole in the ways of unity. And they serve a causes, noble or further end as well. For example, ignoble” another aspect of this Tradition is the opposite of endorsement, namely, criticism. How easy it would be presslons endure longer than facts. for the AA movement to point out to “Tell me,” the newcomer said, the proliferating alcoholism rehab with a touch of defiance in his voice, programs just where we think they “how an AA group might finance an are going wrong. It also happens outside enterprise.” that criticism is one of the gravest of I remember an AA member’s so- my old character defects. It is still liciting groups for bail money for an the easiest thing for me to criticize a AA friend of his who had been ar- fellow AA for not working the prorested and charged with a serious gram the way it should be worked; to crime. Only an insignificant amount criticize a group for not running its was raised, because there were meetings the way I think they should enough informed members around be run; to criticize the operation of to resist having their AA groups our General Service Office. finance the bail bond business. “You make it sound like the Without the Sixth to guide them, Fourth Step,” the newcomer said, , however, even that handful of mem- and he visibly drew back. “You

AA Grapevine, March 1982

2. As I kept coming back, I began really good.unless other people also I N OUR BOOK AA Comes of Age, Bill W. says: “Our Traditions are a guide to better ways of working and to believe that the Higher Power was speaking through the members of my were considered. 5. This Tradition, I realized, delineated pretty clearly my own primary living, and they are also an antidote home group. It was the beginning of faith in the group conscience, belief purpose, as well as the group’s. 1 was for our various maladies. The Twelve told that I could not keep my sobriety Traditions are to group survival and’ that it might represent God’s will for me today. The concept of AA leaders unless I gave it away. Each of us is harmony what AA’s Twelve Steps are who are “but trusted servants” but a small part of the whole, but by to each member’s sobriety and &ace joining AA’s primary purpose to our of mind. calmed my rebellious nature and Living “But the Twelve Traditions also point straight at many of our individ- j own, we become something bigger than our individual selves. “I thought I was 6. In this Tradition, I began to ual defects. By implication they ask the each of us to lay aside pride and resentment. They ask for ~ersonalas autonomous in my own right” learn the importance of singleness of purpose, both in AA and in my private life. I came to understand the well as group sacrifice. . . he ~ r a d i – difference between that which helps Tradif ions tions guarantee the equality of all members. . .They show how we may guided me toward trust in other peoand that which hinders. By keeping my AA program simple, I underbest relate ourselves to each other and ple and peace of mind. scored my own way to “Live and Let t o the world outside.” 3. When I first arrived at the doors Live.” For some of us, the Traditions of AA, I had little or no feeling of 7. Self-support lent me a sense of have been in reality an extension of freedom of thought and of action. As the Twelve Steps. In trying to under- self-worth. I was filled with guilt over They work stand the last part of the Twelfth Step my “sins of commission and omis- an AA member, I knew, I was not sion.” How comforting to know that bound by what other people thought. for individuals – “practice these principles in a~ our I was welcome as a member in spite of That helped me to open up my mind affairs” – I know I found it helpful and start to think for myself – for as well as to use the Twelve Traditions as a my imagined or actual faults – no questions asked! I felt the urge to the first time in a long time. AA gave for groups guideline. Here are some of the ways me proof that money and spirituality each Tradition affected me person- earn the friendship of those wonderful people around the tahles. So I can mix. ally: 8 and 9. When I began AA service 1. It didn’t take long for me to began the long journey back to selfrespect, t o productivity, and to work, these two Traditions told me I realize that without other AA mern- rejoining society as a whole – just was simply one of many trusted serbers, my group, and AA as a whole, I because of Tradition Three. vants, for whom special training or would probably find it difficult to 4. For too long, I thought I was talent was unimportant. The fact that stay sober. Even though I was some- autonomous in my own right; this is this Society was nonprofessional was times in hearty disagreement, I also called being self-centered or self- reassuring. Titles and degrees became learned that I must be willing to yield ish, with “self-will run ,riot.” This trivial. 1 felt a new sense of responsi- – first to my sponsor, then to our Tradition helped me understand that bility to myself and to others. It made group conscience, and fiaally to the I could not take any actions harmful me aware of pride and ambition as principles of AA as a whole. I tried to defects, so I could commence to learn to others without dire consequences learn how to “disagree without being to myself. I learned that nothing was my true identity before God. disagreeable.”

ECC

10. Here, I began to understand Tradition told me, the important that as an AA member, I owed cer- thing was the principle expressed, not tain disciplines, obligations, and re- the person expressing it. If I could go sponsibilities to AA as a whole. I a step further and learn t o place AA could speak out as an individual on principles before my own personality, any matter with which I was con- I could travel a long way on my jourcerned; but as an AA member, I had ney of spiritual progress. Public ano- I to operate within certain limits, try to nymity was essential to such develop- “engage the mind before opening the ment – that was clear. But I also had mouth.” to learn that I should not seek praise 11. “Walk like you talk,” I heard. within the Fellowship. A simple job If I could do that, I knew there would well done speaks for itself. be a sufficient difference in my way Using the Traditions as guides to of living and thinking t o be noticeable spiritual progress, we begin to know by example, and there should be no that “God is doing for us what we 1 necessity for me to blow my own could not do for ourselves,” and the horn. I didn’t need to break my arm sense of humility is enhanced. So, by patting myself on the back for although the Twelve Traditions are staying sober, either (millions of designed to further group survival people have been doing that for cen- and harmony (and those are most turies). Tradition Eleven reminded important!), a closer examination me not to take personal credit for shows that another ultimate objective ‘ anything that I might do; ego and is the welfare of the individual AA personal ambition have no place in member – truly an extension of the AA life. Twelve Steps to recovery. 12. When I listened to others, this D. K., Oakland, Calif.

March 1982

Rescription for ‘pill’ talk From Phoenix, Ariz.: In Phoenix, we are having an increasing problem with pill-addicted persons dominating AA meetings. We in Scottsdale are starting a new group, and we have thought of a deterrent for this problem, should it arise in the new meeting. Here is a copy of the statement. “We realize that there may be persons present who are dually addicted. However, this is a closed meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and we respectfully request that you confine your comments to alcohol.” Perhaps if enough other ideas flow into the Grapevine office, we can come up with a solution to this problem. J.O.

March 1982

– ‘I am an alcoholic’ period From La Salle, Ill.: “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” Starting on page 141 in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is the story of the person who was, as it states, “the victim of another addiction even worse stigmatized than alcoholism.” I am an alcoholic. 1 also have had and/or continue to have other problems that are “even worse stigmatized than alcoholism.” 1 don’t see the need to say “alcoholic and gay,” “alcoholic and an adulterer,” “alcoholic and an exhibitionist.” I may have been all of those things; maybe I still am one of them. What you have told me is that I don’t have to be any of those if 1 don’t want to be, if I practice the Twelve Steps. My life is changing, mostly for the better. I feel it and sometimes see it. I couldn’t have experienced any of this change without you and my Higher Power. I hope to “keep it simple,” as you suggest. My name is H- and I am an alcoholic. The First Step was my beginning. My other problems. I don’t have to trouble you with, because He is helping me with them. ANONYMOUS

AA GRAPEVINE, APRIL 1982

Getting the Red Out A cautionary tale for group treasurers

I COLLIDED with the AA Traditions when I was five months dry. The social dropouts in the Lower Manreceipts, and $53 to put in it, their total worth. A red and black, dimestore, double-entry ledger, kept as if without fail, in an evident excess of misguided charity, a prodigal sum was squandered on cake, no less, for hattan neighborhood group whose by a scribbling chicken, showed wild a member named “Anny .” meetings 1 graced with my presence swings from gain to loss over four This group needed smart managetwice a week, only because I would years and a current all-time low. Cash ment! I would cut expenses immedidie if I didn’t, elected me group flow was negative. Income was off. ately, leaving “Anny,” whoever she treasurer. Spending was lavish on coffee, sugar, was, to the end of the month when I admired their judgment. I was milk, cookies, and cups. But one she came to claim her cake. I would brighter than ever with each drinkless single, gross expense outpaced them take her aside then and explain day and clearly superior to anyone (gently) that she would have to clearly inferior. Noblesse oblige, so I obliged them. They didn’t tell me then that nobody else had wanted the job. They didn’t tell me their Second Tradition meant they could ignore what I said if they didn’t agree with it. They never even mentioned the nub of their Seventh Tradition, which I’ve come to call “the treasurer’s own.” Alcoholics and money don’t mix well, they could have warned me then; but at that time, I would simply have thought they were apologizing for the sorry state of their books. They gave me an antique brown accordion envelope wadded with old

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Back in the kitchen, I set rules: one see an AA member climbing the walls less quart of milk, one less box of about money, I see a person in real much money do you have now?” their hands were up! So I raised mine, cookies per meeting. Name-brand trouble.” How often would I have to explain too. coffee was out; house labels were in. He had misunderstood or, worse, this? I told him again it was $120. I was out the door before the chair- Cups could be had in quantity at bar- hadn’t been listening. So I told him “How much do you pay in rent man could report the vote. I knew gain p’ices if one knew where to again that without money from the each month?” what I had to do. I carried out their shop. beginners, the group itself was in real “Fifty.” instructions to the letter, then stayed Expenses dropped. The idea of trouble; we would never get out of the “What do you send every month to away. quantity discounts so impressed the red. He agreed to discuss it with the AA services?” Finally, I did go back, and there group’s grocery buyers that one leaders. “Right now I’m sending ten dol- was the cake for “Ann’y.,” and I brought in a cut-rate case of sixty- The basket appeared at beginners lars apiece to Intergroup, the Institu- was one of the month’s anniversary watt bulbs that he proceeded to sell to meetings, on the speaker’s table. It tions Committee, and GSO.” celebrants. I pinned the corsage they members at cost. By the end of the was never mentioned and never He rose thoughtfully. “Nobody in gave me to the red wool dress I hadn’t meetin 3, he was sold out. passed, and it never snared a cent. this group. . .” He struck deeper. worn in six years, because I’d been After each meeting, I walked home Yes, they were sending me a mes- “Nobody in this group has any busi- too fat. “Believe it or not,” I heard alone, jangling with change, drunk sage, but I wasn’t getting it. These ness stashing money. What do you myself saying from the front of the on power. Neatly, I entered income people stomped on solvency. Maybe think this is – some kind of a bank? room, “I am a member of this and expenses for the evening in my they couldn’t handle money, or We carry the message, and that’s it. group,” and they applauded. scuffed ledger and then, exhilarated shrank from its potential. They We keep what’s important by giving A year later, I was chairman of by my mind’s new ability to retain wouldn’t know what to do with a sur- it away, and nobody here can afford another group. I had a bright idea: consecutive thoughts, sat into the plus if they had it. to forget that! How much were you “Let’s have the beginners take up the I night to juggle figures on a desk By my seventh month in charge, in planning to put in this savings ac- collection, so they can feel more at calculator and draw up projections fact, we did have a modest reserve count of yours?” home with the group.” for the group’s future success. fund. I decided to find out what they I had started to shake inside. “I The man who handled the baskets But the reports I prepared for the might want to do with it. I had in guess about thirty,” I got out. I had got the jitters. “How can we trust the other officers kept coming back to mind a savings account. planned on forty. beginners not to take some of the me, apparently unread. Were they I called for a business melting. I “I move we take your thirty dollars money for themselves?” sending me a message? I knew they accounted for my stewardship, then and send it to GSO, Intergroup, and “Listen,” I told him, “you can’t weren’t getting mine. I had advanced presented my plan: A little nest egg Institutions. Cut it any way you like. get uptight about money, or you’re in a plan to tap a so-far-untouched tucked away not only would con- And from here on in, let’s up our real trouble. We’ll just have to trust source of revenue: beginners meet- strain us to live within our current contributions to them all by five dol- them. The money is incidental.” ings. Beginners ate too many cookies, means, but would mean investment lars apiece.” He sat down. I smiled inside when I heard that. I drank too much coffee, and were in the future, expanding of itself by He was trying to wipe me out! was in the black at last. never asked to pay a penny. Passing five and a half percent even as we They all were! They were voting. All C. D., Washington, D. C. them the basket seemed only fair. I watched. Who knew where it could decided to take it up personally with a lead us? member I had begun to trust. He sug- One of the food buyers raised his gested coffee after the meeting, and I hand. “Maybe that’s a good idea. We accepted. I had never done that could save up for a party.” before. The boss of all bosses always sat in “YOU know,” he said, “anytime I the back. He spoke up. To me. “How

AA G R A P E V I N E , A P R I L 1982 wanted a comfortable meeting hall, if To avoid needless worry, many I wanted hot coffee and some cook- groups find it a wise policy to have a ies, somebody had to pay. On this financial reserve. If possible, they like subject (and this one only), my think- to keep on hand enough for one or ing suddenly became exquisitely two months’ rent (or contribution for clear: The somebody that had to pay meeting space), coffee-and-cake was the group; I was part of the money, and regular donations to their group; therefore, I had to put some- local intergroup or central office, thing in the basket whenever I was their area committee, and the AA able. The first conscious action that I took in the adventure of recovery was to admit my powerlessness over alco- “Why do I have to hol. My second most important ac- put anything in the I Every AA group ought to be tion was to embrace the Seventh Tradition and its implications of basket in fully self-supporting, personal responsibility, even though I the first place?” declining outside contributions knew nothing about the Traditions in those days. However often I go back to the We Pay the Piper account of our growing up in that most exciting of books AA Comes of General Service Office (GSO). However, some groups find it impossible BIG WORD – emancipation. Age, I am impressed by the unearthly to have even a minimum reserve. A Whatever does it have to do with whether I put something in the show. How proudly I used to walk into the auditorium, holding my little ticket aloft as my legitimate entre’e wisdom of our founding fathers and of our trustees who sat on the board Groups have been forced to close their doors because they could not basket at an AA meeting? Why do I into that arena of strangeness and in the early 1940s. As co-founder Bill meet their expenses. You probably have t o put anything in the basket in power. W. recorded it in the book, that was know of at least one such group in the first place? Now, at the AA meeting, it was a when the principle of corporate pov- your area. Groups went out of their way, so it quarter or half dollar for the basket. I erty was securely implanted in the AA I am thinking of a group that had seemed when I finally came into would drop the coin in with a flourish way – all as the direct result of wres- been viable for a number of years Alcoholics Anonymous over twenty to make sure that everybody noticed tling with real and pressing money when, for a variety of reasons, atyears ago, to tell me that “there are and understood that I belonged – problems and then, through the tendance fell off, and the group no dues or fees for AA membership.” that I was not an interloper. group conscience, accepting the appeared to be finished. An old-timer That line from the definition of AA It was a while before I got the mes- guidance of our ultimate authority. took an interest, and with his help, (our Preamble) registered on one part sage that dropping a quarter in the Early members’ actions laid the things were turned around. One of of my brain and struck me with awe basket (a dollar or two would be more foundation for this Tradition. They his actions, in order to get the group and disbelief. In another part of my appropriate today!) was not a did the worrying, and the Tradition out of the red, was to insist that every brain, I saw myself going to meetings requirement for AA membership. tells me that I do not have to worry meeting pay for itself. If the collecin the same way I had gone to the Thank goodness for that. I didn’t about the future of my group’s trea- tion basket did not yield enough to Boys Club Friday nights as a child, always have a quarter, or even a sury if I will do my part, that is, make cover that meeting’s expenses, it was with a nickel in my hand for the club dime. In time, I came to see that if I my contribution just for today. sent around again. I was present

when the basket made the rounds timer whose approach was quite dif- power brokerage. Bill’s observation A still better word for those “conthree times in one meeting. Some ferent from that of the pay-as-you-go is apropos on other levels as well, and tributions” is loot. Through the AAs were horrified at the procedure advocate. This story was told me by a in other areas. emancipation of this Tradition, I (no dues or fees, remember?), but the longtime AA friend whose home The Seventh declares that it is pos- learned that I could quit the petty old-timer stuck to his guns, and the group was once in need of new chairs. sible for me, personally, to become thievery I had practiced for years and group became self-supporting again. The old-timer, who was well-to-do, self-reliant. It shows how impossible still survive. Eventually, it was in a position to offered to buy them. That attractive self-reliance was as long as I was Standing on my own two feet has contribute to the local intergroup and offer was considered by the group but drinking. I always wanted to be self- been one of the oddest experiences of to the intergroup’s institution com- turned down. They told him that they reliant. Oh, how I wanted to be my my life. I had always been totally mittee literature fund. Their next loved him but, from a practical view- own person! But I had to keep aban- convinced that the world owed me a venture might well have been a con- point, it would not be a good idea for doning my self-reliance in order to living and owed me respect on top of tribution t o the support of their area the group’s sake or for his. “What if hold on to a source of gratification, it. Today, I see that it is just the other committee and our GSO. one day you were to get a resentment whether it was money, sex, or alco- way around. And my biggest debt is I sometimes forget that our service against the group,” they said, “and hol. Why was total freedom always at to Alcoholics Anonymous. centers rely on’ my contributions of decided to pick up your chairs and go the bottom of the bottle rather than, It is all so obvious, and yet that money and volunteer time. I also tend home? Where would that leave the say, halfway down? nagging old way of mine does rear its to forget the one very good reason group?” He saw the wisdom of the My list of “outside contributions” head at the darnedest times. That why I should want to help in their group conscience and withdrew his was long. They would more appro- habit pattern can still come uncomsupport. By smoothing the way into a offer gracefully. priately be called handouts. They fortably close to convincing me that ‘ multitude of service areas, they make “Whoever pays the piper is apt to came from acquaintances, compan- the world really does owe me a living. it that much easier for me to enjoy the call the tune.” That’s the way Bill W. ions, lovers, buddies, friends, and Being responsible for my group, benefits of AA unity and to strength- put it in his discussion of the Seventh family, and from the most beloved and for myself, is still a novelty with en my sobriety at the same time. Tradition in A A Comes of Age. and most dreaded of mortals – the me. Is it that way with you? I am reminded of another old- The context was money matters and bartender. W. H., Manhattan, N.Y.

April 1982

Not Quite the Only Requirement

Before the Traditions were adopted, some localities had stringent “rules,” for example, the following excerpts from the “Code of Procedure for the AA Group of Metropolitan Detroit” (1942): 1. Active membership in the AA Group of Metropolitan Detroit may be achieved by a prospective member in the following manner: First, attending four “instruction meetings” as held by a recognized local group. During this time he will read the official AA book complete. After which the chairman of the instruction meeting will recommend his name to the chairman of the local group. Second, attending four “regular meetings” of that same local group. After which, any two members of not less than six months’ sobriety may recommend his name to the chairman of the local group as an active member. . . 2. An active member may transfer from one local group to another by notifying the respective chairmen of the groups affected. Definite registration in some one particular group is essential. 3. Any active member who, for any reason, resumes drinking. . .immediately permits his membership to lapse. . . 4. No provision of this code is intended to prohibit, or to limit in any way, the practice of the principles of AA by any individual who may choose to conduct his own interpretations of AA. . . .But any such individual. . .shall not use the copyrighted name “AA” or attend any AA meetings, make any hospital calls on AA patients, or represent himself as a member of the AA Group of Metropolitan Detroit.

May 1992

paid to stay sober. What about me? I was made acutely aware of the conwas staying sober, too. Why wasn’t I fusion when a newcomer I was spongetting paid? soring asked me how much money When I had stewed long enough, I “AA counselors” were paid when asked an older, wiser AA member. they spoke at AA meetings. There are He pointed out that making coffee at no “Mcounselors.” But Mmemsome of the larger groups was so bers can create such an image if they timeconsuming that the groups were forget themselves and, on an AA better served by paying coffee makers. group podium, speak in their profes- They might be AA members, yes, but they were not being paid to stay sober; they were paid to make coffee. “How on earth As for the custodian at the clubhouse, he was not paid to stay sober; he was could any outfit as big , Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever paid to keep the club running as AA operate on a basis smoothly. other than profmional?” nonprofmsional, but our service centers may Later on, I began to ask how volemploy special workers unteers could possibly take care of the wide variety of jobs essential to the operation of service centers sional capacities as workers in the Sobriety Is the Payoff around the world, including our own GSO (the AA General Service Office alcoholism field. The question of whether it was of the U.S. and Canada). For in- proper for AA members to enter that stance, the correspondence alone – D ID I READ that right? “Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional”? How on perhaps typical questions, I was asking other, more pressing questions. As in so many areas of my recovery, I how could they handle it all? I learned that, because of the sheer volfield as paid workers was one that kept our early membership in a state of unrest. The outcry was that M earth could any outfit as big as AA only half understood things, and one ume of work, both local and world- knowledge was being sold and the operate on a basis other than profes- piece of misinformation I had was wide, there had to be salaried jobs. perpetrators would surely succumb to sional? How could its members get that AA members did not receive pay And who was better qualified to fill the temptation to use the AA name anything done? How could they hold for any form of service within an AA those jobs than our own fellow AAs? for further financial gain. The quite themselves together? How could they framework. With that in mind, I was Thanks to this Tradition, the line was genuine consternation was not over stay in.business? baffled and resentful when I learned clearly drawn between Twelfth Step money-making itself. What womed All very mysterious. that AA members who made coffee work, which is never done for pay, AAs was the real possibility that com- To compound the mystery, the in some of the local groups were and professional or salaried work. mercializing (professionalizing) this Tradition goes on to say that AA being paid. Since I was involved in a The Tradition plainly shows us that spiritual recovery program would “service centers may employ special coffee detail, too, how come they our service center employees are not ruin it, and all,those recovering in AA workers.” But if AA is not run pro- were getting money and I was not? being paid to stay sober; they are paid would once more be consigned to fessionally, what level of competence Another sore point concerned an for their special skills. death. . . can be expected of the staffs working AA member who worked for pay at a Another thing that used to confuse Only with time and experience did at those centers? local clubhouse. I was quite put out, me was the matter of AAs who are we come to see that our fears were Long before I started asking those for it seemed to me that he was being employed in the field of alcoholism. I unfounded. Alcoholism counselors

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who were also AA members showed commitments at non-AA meetings, and tells me that I am entitled to idea, in my opinion, to ask about that they could quite effectively carry such ,phigh schools, parent-teacher rewards of prestige and recognition nearby rehab programs for alcoholthe AA message of recovery and hope groups, or classes of premed college for being sober and for doing Twelfth ics. AA’s choice of nonprofessionalwithout receiving pay for Twelfth students – how much do those Step work. And that is when 1 am in ism as its way of life does not mean Step work. speakers get? error with AA and in trouble with that we cannot cooperate with Carrying the message is at the heart I remember sitting in a coffee shop myself. When I look for special treat- programs that are conducted by proof our recovery program, and one shortly after coming into AA, in ment because of my service activities, fessionals. very attractive way of doing it is via 1960. I was with some affluent-look- I am acting contrary to the spirit of Finally, a really curious sidelight the telephones at central offices and ing men who were talking about “get- the Traditions. was thrown on the subject once by a . answering services. I used to think ting on the speakers’ circuit” and The Eighth Tradition reminds me drinking drunk I was twelfth-stepthat the people who worked the acquiring “some of that good that my ,AA membership does not ping. He would not, or could not, get phones were considered part-time money.” I did not understand that automatically make me all-knowl- honest with himself and tried to laugh staff and paid accordingly. Since I they were talking about their business edgeable in the field of alcoholism. off his powerlessness .by clever rewas always in need of extra money, I lives, and I assumed that there was The Tradition encourages me to keep marks. “You’re an alcoholic,” he signed up at our local intergroup, money to be made by becoming an in touch with my local AA service said once, “but me – I am a profesonly to learn that AA members do AA speaker. That was for me! But I ccnters and to learn as much as I can sional drunk. ” that work on a strictly volunteer had another surprise in store when I about them. It is an equally good What price professionalism? basis. Like any other form of Twelfth started speaking at local AA groups W. H.,Manhattan, N.X Step work, it is done to help assure and at AA meetings in institutions. another day of sobriety for ourselves. No money! There was no pay, but I was af- There was still no money when I forded one of my first glimpses of the began to speak as an AA member wisdom of Tradition Eight. I realized before non-AA groups. The Public that I didn’t have to feel resentment Information Committee of our local in case I was getting paid less than the intergroup impressed on me the imwoman at the phone behind me. Nor portance of maintaining our amateur did I have to compete with the guy standing. Many non-AAs find it difacross from me in order to get more ficult to believe that we would visit than he might be getting. None of us their classrooms or agencies as volunwas being paid anything in cash – teers, on a nonprofessional basis. I only in sobriety. can’t say that I blame them for their Further Eighth Tradition wisdom skepticism. I would not have believed came to me slowly, a glimpse at a it once myself. time, as more of my questions were It seems to me that there is more to answered. What about AA members professionalism than just the queswho speak at AA meetings or bring tion of pay. There is such a thing as a meetings into institutions – do they professional’s attitude, whatever the get paid? What about AA speakers at profession may be. It is an attitude Regional Forums or workshops or that takes pride in a job well done. conventions – do they get paid? With me, however, the attitude some- How about AA speakers who fill times strays out of the working area

June 1 9 8 2

house. What part of town did we of office, thus assuring themext perwant to be in? What was the mini- son the same chance at recovery that mum space requirement? How high a we had. It is also designed to help us rent or contribution were we able to keep the emphasis on principles pay? before personalities by avoiding the Once we were reestablished, the trap of thinking we are the only ones group’s activities got under way who can do a given job. Rotation is again. On meeting night, the door also applied to staff assignments at had to be unlocked and the AA sign hung out. The hospitality chairman had to see to refreshments, setting up the room, and greeting members. All AA, as such, ought never be organized; the other officers at group level had “. . .groups practicing the their jobs to do: the group chairman, principle of rotation usually but we may create service boar& or committees the secretary, the treasurer, and the directly responsible to those they serve program chairman, who booked the have no trouble with the speakers. Officers beyond the group Ninth, Tradition”

Don’t Tell Us What to Do! – level had their jobs, as well: the local intergroup delegate, the institutions representative, the Grapevine representative, and the general service – –

representative. GSO (the AA General Service Of- 0 NE OF MY lifelong hostilities used to be directed squarely at fraternal associations, societies, and able to deal with successfully. I feared that my newfound sobriety would be short-lived. That’s quite a lot of organizing, calling for organizational know-how! Yet I cannot imagine my group’s fice). In that way, no one staff member becomes the expert on a given subject; the whole staff becomes that all other kinds of organizations. It But if AA was organized, I could functioning for long without it or much more familiar with our Socisecms to have stemmed from the fact not account for the absence of pres- something very much like it. ety’s problems and their solutions; that I could not bear being told what sures that are regularly built into Does that mean that my group is and our Fellowship gains in the end. to do or how to do it. Besides that, organizational structures. For exam- flouting the Ninth Tradition? 1 don’t Rotation applies throughout our drinking or not, I never understood ple, nobody approached me with a think so. The Tradition’s reference is general service structure. The levels what was going on. When people membership application blank. No- to the organizing of AA as a whole in of structure start with the group and talked about purposes and goals, my body told me which group to join or a hierarchical, or governmental, move by stages to the General Service mind would go blank. that I had to join any group. Once I sense. It has been my observation Conference. From there, they move When I had my last drink, in 1960, had joined, there was no arm-twisting that groups practicing the principle of back to the group, the solid basis and began attending meetings of as to how to vote at group elections. rotation usually have no trouble with from which all general or worldwide Alcoholics Anonymous, I came in My first awareness of any structure the Ninth Tradition. service proceeds. A capsule picture of contact with so many people that I in AA was in my own home group. It Rotation, one of the blessed safe- this structure might be in order here. was sure Mwould turn out to be just came at a time when we were obliged guards of our Fellowship, applies not If a group wants to have represenanother big organization. If so, that to look for new quarters. What a lot only to groups but to central offices tation at the Conference, it elects a meant bosses, competition, and of planning was required. It was just and intergroups, committees, and GSR (general service representative). favoritism, a troika I had never been like hunting for an apartment or a boards. It provides for limited terms GSRs in a given district.,elcot a

” ‘ DCM (district committee member). The DCMs from a given area form it can never mandate or govern the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous on the well-being and the good, orderly direction of those several as- Because I had not planned my time carefully, I had to rush, and my the area committee, where, among which it serves. The Conference rep- pects of my makeup. thoughts were scattered when I arother activities, problems affecting resents us, but cannot rule us.” I gained a fresh view of the Tradi- rived at the group. I heard myself say the membership are gathered to be GSO is located in New York. One tion one evening when I was sched- to the chairman, “Please give me a brought to the Conference. Once of the multitude of services it pro- uled to speak at an AA meeting. minute to get myself organized.” every two years, the GSRs and the vides is to coordinate and arrange for W. H., Manhattan, N.Y. DCMs come together in an area the annual Conference. A trip to assembly to elect an area delegate. GSO is a memorable occasion for The delegate brings his or her area AAs visiting New York from all parts problems to the Conference but is not of the world. there solely to represent one area. Some of us (and 1 used to be one) , have trouble with the facts that The AA Grapevine, which publishes our monthly magazine. is incorporated “The Conference represents and AA World Services, which pubus, but cannot rule us” lishes our Conference-approved literature, is also incorporated. I used to cite those two organizations as proof positive that AA was indeed orga- Each delegate’s actions and voting nized. With time, I came to recognize will be directed toward the best inter- that we AAs do not exist in a vacuum ests of AA as a whole. – that we are subject to local and The General Service Conference state laws. By complying with those meets annually in New York. Groups laws and incorporating as legal entiin the United States and Canada send ties, both the Grapevine and AAWS 91 delegates, via area assemblies, to vastly improved their capability of discuss AA business. Conference serving us, which is the only reason discussion and its resulting Advisory for their existence in the first place. Actions cover an extraordinarily wide The Ninth Tradition is concerned range of subjects. Other members of primarily with our Fellowship as a the Conference are the General Ser- whole. But it does have a personal vice Board (trustees), the GSO and application, too. I must have order in Grapevine staffs, and the boards of my personal life, and I am willing to AA World Services, Inc., and The go to any length to secure it. The AA Grapevine, Inc. achievement of one of my paramount Here is a very important note desires, peace of mind, seems to come about the Conference. In The AA about as the direct result of discipline Service Manual, Bill W. wrote that (self-organization) in my thinking, in “while the Conference can issue my emotional views, and in my spirorders to the General Service Office, itual outlook. My sobriety depends

July 1 9 8 2

issue when I came into Alcoholics times, stop listening, and attempt to Anonymous, in 1960, something tells steamroller a prospect into sobriety; me that I would have veered toward we may imagine, at times, that ours is the position of making the govern- the only recovery program around; ment responsible. Why not? My pat- we may even occasionally take it into tern was to shift my own responsibili- our heads that what we have in AA is ties onto others – a pattern that the only bona fide pipeline to God. helped keep me drinking and added But there is one defect that we, as a to my burden of guilt; if I had found fellowship, do not have: We are not a group of people who would legiti- suicidal. mize that old pattern, 1 shudder to As the “Twelve and Twelve” think how short a time I would have points out, we seemed to know in- Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion stayed sober. ,’

on outside issues; hence the Cause three: legislation to restrict “. . . we had to develop AA name ought never be drawn into the use of alcoholic beverages to cer- single-mindednm public controversy tain parts of restaurants and air- and not be swerved for planes. What, more disagreement? One camp says that since we give a lot one moment of business to restaurants and since from ‘ourgoal. . . a s Flag-Wavers Anonymous? we are sober now and able to travel –

more often, they ought to give us stinctively from the start that, in special consideration. But from order to survive, we had to avoid T HERE IS no doubt that Alcoholics Anonymous could have a lot of political clout if it chose to move in been a requirement for AA membership, which side would I have chosen? Chances are that my old another camp comes the cry that nobody made us drink, nobody made us quit drinking, and nobody owes us involving ourselves in other causes or in public fights, no matter how proper or justified they might seem. The that direction. A few banners, a few people-pleasing pattern would have anything. history of the Washingtonian Society rest stations, and we would be ready had me espousing both sides. In the How long would I have stayed of alcoholics, which rose and fell for a march to the Capitol. old days, people-pleasing used to help sober, 1wonder, identifying myself at within the 1840s, demonstrated clear- Organizations do it all the time – keep me drunk. AA meetings by saying, “My name is ly that we had to develop singlegroups with far less worldwide re- Cause two: Laws should be passed B- and I am in favor of legislation mindedness and not be swerved for spect and prestige. So why shouldn’t to assure adequate jobs and housing to restrict alcoholic beverages to. . . “? one moment from our goal of staying we? The first thing we would have to for all alcoholics, drinking or not. Meanwhile, interested non-AAs sober and helping other alcoholics to do is decide on a cause. What? Are we in disagreement would look on with dismay. “If only get sober. Our own early history Cause one: the wet-dry issue. again? One camp says that since alco- they had stuck to their experience,” showed us that our best course of Bring back Prohibition? But hold on. holism is a disease we did not ask for, people would say. “If only they had action would be to stand on our own One camp says that if people want to it should be up to the government to stayed with the one thing they knew two feet and to practice self-governdrink, nobody has a right to stop take care of us; the other, that we best – recovery from alcoholism.” ment based on the principle of rotathem; the other, that alcohol is harm- may not be responsible for having the We sober alcoholics in AA – all tion; and that the best way to avoid, ful to alcoholic and nonalcoholic disease, but we are responsible for one million plus – may have any or at least to minimize, controversy at alike and should be banned forever. seeking recovery. number of shortcomings among us: the public level would be to abandon If taking a stand on the matter had If I had been confronted by that We may become overzealous some- our personal identities at the pqblJ6 – 3 ‘t

level. Over forty-five years later, how myself saying does not sound like the well that program of action has suc- kind of AA sharing I am used to. It ceeded is a matter of record. does not even sound like advice. I look back on my early years in Rather, 1 sound like someone who AA (when I was still convinced that I has full comprehension of “the AA knew what was good for everybody position” on all manner of subjects, else) and regret to remember the high from the need for improved alcoholesteem I had of myself as a diagnosti- ism education in schools to aid for the cian. Not only did 1 advise new- starving nations of the world. I must comers to stop taking doctor-pre- be on constant guard against this form of self-aggrandizement. It pokes its head up at the darnedest “It is largely thanks times, whether I am talking to an AA to this Tradition that I group, to a non-AA person, or onecan attend AA meetings on-one to a newcomer. In my unin peace” thinking enthusiasm, I can wind up smack in the middle of my old habit pattern of imagining 1 know everyscribed medication, but I also told thing. That kind of undisciplined them that aspirin was harmful and enthusiasm can be the source of vitamins were useless. misinformation about Alcoholics 1 was at an AA meeting recently Anonymous – and goodness knows, when a newcomer told us that he had there is enough misinformation been in a serious accident and was about us among the general public suffering a lot of pain, and that his without my adding to it. doctor, who was not sympathetic Within AA, the Tenth is a source toward the concept of alcoholism as a of so much comfort. It is largely disease, had prescribed painkillers. thanks to this Tradition that I can The newcomer’s question was wheth- attend AA meetings in peace. I would er he should take them. After the like to propose that we celebrate the meeting, someone told him how to space outside the doors of our meetobtain the name of a doctor who had ing rooms – the space where we can an understanding of alcoholism, and leave the hundred issues that bommade it very clear that it was one AA bard us all day long – where we can member talking to another – that leave everything except our desire to Alcoholics Anonymous had abso- stay sober. Thanks to the Tenth Tralutely no connection with the dition, we have ample space in the physician’s art or with the physician entryways to our meetings, no matter himself. how small the rooms themselves may At least, I no longer play doctor. be. But every once in a while, what I hear W. H., Manhattan, N. Y;

July 1 9 8 2

Too special? From Anchorage, Alsk.: I’ve been in AA over three years now, and thank my Higher Power for the Steps and Traditions. When I came into AA, I’m so glad there weren’t a whole lot of self-righteous people there telling me I couldn’t smoke or couldn’t swear and so on. I see so many special-interest groups springing up – men only, women only, gays, nonsmokers, Christ meetings, NA in AA. I believe these are outnumbering regular AA meetings. < ,

These are against the MiTra(ti7*tions. NA should in no way be in AA. Neither should Smokers Anonymous, Gays Anonymous, or Swearers Anonymous. I’m an alcoholic, and those other things are your own business. I don’t know if I’d be sober today if I went to a special-interest group. The Twelve Traditions are what keeps AA alive. I hope to God we don’t stray away from them. L. C.

August 1 9 8 2

understandably cautious, not only type of meeting, the AA talks may be because of the stigma of alcoholism, followed by a question-and-answer but also because they did not know session. what kinds of people would seek Speakers at those meetings at them out. “Wrong” kinds, they which the public is welcome usually feared, might ruin the fragile experi- honor the spirit of the Traditions by ment. using only their first names. How- In the AA film Bill Discusses the ever, they are not in violation of Twelve Traditions, our co- founder Tradition Eleven if they choose t o use says of those early times that “if you thier full names, since the meeting is posed the question of attraction ver- not on radio, film, or TV. Reporters Our public relations policy sus promotion, the idea of attraction iibased on attraction would be to sit on the front porch and rather than promotion; wait for some drunks to come along “The power of example we need always maintain asking for help.” k perhaps As it turned out, the seeds of AA personal anonymity at the level of have been planted in many different the strongest attraction press; radio, and films ways. It was a psychiatrist who Alcoholics Anonymous planted the seed in my imagining. has going for itJJ Not only did he recommend AA, but Fanfare, Foofaraw he lent me a copy of the Big Book and put me in touch with a member who and all other non-AAs present are took me to my first meeting. It was a asked to respect our Tradition. The

I HAVEN’T MADE a good old-fashioned sweeping statement in a long time. I would like to make one largely to the fact that AA members made sobriety very attractive. Subtly, without fanfare, they drew me into smooth, attractive action that he set in motion, and a desire for sobriety was kindled in me. thrust of anonymity in Eleven is quite clearly a public relations policy. Bill W ., in a personal letter in 1961, now and say that nothing on earth their midst. Never once did they pres- The power of example is perhaps said that although some principles in could ever have promoted me out of sure me or interrogate me. About the the strongest attraction Alcoholics the Traditions are subject to interpredrunkenness into sobriety. Not fam- only questions I was ever asked in Anonymous has going for it. The tation, anonymity at the public level ily, friends, or lovers. Not a jail, a those days were whether I would like public can hear how AA works and requires 100 percent compliance. mental institution, or a psycho- to help set up the meeting room and see it in action by attending any of The question that faced me in the analyst. Not threats of violence, what meeting I was going to the next our open meetings (in this area, three- beginning had nothing to do with actual fistfights, or suicide attempts. night. Or they might ask if I was feel- speaker meetings). When I came in, press, radio, or films. It was whether There just never was enough reason ing better. Come to think of it, aren’t open meetings were still being called to tell my family and my boss. I ‘ or incentive in the sober life to win me those the essentials in the AA way of the showcase of AA. Indeed, that was blurted it out eventually and was forover. life – service, fellowship (unity), and the original intention behind open tunate to find acceptance with both. Never, that is, until I came to my personal recovery? speaker meetings. Non-AAs are Many AAs think it a good idea t o disfirst Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, In the early days of AA, we were specifically invited to the public cuss the matter with their sponsors in the summer of 1%0. very much a secret society. Meetings information meeting, another source before disclosing their AA member- I had my last drink in the fall of were held in private homes and were by which the public can view firsthand ship. As for the boss, he or she might that year, and I owe my sobriety hard to find. Our pioneers were the attractions of sobriety. At this not understand alcoholism, but it is a

fact that business and industry d o not terms and ideas and embodied the There we were, some 22,500 of us answered with only one word – no. argue with improved production. same fear felt by our pioneer mem- coming and going, with our badges From a practical viewpoint, I As I understand it, the anonymity bers, that if we became too inclusive that read Jim A., June B., or Bill H. should add that the heart of the city principle, as stated in this Tradition, – if the AA message was shared with The city was open to us; we went from was deserted by many of its citizens over that holiday weekend. Of the was never intended as a concealment too many people – we would spread hotel luncheon meetings to panel disso that we AA members would not ourselves thin and run the risk of cussions at the Superdome, to the New Orleans people 1 met, not one know one another. In my beginnings, destroying ourselves from within. alkathons that ran day and night at looked at my badge twice. Since I however, my sense of shame could be The attractiveness of AA does not hotels and civic centers, and back to could easily have taken the badge off, assuaged only by the group’s assur- depend for its effectiveness upon the Superdome. The people of New I had to conclude that my problem ance that nobody – in or out of M members, geography, or climate. Orleans were made aware every day was not with anonymity but rather – would have to know my identity. And the message is the same now as it through wide media coverage that the with a resurgence of the old alcoholic A part of the Tradition that still was in the beginning. Whether it is city was ours. Our badges meant only guilt. causes some argument is the meaning given to a newcomer stumbling down one thing: our AA membership. I have the Steps to help me deal of “promotion.” I have belonged to the stairs of the local group, or to the 1had to wrestle with the feeling that with my feelings, but a thing I have to AA groups where, periodically, a newcomer caught up in the midst of a by wearing my badge on the street I watch closely in myself is that I not wave of discussion would rise ques- sprawling International Convention w a violating Traditions. So I asked use the anonymity Traditions (or any tioning the extent to which the (see “Super Meeting,” October 1980 myself: Was my picture, complete of the others) as weapons, and that I message was being carried into insti- Grapevine), it is the same, undiluted with badge, printed in the local paper not parade them whenever I think 1 tutions. Some members contended message for one person as it is for one or a national magazine? Did I appear, can impress a fellow AA. For that it was all right to go into those million. with my badge, on TV or videotape? instance, it takes no thinking at all for institutions where we already had I had occasion to revamp my think- Was I interviewed on radio, where I me to toss out an expression like meetings, but to take on any more ing about this Tradition in the summer stated my full name and the fact of my “ought never be organized,” “one ‘ institutions would constitute a pro- of 1980 at our 45th Anniversary Inter- AA membership? Those questions ultimate authority,” or “attraction ‘ moting of AA. It was a confusion of national Convention, in New Orleans. and others like them could be rather than promotion.” ..

It is equally improper of me to TV. In sharing with my fellow AAs, wave weapons at my non-AA friends. on the the other hand, I don’t want to When I interject AA jargon and withhold my identity – 1 want to fragments of AA literature into my celebrate it. Why not? Before AA, 1 conversation with non-AAs, with no had none. But I also want to be careend in view other than self-promo- ful – exceptionally careful – to tion, 1tend to do the very thing 1want protect and cherish the anonymity of most not to do. I make a badge out of my fellow AAs who may be at differmy anonymity. Non-AAs are not ent stages of recovery and may not particularly interested in my way of yet feel the same way about openness. life. They have their own ways of life. Let us all put on badges of gratitude Anonymity in this Tradition, as I and celebrate the very real personal understand it, applies only to “the identities that stand firmly behind our level of press, radio, and films” and public image of anonymity. W.H., Manhattan, N.Y.

August 1982 *”;

,” I N RECENT years, the subject of thetime. When I discovered how not to nonalcoholic addict has been dis- be lonely, I wanted everyone else to with all problems. After leaving the center, I became individual treatment experiences in order to communicate with each 1 cussed often and heatedly in AA. be shown the way. I had formerly This concern for fellow human beings excluded most people from my life, who suffer from another form of and I now wanted to include everyvery active in my home group and therefore received requests to sponsor people. I talked freely and often other. One day, 1 learned that one pigeon had been conning me all along about everything – how he “used,” addiction speaks well of our attitude one. I had a feeling of coming home. about chemical dependency, and the what he was doing in sobriety, what of love. But it has taken me some I knew this home was spacious people asking me to be their sponsor his family was doing. I was shocked. I time and experience to even begin to enough for aU who might enter, so I generally turned out to be drug had not been able to see through his understand the principles involved. ‘went out to invite them. addicts rather than alcoholics. By the con, as I have been able to do with They have been hidden from me only Meanwhile, I grew impatient with grace of God, many of these people people I have sponsored who were because I was too proud to look. My the rate of my own growth. I began to are still “strttight.” alcoholics. I realized then that this alcoholism, however, demands that I think that AA wasn’t changing me Through these experiences, I have was a bad situation for both of us. I was giving him an opportunity to do the same thing in sobriety that he had done during his active illness. It was only then that I began to understand the attitudes and princi-

– (Jw All Things to All People? No! ples that our co-founder Bill W. was trying to express in “Problems Other Than Alcohol.” One of the attitudes Bill must have been considering was love. What is the right way for me, as an alcoholic, fast enough. I didn’t realize that this been given a great love for these peo- to show my love for the person was a task for my God and myself, so ple. To help them, 1 had to read our addicted to pills or street drugs? I I went into a treatment center. I literature. Whenever I read anything think I can take my example from the Sponsoring a thought that it could change me that seemed to exclude people who love for the still-suffering alcoholic so nonalcoholic where AA had failed, that its people were not alcoholics, 1 got mad. I evident in the beginning of our Felwould make me work the AA pro- thought we would be sentencing those lowship. The first members of AA drug addict gram perfectly. They tried, but 1 people to death. The same thing were always concerned with doing the didn’t work out would not d o what they wanted me would happen when 1 heard of an AA “best” for the new person. An action to. group that would not let drug addicts was rarely taken until the group had During this period, I learned the or chemically dependent people into considered all the alternatives and term “chemical dependency.” This its closed meetings. 1 would think, had found the best possible course of either walk toward the light with my new phrase sounded very sophisti- and say, “Who is better to help these action. This method expressed both eyes open – br fall into the darkness cated and medical, soothing my people than those of us in whom the love and other attitudes, such as unof being drunk. bruised ego. I now had a fancy title. I results were the same?” I simply did selfishness and open-mindedness. During my first few months in learned that the results of alcohol, not understand! Early AAs didn’t see themselves as Alcoholics Anonymous, I wanted pill, and narcotic addictions were all I had many talks with my pigeons counselors in all matters – only in everyone to be included in what I had the same. That discovery fit right into who were chemically dependent. We those where they had experienced the found. I had been lonely for a long my early desire to include all people used the jargon we had learned in our problem themselves and had,f?unda * J.

solution that really worked. our actions were very different. In my In my case, that means guiding the first few months in AA, 1 related drug addict to someone who has had mainly to the actions of the people I the same experiences that he or she heard. It had to be identification has had. My path has been from bar- first. Only then could recovery begin. room and bottle toward the light. The All of this points to a gift from our addict’s path will be from street and God that we are given when we, as alpills toward the light. Though the coholics, apply our program to ourgoal be the same and the paths paral- selves. This is thegift of humility. It is lel, we must each begin from our own the attitude that allows us to express brand of hell. And so, for a good part love in the right way. In any situation of the journey, we will walk different where we think we might be of serpaths. How can I show someone vice, humility guides us to recognize where the stone in his moccasin is when the “best” is not us. Humility unless I have walked in it? I can tell is, I believe, the primary indicator of him where mine is – but if one of us both quality sobriety in an individual has walked in sand and the other in and spiritual growth in our Fellowgravel, there will be a considerable ship as a whole. difference. Neither of us can see the What can we do for these people pitfalls and stumbling blocks on the who are similar to us? The answer lies other’s path. For one of us to attempt in our program. We can give them the to lead or guide the other would be principles in our Twelve Steps to apthe blind leading the blind. ply to their problem in their own The principles involved in dealing groups. We can assist them in getting with this problem are also important their groups started – particularly ‘ in our own program of recovery. T o those of us who are dually addicted. make a self-survey and then admit the If necessary, we as individuals can shortcomings I find is a key to my help support them. We can be their continued growth. In this case, I must friends, love them, and help them in admit that I cannot be all things to all areas where we do have a common people. Is this not the spirit of our experience. This we can do for aN our Fifth Tradition? This is a difficult fellow human beings! In the final principle for me to follow and prac- analysis, this is what our program tice. During my drinking years, I teaches us to do. We learn to embrace always tried to be just that. Failing – our fellow human beings – not shun as I would eventually do – I got them. We learn to assist them in their drunk. Is it not a form of insanity to search – not do their searching for attempt to do that in sobriety? them. We learn that it is God they I have not had the identical experi- need – not us. Our task is difficult, ence that someone on drugs has had. but God’s results are great. While the results were often the same, D. B., Northfield, Minn.

September 1 9 8 2

thing better than talk: They showed not balked when I staggered onto the me through example that this was no scene. They accepted me as another ordinary fellowshipI had approached. alcoholic in need of help. And now the With the passage of time, I finally group was accepting these otha newbegan to hear what they had been comers just as they were, alcoholics in saying all along. It sounded like the need of help. The group was puttins truth I had long sought, and it seemed its action where its word was. an attractive way of living. Those times that I criticized other They were saying things like “First groups because they were not doing Things First.” What that meant in the things the way our group did, I was beginning was to call a fellow AA Anonymity is the spiritualfoundation before 1picked up a drink; by and by, of all our Traditions, it came to mean putting on my right ever reminding us sock first, then my left; now, it meant “Will I always be that in order to survive, I had to think to place principles in terms of “What I cannot do alone, able to tell what before personalities we can do together.” It meant that the iispiritual?”

– Let’s Not Flaunt it! group’s welfare had to come first. Without the group, I did not stand a chance. At group election time, I used to complain a lot about the “wrong” gently reminded to “Live and Lct Live.” Each group was its own boss,

N OT TOO MANY years ago, there was an advertising slogan making the media rounds. It said, “If action taken by my home group, as well as all my own actions taken within the framework of my AA people getting into office and predict terms of hardship for the group. I did not believe in “trusted servants.” they told me, with the one proviso that it not step on the toes of its neighbor groups or of AA as a whole. It was 1 you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Another say- recovery, ought to be spiritually When one individual did politick his pointed out that just as I personally ing in vogue at that time told us, “Let motivated. way into holding office term after did not like being told what to do, it all hang out!” That sounds very nice, but what term and the group went sharply neither did groups. Interesting viewpoints for me, as a does it mean? How to do it? Will I downhill, my doomcryinqappeared I used to complain that our incommember of Alcoholics Anonymous, always be able to tell what is spiri- to be justified. I left, loudly putting ing speakers were not as “good” as to think about. tual? Or to know what are principles? down that basic human virtue, trust. they ought to be; that we should be Could I let my own spiritual foun- When I had my last drink and came The core of the group hung on until its laying out a plentiful spread after our dation all hang out? Could I flaunt into AA, in 1960, my home group did membership once more began to meetings; and that we should be sponmy AA principles? Yes, I suppose so not talk to me then about spiritual grow. The trust that these loyal mem- soring socials. My home group at the – but to what end? Most likely, it motivation. I would have fled in bers had talked about -and practiced time was small, and its older members would be to impress somebody, despair if they had. I still equated the – was vindicated. reminded me that our primary purwhether an AA member or not. And spiritual with religion, and the latter There was a time when I balked at pose as a group was “to carry its mesif that was the case, I would be had failed me as a source of help with associating with certain people at AA sage to the alcoholic who still defeating the whole point of the my drinking problem. They did talk a meetings. I began to hear “But for the suffers.” They also pointed out that ‘ Twelfth Tradition. It seems this lot about hope and tolerance, about Grace of God,” and with that hearing groups offering spreads and socials, Tradition is suggesting that every patience and love. But they did some- came remembrance that the group had within the freedom afforded them by

I their autonomy, were larger; their That shut me up on the subject of Along the way, it seemed to me that nothing wrong, they told me, with members’ contributions made such professional AAs, but then 1 got going there ought to be special AA speakers prestige-seeking, competition, spotevents possible. on paid employees in our service to make known AA’s position on cur- lights, and the razzle-dazzle of head- When I insisted that we AAs were centers. I had to have it spelled out for rent events. For example, how did AA lines. If I can handle any or all of that sober enough to affiliate with state or me that central office or intergroup feel about the latest wars that were in my professional/business life, Federal agencies and let them supply staffs are not paid to do Twelfth Step devastating the world? What were more power to me! But the moment I us with some well-deserved money to work. They pave the way, through AA’s views on the newest treatments carry any part of it into my program help us carry on our good works, my their administrative /secretarial / for alcoholism? for sobriety, I run the highly dangergroup sat me down and explained clerical skills, for unpaid volunteers to That was when I started learning ous personal risk of relapsing into some things. We were responsible for do the Twelfth Step work. that AA has no opinions on outside drinking. Furthermore, I put the ourselves now, they said. They There were no bosses in AA, so I issues and no elite spokesmen. Again, Fellowship’s reputation on the line reminded me of what I had told them was told, but we could create all kinds I was reminded of our primary pur- and in so doing narrow the doorway to about having always expected some- of committees. Wouldn’t that be a pose. Again, it was explained that as recovery for the alcoholic yet to come. thing for nothing, an old attitude that breeding ground for bossism? How long as we keep our focus clearly on a I started learning to take myself less no longer worked. Neither would such contradictory! With all the explana- single purpose, carrying the AA mes- seriously early on but learned much an attitude work for the group, they tions that AA members shared with s a g , we shall remain strong and our more about it with the help of a better said. By paying our own way, we gain me, the only way that I could get a doors will stay open for the alcoholic understanding of the Traditions. I can that much more freedom over what we handle on the subject of bosses and yet to seek help. think of one instance in particular say and do. organization in AA was to read The When I wondered aloud why we did when remembering “principles before At one time, I had strong ideas AA Service Manual. ” . . .Directly not have our pictures taken and why personalities” saved me from a grandabout the need for “AA counselors,” responsible to those they serve” are we did not give interviews over our full daddy of a resentment. I had arrived until someone asked me bluntly key words in the Ninth Tradition. It names, older and wiser AAs talked to late at an AA group function and had whether I would have listened to an would be quite a feat to be both ser- me about our Eleventh Tradition and to stand because all the seats were “Mcounselor” when I was drinking. vant and boss at the same time. attraction versus promotion. There is taken. I was known to many of those

present, but no one stood up to give sibility (and pleasure) to keep coming me a seat (venerable old-timer that I to meetings, not only that I may mainwas). tain sobriety, but also that newcomers Talk about deflation at depth! may be afforded one more example of In the twelfth piece of a Traditions how AA works. It is a good idea for series written by B. L. and carried by me to speak up at discussion meetings the Grapevine back in the mid-1970s, once in a while to let newcomers know he posed the question “Who do I that I am human, too, and not somethink I am, anyway?” Whoever I may one who has “graduated” or think I am, there are always others “arrived.” around to let me know who they think If I had to put the Twelfth Tradition 1 am. (Thanks be!) in a nutshell, I might say that within Being a long-timer is not a matter of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonyspecial privilege but rather of extra mous, the fact of my sobriety is more responsibilities. I owe it to my fellows important than the fact of me; the to be willing to share my sobriety with- truth of recovery is more important out fanfare; I owe it to them and to than my name; and the hope of life myself to be unflustered when I am that AA extends to me means more not asked to share. It is my respon- than personal ambition or acclaim. W. H., Manhattan, N.Y.

A A GRAPEVINE, OCTOBER 1 9 8 2

gious creed. A newcomer at such a bave no responsibility in the matter. meeting might think that following The Fifth Tradition defines our pri-, some particular creed is a require- mary purpose. The Sixth Tradition, ment in AA, which it never is. Reli- as I interpret it, restricts the use of gion is a good thing – it just doesn’t group funds to AA purposes. We belong in AA. Same with having can’t spend them bailing drunks out doctors or psychologists speak. Edu- of jail.” for Survival cation is a good thing, but that isn’t what AA is for. Probably, none of our Traditions has taken more abuse than the long- “The reason the older members of suffering Sixth: “An AA group your group want only AA members ought never endorse, finance, or lend AA ‘s Twelve Traditions as speakers is that they are following the AA name to any related facility or are a powerful protection the Fifth Tradition: ‘Each group has outside enterprise, lest problems of but one primary purpose – to carry money, property, and prestige divert for the future its message to the alcoholic who still us from our primary purpose.” suffers.’ People come to AA to learn With our talent for rationalization, how to stay sober, not for religion or AA members can sometimes coneducation. Sobriety is all we have to vince themselves that, while the Tra-

T AKING THE Twelve Steps as a means of achieving sobriety was brought to my attention with loving AA experience, warning us not to keep repeating the same mistakes. At a workshop on group problems, offer.” Jennie was tripping over the Fifth Tradition, and also the Sixth, the ditions are certainly a good idea for others, their own pet “related facility or outside enterprise” is so special emphasis very early in my association a fairly new member aired his frustra- night she came flying into her that breaking the Sixth Tradition is with AA. At the time, no one told me tion because others in the group meeting and up to the oldest member, justified. We may always have a few that taking the Twelve Traditions always vetoed his suggestions about with a breathless “Marie’s in jail! On members who reason that way, but with equal devotion was as vital to the kind of speakers they should have a public drunk charge! What are we my observation has been that those M itself as the Steps were to me. My at open meetings. “We ought to have going to do?” who had an early, intensive introducnew mentors, when I arrived in 1958, ministers come and talk to us about “We’re going to leave her there,” tion to the Traditions seldom do. hadn’t grasped the importance of the spiritual things, and doctors and the oldest member said calmly. She Ironically, the respected position Traditions as fully as we have since psychologists explain what alcohol knew about Jennie’s excitement over AA has in public estimation, which then. does to us. We could be elevating and making her first Twelfth Step call (in makes being linked to it valuable to It took a while for most of us to educating people, and we aren’t the company of an older member) on the Tradition breakers, is the direct perceive what powerful protection we doing it!” Marie a few days earlier. result 6f following the Traditions. It have in them, and to learn how to “Most of us think,” the workshop “But we can’t!” Jennie was came about precisely because AA apply them to the ordinary problems moderator replied, “that formal shocked to her foundations at such never asked for money, avoided all of our Mlives. New members, often religion, which is a form of worship seeming heartlessness. “She asked us public controversy, and sought no bewildered and hurt when their sug- following a specific creed, has no for help!” personal publicity for its members. gestions meet an unenthusiastic re- place in AA, since our spiritual prin- “And we gave her help, the only In one locality, a large monthly ception, need an explanation from ciples can be utilized by people of all kind AA can give. We carried the intergroup open meeting had tenderly sponsors and groups of what the religions, or none. Bring a minister message to her. If she isn’t ready to protected the Sixth Tradition for Traditions are and why we have who is not an AA member to speak at accept it, gets drunk again, and ends twenty years, barring all announcethem. Thy represent a distillation of a meeting, and you bring in his reli- up in jail, that’s unfortunate, but we ments not directly pertaining to AA.

* r By long custom, announcements Though by no means nationally fawere made by the leader of the meet- mous, Paul (as we’ll call him) was ing, or someone the leader called on well known in his own and nearby to do it. No reference was to be made states. When his drinking reached to any treatment facility, club, half- epic proportions, including arrests, way house, or anything else not ac- car wrecks with personal injuries, and tually a part of AA. public fistfights, his escapades were Then, an AA member we’ll call news. Chester, who had become deeply When he emerged from several involbed with establishing a new weeks’ seclusion in an alcoholism treatment center, told a few friends treatment center, that was news, too. that he had arranged to give the an- Reporters promptly sought him out nouncements at the next intergroup and asked for a statement. meeting, when he intended to tell the In the concentration on Paul’s reaudience all about the new facility covery, no one had discussed with and urge them to support it. Learning him the matter of Tradition Eleven: of this plan, the chairman of arrange- “Our public relations policy is based ments for the meeting and the area on attraction rather than promotion; delegate met with Chester to explain we need always maintain personal in detail why such an action would anonymity at the level of press, radio, shatter Tradition Six and naturally and films.” must not be carried out. Beaming with goodwill, his enthu- At the next meeting, they and other siasm for AA, and the exuberance of Tradition-respecting members sat in new sobriety, Paul joyfully assured stumcd horror when Chester went to the press and the TV cameras that he the lectern and made a lengthy state- had joined Alcoholics Anonymous ment about the splendid new facility and his drinking days were over. That now available, and the duty of every hit the newspapers and the television M member to support it generously. and radio newscasts in three states. Since then, all announcements at Then his AA friends told him about these meetings have been made by a Tradition Eleven. member of the arrangements com- Better timing would have preventmittee. Their great regret is that this ed the anonymity break, which Paul safeguard was not in effect in the never repeated, and would have years B.C. – Before Chester. spared him great embarrassment. The following experience of a new We show our new members how to member, who is still mortified over take the Twelve Steps to insure their his breaking of the Eleventh Tradi- own survival. Shouldn’t we also show tion, underlines the need for ac- them how to take the Twelve Tradiquainthg.beginners with the Tradi- tions to insure AA’s survival? tidns,,and’.mresponsibility to them. E. E., Tulsa,Okla. – %Y- 1

October 1982

In defense of ‘special groups’ From Claremont, N.H.: This is in reply to L. C.’s letter Soon after, Portland had a gay (July 1982 Grapevine) criticizing group, and I joined it. 1 did need the “special groups,” including non- gay groups. Because of finally getting smokers. honest, I soon lost the stomachaches I received the gift of sobriety six- I’d had for thirty years. Also, I could teen years ago from my Higher finally work the Fourth Step. Power and AA. I have been fortunate I do not hide in AA anymore. If the enough to have started or helped start need arises, I will say I am gay at a two daytime groups for night workers regular AA meeting. Our gay groups – “special groups”? in Portland are all open to all About a year ago, due to a chronic alcoholics. H.W. lung condition, I was instructed by my doctor to stay away from any From Danbury, Conn.: gatherings where people were smok- A special-interest group for gay ing, if I wanted to continue to men and women is an AA meeting; breathe. I could not give up AA, members discuss their alcoholism. I which was my life, so I started two feel more comfortable at a meeting nonsmokers meetings. About seventy where I know there isn’t going to be percent of the people who attend are any prejudice or judgment about my heavy smokers, but they refrain from sexuality. At an AA meeting for gays, smoking for one hour. G . M. confused newcomers are able to deal with their alcoholism assisted by their From Portland, Oreg.: peers, not feeling they have to hide a In regard to L. C.’s letter – I came major portion of their lives at the into AA in 1971 and came out of the same time. closet in 1976. All those first years I got sober while in the Air Force. were spent attending straight AA This was the beginning of my own meetings. There was no gay AA in self-acceptance as a whole person. Portland and little in other towns. In Today, I’m able to “come out” at all 1976 in Vancouver, B.C., I went to meetings when I speak, but 1 don’t my second gay AA meeting, and for know if I would be sober without the the first time in my life (at fifty-one), gay meetings as a supplement to reg- I told a group of people that I was ular AA. C. D. gay –

February 1983

The most common mistake speak- siderable confusion about the ers made, it seemed to me, was their relationship between AA and the belief that as AA members they had treatment center, as well as a lessened the responsibility to educate others opportunity for them to learn about

What We Do about alcoholism. Though 1 can readily understand their frustration when others do not understand our our program. At another AA event I attended, though the program content was and What We Don’t illness, the Traditions make it clear that AA has no part in educating the primarily traditional M, I witnessed a departure from the Traditions by public about alcoholism or its two longtime members. The panel in AA ‘s Traditions spell it out prevention. “Each group has but one which they participated was listed on primary purpose – to carry its the program as “AA and the Emmessage to the alcoholic who still ployer,” yet the subject was never

I SHOWED U’P at AA after all attempts to stop or control my drinking had failed. I was fortunate service at the district level, I began to see that I didn’t have a thorough understanding of the Traditions. suffers” (Tradition Five). On alcoholism in general, AA as a whole has no opinion. once discussed during the hour session. Both AAs immediately put on “two hats” at the same time and to begin AA attendance in a locality Fortunately, there were regularly 1 also perceived what struck me as talked about a variety of subjects on that was a bastion of strong, tradi- scheduled workshops for GSRs a curious interpretation of the which AA has no opinion. (Tradition tional AA. Most of the meetings I (general service representatives) and a “open” meeting. The misunder- Ten reads: “Alcoholics Anonymous attended were Step meetings, and lot of encouragement to attend standing here was that somehow it has no opinion on outside issues; sponsorship, commitment to a home district and area meetings. That was the responsibility of AA to edu- hence the AA name ought never be group, and service activity were also activity served to further my under- cate its rvembers about alcoholism drawn into ~ u b l i c’controversy.”) stressed. standing of the Traditions and to help and its treatment. Consequently, the In our area at that time, there were me develop a deep respect for their open AA meeting at times offered an two large, hospital-based alcoholism wisdom and necessity. open podium. Various professionals treatment centers. Both had an excel- Through a broader variety of working in the alcoholism field were “We have the responsibility lent working relationship with AA, service experience and a look at regularly asked to speak, to tell us to protect our based on mutual understanding and customs in other localities, I began to about their programs. How this precious heritage. respect for the Twelve Traditions. recognize some misunderstandings of served the primary purpose of an AA That positive, healthy relationship group was, and still is, beyond me. That which threatens AA’s role, as stated in the Traditions. gave me the opportunity to partici- First, in arranging for speakers to One such meeting stays vivid in my the future of AA pate in beginners meetings, drive carry the message to schools, mind. I was asked to be one of two threatens our sobriety. ” patients to open meetings, and act as churches, and other organizations, I speakers and was preceded by the a temporary sponsor for people com- discovered that some of my fellow director of a local treatment proing out of treatment. Later, I also led AAs had difficulty understanding gram. He was admittedly very unintroductory AA meetings at the cen- and sticking to the subject-sharing familiar with the AA program. At- AA certainly has an important ters and spoke to patients, as an in- experience, strength, and hope and tending the meeting on that particular function (cooperation, not affiliadividual AA member, about the pro- presenting personal experience with night, to learn about Alcoholics tion) to perform in regard to relations gram of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA and a clear explanation of AA as Anonymous, were a minister and with employers, but that function is As I became active in AA general a whole. several members of a church group. very narrowly defined by Tradition What resulted, I am sure, was con- Six (long form). It is also spelled out

in the Conference-approved leaflet the problems of alcoholism in indus- “AA and Occupational Alcoholism try and to improve the programs of Programs.” their respective companies. I take I got the impression that neither issue, however, with their voicing panel member had read the leaflet. opinions as A A members, at an AA One introduced himself as an AA event, concerning the problems of member with sixteen years’ sobriety alcoholism in industry. and as the coordinator of the Bill W. spoke of the “good” being employee assistance program ( E M ) the “enemy of the best.” If AA is to of a local company. He went on to maintain its unique ability to help the explain the history of the company’s suffering alcoholic, we must steadprogram. The second speaker intro- fastly maintain our position of coopduced himself as an AA with more eration, not affiliation, by always than eighteen years’ sobriety and the placing AA principles, as contained union representative EAP coordina- in the Traditions, before personal tor for another local employer. Mem- opinions, concerns, and interests. bers of the panel publicly discussed We have the responsibility to some of the shortcomings of this protect our precious heritage. That company’s program. which threatens the future of AA 1 can easily understand these threatens our sobriety. speakers’ desire to focus attention on J . M., Woodsrock, Ill.

March 1983

‘ style want to meet in a dark cave, it’s AA who are not special. We all have all right with me. I f they wish to the opportunity to recover from a identify themselves as the Dark Cave seemingly hopeless state of mind and Group, that’s all right with me also! body, through God’s grace (which we

– All of Us Are Special Who am I to tell them what their group name should be? I f a group’s life-style does not happen to be my cup of tea, it does don’t attempt to define, either). If one specially directed piece of literature or one special-interest ‘ group aids one drunk to find the way not disturb me at all. If any alcoholics into AA and sobriety, as we under- T HE WORDS”neither endorses nor opposes any causes” opened my eyes to the unique quality of AA. 1 sharing with others one day at a time, and turning my will and my life over, was sobriety mine. A new way of life, choose to meet together as an AA group, why should 1 concern myself stand sobriety in this Fellowship, then it has not been in vain. The blind, the deaf, the lame, the diabetic, the if the majority or all of them belong had believed that any group must unparalleled in my past experience, gay, the young, the old, the red, the to a particular segment of society? stand or fall upon what it opposed. opened up a vast reservoir of love and Are we not all Cod’s creatures? If it is black, the white, the believer, and the . After all, there was a lot wrong in understanding. necessary to have a group of lawyers nonbeliever are all creatures of God. my world, and if AA was not Lately, however, I have been dis- And if they are alcoholics, what have or doctors, and even one drunken opposed to that, what could it do to turbed by a phrase that I hear being lawyer or doctor recovers from alco- all the foregoing categories got to do help me with my compulsion to used in AA: special-interest groups. I holism, should I deny that one with whether they are welcome here? drink? Looking for the answer kept believe a desire to stop drinking is the In the Big Bgok, we are told that sobriety because I am not of their me coming back just long enough to only requirement for membership. profession? Should 1 say to the AA none have fallen so low as to be discover something that AA called If professionals, women, blacks, Cierleral Service Office, “Burn all the unwelcome here. Thank God for “spiritual condition.” Only when the whites, Methodists, Baptists, gays, pamphlets relating to these because that! Without it, you would never light began to burn through my dark- young people, or others of any they are special-interest groups”? have let me in. ness by the use of AA literature, particular race, creed, color, or life- Personally, I know no members of B. L., Clinton, Tenn.

April 1 9 8 3

For ‘beleaguered chairmen’ From Louisville, Ky .: ‘It is becoming increasingly difficult back on anyone. We merely want to to find a discussion meeting where try to keep AA the most successful controversy over dual or cross addic- program for the treatment of alcoholtion doesn’t crop up. If a member of ism known to the world. AA has a problem with overeating or AA is nonexclusive. People with all gambling, he or she goes to Overeat- sorts of problems, but who are priers or Gamblers Anonymous to help marily alcoholics, are entitled to deal with specific problems. share its blessings. Yet Bill W. wrote It seems to me that to devote time in “Problems Other Than Alcohol”: during an AA meeting to discussing “There is no possible way to make drugs is counterproductive. Dr. Bob nonalcoholics into AA members. We and Bill W. used drugs during their have to confine our membership to drinking days, but discussed only al- alcoholics, and we have to confine cohol during AA’s formative years. our AA groups to a single purpose. If Why can’t we keep it simple today? we don’t stick to these principles, we I once heard a woman at a closed shall almost surely collapse. And if meeting politely told to refrain from we collapse, we cannot help anyone.” discussing drugs. Her reply was: Those guidelines should help to- “Please don’t turn your backs on me. day’s beleaguered chairmen, who are This program is all I have.” This pro- loath to quell extraneous discussion gram is all the member who asked her lest they appear to be insensitive to stick to alcoholism has, too. The ogres. Let’s try to keep this thing latter, my sponsor, has been sober al- simple. U. M. most thirty years. He, along with many others, doesn’t want to turn his

4 * r

AA Grapevine, May 1983

Anonymity and other strange practices made for zest and humor in early media reporting on AA – but the message got across

AA was loaded with oddities. It had a funding a program that was already kind of zest for one-liners that we just doing such a wonderful job restoring don’t often see today. the human resources of alcoholism

Who ALCOHOLICS ALL: 150 MEET – AND IT’S WATER OR NOTHING (Chicago Sun- Times, December 1, 1940). AA’s need for favorable publicity victims. While dinner guests later gave modest sums and Rockefeller donated $1,000, he felt any more would “spoil” the new Fellowship. was greatest in the very beginning. Thus, the dinner was far less signifi- Bill and Bob, our co-founders, cant as the fund raiser that Bill and looked on the members of the press as Bob hoped for than it was for two

That important friends who offered the best way to carry the message to the many suffering alcoholics still outside the influence of the young program. other things. One: it established AA’s emerging resolution to be self-supporting. Two: it was an early break for them in the press, if not the actual In many ways, the message was well beginning of some credibility for carried, but often by writers who AA’s claims. regarded the sober alcoholics with Characteristically, the headlines

Man? understandable skepticism. Consequently, the good news of AA’s existence was spread with ballyhoo and a fine eye for whimsical focused on the paradox of John D. Rockefeller Jr., the symbol of American success and social propriety, throwing a dinner for drunks. contrasts. It was safer, after all, to ROCKEFELLER DINES EX-SOTS NOW play for laughs and for the bizarre: RUM FOES. sang the New York Daily MAN BITES DOG is still a more news- News. 60 ON WAGON – AND ROOM worthy head than MAN QUITS HAIR OF FOR MORE, announced the New York ,

DOG. Post on February 9, 1940. The famous Rockefeller dinner is Other, less colorful newspapers

N 0. IT WASN’T the Lone Ranger. In fact, when this picture was taken, the subject was less a loner 1938, and his mask is one (rather awkward) solution to the problem of how to tell our stories to the public an example. In 1940, John D. Rockefeller Jr. threw a $100-a-plate dinner for AA. The founders hoped to raise treated it straight with heads such as ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS DINNER HAS JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER AS HOST. than he’d been in a long while. The without breaking anonymity. money to help spread AA’s influence, But whatever the style, the headlines man in the mask is an AA member of Press coverage in the early days of and they thought Rockefeller and his and the stories left little doubt as to friends would be interested in what the writers felt was important –

not the existence of AA, but the fact might regard Bill as his sponsor. that John D. threw the dinner for its After all, Bill achieved sobriety a feature on Alcoholics Anonymous. or disguised riders, flyers, and members. before Dr. Bob did, carried the Bill refused out of hand. fighters for justice from the Lone Where journalists treated it message to him, and had about six Time then went back to the draw- Ranger himself to Batman and Robin straight, they revealed a pretty strong months’ more sober experience ing board and came up with a com- and Superman. Add to that the fact show-me attitude. Note this sober (no behind him than Bob did. promise: If Bill would appear on the that most newspaper people tend to pun intended) treatment in a News- But the same “civilians” might cover with his back to the camera, be suckers for underdogs. They were week article: “Medicine usually Time would still do the story. Bill pulling for what appeared to them to have great difficulty understanding claims to cure only about two percent why Bill continued to refer to Ebby as admitted that he was tempted – but be a plucky little band of people of the cases of acute alcoholism it his sponsor in spite of Ebby’s slips after a great deal of discussion and fighting against insurmountable treats. Last week a nonmedical group over the years. To most AAs, how- soul-searching, he turned the offer odds. appeared which made the unusual down. The humor only made us more atever, that situation emphasizes the claim that twenty-five percent of its permanent vulnerability of each “If I appeared on the cover this tractive – especially when the AAs cases were cured. Called Alcoholics individual and the main reason that Anonymous, the group was a club we simply cannot afford to have any composed of ex-drunkards and men kind of hierarchy – even one based trying to overcome the liquor habit on length of sobriety. “The soberest who, for obvious reasons, prefer to person in the room,” the old AA sayremain anonymous. . . . ” ing goes, “is the one who got up But to AAs, the writer’s “obvious earliest this morning.” reasons” were obviously wrong. He (All of that was obviously lost on misinterpreted our principle of ano- the journalist who covered the second nymity, assuming that the members annual dinner held for Bill in Clevewere worried about their reputations. land, November 9, 1942. His headline But as all of us who have traveled the read: 1,000 PAY TRIBUTE TO CHIEF OF route to our first AA meeting know, ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS.) reputation is one of the early casual- The first generally conceded examties in the life of the active alcoholic. ple of this principle, i.e., anonymity, the local AA group. ‘

That writer’s confusion, however, apparently occurred when the press’s themselves did so much laughing “chief” finished writing the Big month with my back to the camera,” is understandable. To this day, it is he reasoned, “it wouldn’t be long about their condition. Peter Craig of hard to explain to a nonmember that Book. After some debate, Bill decid- before some other drunk would be the Atlanta Journal covered the first anonymity is our way of maintaining ed not to sign his own name, and he anniversary of the Atlanta AA there with his face to the camera.” spiritual equality – or to explain why also cast his vote for Alcoholics Group, and he couldn’t resist one of There was another side to anonymthis spiritual equality should be such Anonymous as the title. the signs he saw hanging over the ity in the early days that might well a critical factor in staying sober. One of the last known examples of have worked for us in a strange clubhouse door. He turned it into his It is really the same principle ex- Bill’s use of the principle occurred headline: “CAN’T BEAT DRUNKS manner. Anonymity has a way of appressed by the phenomenon of spon- about three years before his death pealing to the American imagination. WHEN SOBER,” SAY EX-ALCOHOLICS. sorship among early AAs. For by which time there was no shortage The term ex-alcoholic, incidenexample, few “civilians” who know of favorable press interest in AA. Our history and folklore are shot through with anonymous characters tally, had fairly common coin in the the story of AA’s origin would have Time magazine asked Bill to pose for a cover shot so the magazine could do such as vigilantes in lawless areas of early days of press coverage – just I trouble understanding why Bob the early West, and all those masked another example of the misinforma-

tion surrounding the disease. from suffering alcoholics, but from It really wasn’t until the famous civic and social groups, spiritual J a c k Alexander article in t h e leaders, and doctors. Saturday Evening Post of March 1, That incredible picture is lost, but 1941, that people began to take the reprints of it in the Alexander article program seriously. It was a turning and in a few subsequent newspaper point for us. And perhaps the oddest articles can be seen under glassine at thing about it is that it also represents the AA archives in the General Sera departure from the principle of vice Office in New York City. Bill anonymity at the media level. never again departed from the principle, and with the possible exception of Dr. Bob, he was its strongest “. . .AA isnoset of advocate. Some people may be upset by aptablets handed down to parent contradictions such as Bill’s some latter-day Moses – breaking his anonymity. But I love but a continuing them, because they reveal the evolucreative process tionary nature of the program. I also love finding out about the personal in which we all quirks and scrapes of the early AAs. I take part” love Bob’s passion for sporty cars. I love Bill’s battles with his own promoter instincts. (Sometimes he lost.) At that time, the founders were try- And I love all the little things that ing desperately to get some exposure keep them human to me. for the program. Alexander wanted These things remind me that AA is very much to do the article, but his no set of tablets handed down to editors balked at a story about people some latter-day Moses – but a conwho wouldn’t show their faces. They tinuing creative process in which we refused to publish unless they could all take part, a perpetual journey show photographs of real AA mem- from the known to the unknown, a bers at a meeting. truth ever-arriving through experi- And so Bill and several other ence. That’s what it was for our AA alcoholics broke their anonymity by pioneers, as it is for me. allowing themselves to be photo- God bless those early headline graphed a t a meeting. The site makers – those who stayed sober selected was the old 24th Street and those who didn’t. They are dear Clubhouse in Manhattan. to me, not for the road maps they left The article was printed – and sud- (I must, after all, chart my own), but denly AA was on the map. The re- for the example of their courage. sponse was overwhelming, not only C. S., Manhattan, N. Y.

1 AA GRAPEVINE ‘ JUNE 1983

Passing the Basket. I or Passing the Buck? W HEN 1 WAS newly sober in AA, fourteen years ago, I seld o p attended a meeting without takmany fail to recognize one important aspect: If we aren’t even willing to pay our own way at a meeting, how AA always to be there,” we each need to assume our own share of responsibility. If money and spirituality do would always be met. Today, I can honestly say that never has there been an instance where I have given of mying a pamphlet to read. I always had can we expect the group to support mix in the basket, as the “Twelve and self, financially or otherwise, and at least two cups of coffee, and if the Fellowship? What we need to Twelve” says, then how much better have not been compensated many there was anything to eat, I ate. When realize is that we are the groups, and they will blend when money is used to times over. Our family has never the basket was passed, I always put a we are Alcoholics Anonymous. I perpetuate AA by making more lacked anything because we accepted quarter in it – for two people, my have seen AAs spend more money at Twelfth Step work possible. our responsibility to help carry the wife and me. If we could truly stretch a coffee shop than they would ever We, who have had so much given message. a dollar as far as I must have thought think of putting in the collection at a to us freely – in love, with no strings God has given each of us a share of we could, the financial world would meeting. attached – sometimes forget that the responsibility. He has given each be beating a path to our doorsteps to Early in my sobriety, it was ex- this also is an area where we have to of us the tools to work with and the learn AA’s remarkable brand of plained that it was imperative for me give it away to keep it. One of the ability to use them. Let’s all of us economics. to get my priorities in order. Learning promises in the Big Book is freedom assume our shares so that we may all Most of us decry the fact that more to become responsible was one of from “fear of economic insecurity.” reap ever-increasingly the fruits of than forty percent of the groups do them. This financial buck-passing Long ago, one of my sponsors sug- selflessness and love in service to our not support the Fellowship. When it certainly seems to run counter to re- gested that if I stayed sober and tried Fellowship. comes to AA’s being self-supporting, sponsibility. If we want “the hand of to live along spiritual lines, my needs C. C., West Palm Beach, Fla.

June 1983

– ‘Well-chosen words’ or ‘stuff’? From Denver, Colo.: In the December Grapevine.. . When I came to AA, I had no idea The “Trust” L. R. writes about I was an alcoholic. I knew I was a (pp. 30-31) grows out of gut-level drug addict, and I came because I had identification – “one drunk talking nowhere else to go. Today, I recogto another.” nize this as the grace of God. I ended Gut-level identification isn’t up in a halfway house for alcoholics blocked by B. B.’s newcomer (pp. and had to go to five outside AA 38-39) who wants to stop drinking meetings a week and a lot of inside but can’t yet say he’s an alcoholic, or meetings. I was introduced to the by S. M. (pp. 39-40), dually addicted Steps right away. I learned that I was alcoholic who focuses on booze in indeed an alcoholic first and a drug AA meetings. It is blocked by people addict second. like J. C. (p. 37)’ who focused on But it took time -a lot of time and drugs; while they’re still in denial a lot of meetings: Thank God, I about alcohol, they can’t focus on didn’t hear this stuff that is being “our common problem” – the first passed around now. I would never drink. have stayed. I’ve spent a quarter of AA needs both open and closed my life in jail or prison as a direct remeetings. The Washingtonians lost sult of my drinking and drugging. I their focus; let’s not lose ours. L. R. lost everything that was important to ends with some well-chosen words: me. I felt subhuman when I came into “. . .critical to the present and future AA, and I had started living that way. success of AA.” Bull’s-eye! Today, twenty-two months later, ANONYMOUS my life is good. My message of hope for the newcomer is: Get yourself sat- From Blackstone, Mass.: urated with AA, be good to yourself, I sat in a meeting Sunday morning and keep coming – I need you! H. K. and heard a bunch of stuff read off that made me very angry. It was directed at drug addicts.

SEPTEMNER 1983 In other areas, such as my home too. Perhaps the show-off stage has state of Oregon, great care has been passed, and there is now some subtaken through the years not to reveal stance to our achievements. We last names in meetings. It stems from know, however, that our usefulness is the fact that we do not have the right a gift. Were we granted sobriety and a to break another’s anonymity, and it new life to revel in our achievements? works toward reducing our desire for Are we not just a part of a great personal distinction as AA members whole, all working for the same among fellow alcoholics. But have Boss? Do we consider enough by you ever tried to visit someone in the what Power we have been able to hospital when you did not know the achieve? An early member used to person’s last name? The guarding of say, “Count yourself. You’re not so anonymity can become obsessive – a many.” contagious habit. Our Traditions do In the “Twelve and Twelve,” the not include the tradition of habit. chapter on Tradition Twelve says: Anonymity must be guarded at the “Our growth made it plain that we media level, but that does not mean I couldn’t be a secret society, but it was may not break my anonymity in equally plain that we couldn’t be a meetings or among some people out- vaudeville circuit, either. The chartthe comfort of anonymity that eases side AA. It is essential that we focus ing of a safe path between these exthe fear and allows newcomers free- on the spirit of our Traditions. When tremes took a long time.” I believe it dom to join us. Newly recovered al- I place “principles before personali- is still taking a long time. The spirit of anonymity coholics are still very close to past ties,” I may break my anonymity With a membership of over a milcan keep us safe from guilts and mistakes. Losing their with the public on a private level. lion, the danger of a “secret society” anonymity in the beginning can be a So, in our perspective on anonym- has passed, but the danger of a ourselves traumatic thing, both personally and ity, we travel through the stages of “vaudeville circuit” has not. Whethprofessionally. fear and acceptance and finally to er we like to consider it in this light or Fairly early in my sobriety, while in service. Here is where I feel the not, we are so large, we now have a a restaurant with people not in our danger may lie. “public” within our Fellowship. ,

T RADrTlON ELEVEN is generally well understood, and anonymity breaks are relatively few consider- Fellowship, I met a dear friend from AA. I was free to greet him and introduce him by his first and last name, It is among those of us who have been sober some time, have gained some self-worth, and now have a real Again, the chapter on our Twelfth Tradition says that public approval can do “incalculable good or great ing the size of our Fellowship today. because I trusted him with my ano- feeling of self-esteem, that a problem harm. Everything would depend But Tradition Twelve is the rock nymity and he trusted me with his. may exist. It seems a self-esteem upon how it was channeled.” It also upon which we have built our Soci- In some areas, last names are as based on fact, for haven’t we cleared says, “We simply couldn’t afford to ety. If it is not substantially secure, common as first names in group away the wreckage of our past, and take the chance of letting self-apwe surely face significant danger. Our meetings. No one thinks anything of are we not being of the greatest ser- pointed members.present themselves greatest danger lies within each of us. it, because it does not violate our Tra- vice we can to our fellowman and our as messiahs representing AA before As we all know, recovering alco- ditions and it is not at a public event. Fellowship? We think well of our- the whole public. The promoter inholics pass through many stages of We know and believe in the confiden- selves these days; other members see stinct in us might be our undoing.” acceptance and understanding. It is tiality of our group meetings. our good work and think well of us, Now that AA has grown to such

great size, it is about time we recog- self-esteem is the bedfellow of innize and accept that a kind of “pub- flated ego. We may be living with bad lic,” separate from the general company. We need always watch for public, does exist within our Fellow- inflated ego. Reasoning can play ship, containing many new and unin- tricks on us. Through self-honesty, formed members. Are we in danger we stand guard at our mental door, of the “vaudeville circuit”? How and achieve a kind of humility. great is our need to be entertained? “Anonymity,” says the chapter on Does it transcend our search for qual- our Twelfth Tradition, “is real huity sobriety? Do we select people and mility at work.” We have done the look to them as “Mr. or Ms. AA”? footwork because there was no other And if we do, what does the new and way to survive, and through God’s uninformed member do? When grace, the results have been made speakers are selected, what attributes manifest in our lives. Why now do we are desired? Are their stories differ- do the footwork? We now do it to ent from most of ours? More excit- survive with love. Because we were ing? Are they humorous? Will their loved, we’ve learned to love in return. names draw a lot of people, so ex- We have learned that faith without penses will be met and some money works is dead. In love and service, we made for the area or district? And fi- have found that freedom we so long nally, what is the quality of their so- desired. Some have called it sacrifice. briety? Do they have a real, honest Our Twelfth Tradition (long form) message? Perhaps it may be time to asks us “actually to practice a genulook at our priorities. ine humility.. .to the end that our And what about the personal needs great blessings may never spoil us.” of “Mr. and Ms. AA”? Where is So, feeling this all-encompassing detheir chance for further growth? Can sire for love and service founded in they share the struggles that occur gratitude, we try to “give up our from time to time in later sobriety, or natural desires for personal distincdo they feel they should remain that tion as AA members. ” It is the act of ideal example of achieved peace and doing good without getting found serenity representative of what it is out. supposed to be like today? Let us, then, focus on the spirit of We have moved from self-degrada- anonymity rather than just the letter tion to self-acceptance to self-esteem. of the Tradition, and in doing so, ask Self-esteem, a product of living our Higher Power to keep us safe within the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics from ourselves. Anonymous, grows as a result of so- D. S., Gresham, Oreg. briety. As we succeed more than we Originally a presentation to the 33rd Genfail, and the quality of our sobriety eral Service Conference. Copyright 63 A.A. improves, so will our self-esteem. But World Smices, Inc.

September 1983

‘How would we know. . .?’ From Lansford, Pa.: I am writing this in response to the letter “For Beleaguered Chairmen” in the April Grapevine. Dr. Bob and Bill W. may have “discussed only alcohol during AA’s formative yea&’; however, how would we know that they “used drugs during their drinking days” if they had not told someone? I, too, used drugs other than alcohol during my drinking days, but 1 am not a so-called dual addict or cross-addicted alcoholic. What I cannot understand is how discussing drugs is counterproductive. From what I have learned in the rooms of AA, alcohol is a drug. I can identify with the cross-addicted. They have experienced guilt, shame, anger, hate, resentment, hallucinations, and most of all, remorse, just as I did during my active addiction to alcohol. I once heard at an AA meeting: “If a cross-addicted alcoholic takes care of his alcohol problem, the other drugs will take care of themselves.” The use of other drugs (moderately or almost lethally) was a part of their alcohol problem. Should they be ridiculed or begrudged a chance for a better life just because their active alcoholism was not like yours? To the woman who was told “politely” to refrain from discussing drugs: I haven’t turned my back on you; my prayers are with you. D. C.

ia- %A Grapevine, October 1983

Over 40 Billion Problems Served

what’s a guy gonna do? And there’s In some sections of the U.S. I’ve poor Portney, who complains that his visited, I’ve observed some members, brother hasn’t spoken to their mother disgusted at this departure from the ety.” Remember? You should. We for a year. Timid Tessie wants some AA program, get up and walk out. usually read it aloud at the beginning “input” on the subject of sex; she Some don’t return. Shame on them! of every AA meeting. feels her aunt may have a problem, The pioneers of our program experi- But lately at discussion meetings, she says. And then there’s Irving, enced many attempts to expand (read after the chairperson finishes some who wants a constitutional amend- “dilute”) the purpose of Alcoholics qualifying remarks, he or she pauses, ment to do away with all holidays. Anonymous, but they didn’t quit then asks, “Who has a problem to be They make lonely people lonely, says they hung in there. Where would we discussed?” This despite the fact that he. And more. all be today if they had left in a righwe are all there to try to solve our This phenomenon is not merely teous huff? So don’t swim away from “common problem” – alcoholism! local; it is widespread. My travels your life preserver. Besides – we – “and help other alcoholics to around the U.S. bear this out. I’m need you. achieve sobriety.” And we have just told the current thing is t o awaken My overriding concern, however, stated it in so many words. people to their “personhood”; try to is with the fact that the hours spent Are we losing May I inspire you with a few of the get them “in touch with their feel- solving the problems of Ma Bell and sight of our earthshaking “problems” I’ve heard ings”; encourage them to “ventilate” their emotions, because they have a her attacker, Lola’s acrophobia, Mad Morris’s pickup truck, Tessie’s inhibintroduced at recent discussions? primary No? Well, that’s too bad. Please ex- perfect right to their “space.” Well, ited aunt, Portney’s complaint, etc. tinguish all smoking materials and this li’l old country boy has no usually end up with no one telling us purpose? fasten your seat belts, because I’m quarrel with that. Nope. Hop to it- how to go one day without one drink! about to do just that. Here goes. d o your thing. (Just don’t b a me And it seems to me that’s what Alco- Lola wants to talk about her over- with it, please.) holics Anonymous meetings are all whelming fear of heights. Caligula hates Ma Bell with a passion; when he gets a wrong number, he is fond of beating up telephone booths. And Mad Morris – well, the judge awarded his wife a divorce and his pickup truck at the same time, and

about – or should be. How come strong waters. But when we turn our we’re suddenly the McDonald’s of discussion meetings into seminars psychiatry? (40 BILLION PROBLEMS wherein we explore – and prescribe SERVED!) for – everyone’s emotional, marital, Yes, I realize that the emotional legal, psychiatric, and sexual probproblems we have are undoubtedly lems, well, sir, it kinda looks like that related to our alcoholism, but I also ole ego is ballooning up again. Yessir, know that although my grandmaw is we’ve just saddled up old Silver related to me, I don’t drag her to AA Superman rides again! Whoopee! meetings, the poor old soul. I go for I know. Some readers are going to my alcoholism. Don’t you? be a bit outraged by this love letter. Years ago, they told us that AA 1’11 perhaps be branded as “quaint” wouldn’t get our wives back, and “old-fashioned” and “hard-core wouldn’t restore lost jobs (wouldn’t AA” (what’s “soft-core AA”?) and get back pickup trucks or Ma Bell’s maybe a bit senile, standing in the love); but if we treated our alcoholism way of “progress.” Perhaps I’ll be not as a symptom of something else told it’s time I went to the locker but as a terribly destructive entity in room and turned in my uniform. itself- well, by golly, we just might Alas, that’s gratitude for you. But let make it, one day at a time. And they me say this: were right, and still are. Don’t you know I love you? Hon- Speaking of symptoms: It is gener- est I do. I just want you to be with us ally accepted that inflated egos are next year. symptomatic of having punished the F. L., Bangor, Me.

October 1983

Never chemical-free From ousto on, Tex.: 1 really enjoyed the article “Can I Ever Be Sober?” (May 1982 Grapevine), by an alcoholic who is also an epileptic. I can understand the writer’s feelings. I have been sober since 1980, and I have had epilepsy since 1960. People in my home group advised (or told) me to quit taking my medicine if I wanted to be considered sober. I am grateful 1 did not take that advice. I was fortunate enough to find a sponsor who also has to live with epilepsy. We understand each other much better than someone who does not have convulsions could. I will never know how it feels to be chemical-free, but by the grace of God and AA, I can 1ive.sober one day at a time. J. K.

December 1983

WhatbWrong with Personalities? –

Plenty! Anonymity is an “knew,” deep inside, that I was the great contributions to AA – in all expression of center of the universe. My problem, levels and areas of AA service work of course, was that I could never get – have been selfless, modest, and humility and an antidote the universe to acknowledge my posi- more often than not, nameless. tion, so who could blame such an Bill showed us the way in these to “self-will run riot” important person for drinking? lines: “In a spiritual sense, anonym- Alcoholics Anonymous reversed ity amounts to the renunciation of that attitude in my life, and taught me personal prestige as an instrument of

A NONYMITY, as we observe it in AA, is at root a simple expression of humility. The Twelve Steps of minding us to place principles before personalities.” And what, we may ask, is wrong that the individual ego flowers best when it is properly nourished by principles of selflessness, humility, and general policy. ” “Prestige” is a fancy word for pride or ego, and I think the quota- AA are vital to individual sobriety, with personality? Plenty! – when in love. And along with those principles, tion sums up beautifully the central but the Steps, if not carefully encased excess – as we sadly learned during AA nurtures an attitude of modesty, paradox in AA: By giving up, we bein protective Traditions, would soon our pre-AA lives. We’ve read and ac- certainly the perfect accompaniment gin to win; by putting down the ego, be open to all kinds of individual in- cepted the description of “self-will to anonymity. we pick up self-knowledge and selfterpretations – some good, some run riot,” and we’re painfully aware The personalities of Dr. Bob and Bill are known to us because they respect; and by working selflessly, we earn great personal richness. perhaps divisive. The Twelve Tradi- of the killing nature of uncontrolled tions, hammered out the hard way were the’ founders of AA. The princi- My strength is the strength each of egos. We know all too well the danfrom experience, maintain our essen- ple o f anonymity came into being and you in AA gives me. My future is in gers of making principles fit the needs tial unity and assure the continuation of personalities. Many of us nearly then turned into the essential founda- your hands – and yours in mine. We of the Fellowship. And all the Tradi- died trying to do so. tion of all the Traditions during their stand together in AA – or we fall tions rest on the idea of anonymity as Typically, as a drinking alcoholic, I time with us. Since that early period apart. our “spiritual foundation. . .ever re- became an expert at rationalizing. I of the Fellowship, we note that the F. P., Spokane, Wash.

AA GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1984

in the Corner , , , * ed a beginners meeting could be set or facility on their presence. But in up and structured to deal with all of the spirit of cooperation, the chairthem. Our district’s institutions person could sign the cards that such chairperson passed the word that people often bring. Remembering such a meeting was being considered, Tradition Twelve, we would assure and that a special meeting had been them that their anonymity would be scheduled to discuss the plan. The respected. That carries through to the attendance was astounding! Our dis- confidentiality of anything said at trict’s groups have long held the meetings, and we would expect the reputation of being very Traditions- same consideration from the newminded, and many were concerned comers. about how the aim could be accom- In keeping with the Sixth Tradiplished without breaking any Tradi- tion, careful attention was given to tions. Clearly, Tradition Two – “a location. We were offered rooms loving God as he may express himself downstairs at the courthouse and also in our group conscience” – was at rooms in the city hall. Some felt this message to unwilling work, as was Tradition One, “Our might intimidate the newcomer, as common welfare should come first.” well as smack of affiliation rather or mkinformed It was agreed that district monies, than cooperation. So one enthusiastic newcomers? Here’s one ___- collected from all the groups, ought member found a more centrally losolution: a special not be used, because some groups cated meeting place, the basement of beginners meeting, might not want to spoilsor such a be- a community center, and explained ginners meeting, preferring other our need to be self-supporting (Tradiemphasizing AA basics means for addressing the same prob- tion Seven). Though the center was and guided by the lems (Tradition Four: “Each group offered to us free of charge, we Traditions should be autonomous except in mat- planned to pay a nominal rent each ters affecting other groups or AA as a month. whole”). Some groups decided to While all those preparations were D ID YOU ever walk away from a meeting realizing that no one, including yourself, had bothered to around meetings waiting for the hour to be over, so they can get their cards signed and get out of there. Often, donate money; others, pamphlets going on, we were also developing the ‘

and books. An anonymous member format of the meetings, using the kit contributed a loan to buy the coffee called Guide for Leading Beginners spend much time with that newcomer the topics discussed offer little hope Meetings (from.the AA General Serand other supplies. in the corner after the meeting, and to the still-suffering alcoholics. And We decided that the beginners vice Office). The chairperson’s term that he or she had quietly slipped out how about the drug addicts, misin- meeting should stick to the primary would run six weeks, we decided, and by the time you remembered? You re- formed and misdirected to AA? They purpose of carrying the message to the co-chairperson could prepare by solve that next time you will be more may cause dissension among home- the still-suffering alcoholic (Tradition attending a full six-week term before aware of your Twelfth Step responsi- group members who have to listen to Five). At every meeting, we would becoming chairperson. Thus, we bilities – only “next time” turns out tales of getting high and still try to be stress Tradition Six (on nonaffilia- would establish rotation. just a$ before. polite. tion) by telling newcomers sent by a When we became aware that a be- We have all seen sullen, resentful, Such problems were becoming too court or a treatment facility that we ginners meeting had been going on court-referred attendees sitting familiar in our district, and we decid- — would not report back to that court for some five years in a neighboring

“district, about seventy miles away, Meetings” was suggested as a back- problems? Well, those newcomers nature of AA. We talk about the several of us jumped into a van and ground. are not neglected or forgotten. They “spiritual malady,” the “spiritual” traveled there to observe how it was All our preparations had taken are showing up at other meetings as Twelve Steps of recovery, and “spiridone. The kit from GSO was the pri- about four months. We had dis- well – we’re not losing them! Many tual experiences.” We do tell them mary tool, we found. We invited the cussed, read, traveled, and thought. have gone on to an outpatient pro- about the Serenity Prayer, however, chairperson to come to our district Our Traditions were safe. Word was gram (court-ordered) while still atand speak to us. Interest was still spread. Our first chairperson and co- tending our beginners meetings. They running high, and we had full atten- chair were elected; others signed up to say the meeting gave them the dance again to hear the suggestions. take their turns as rotation required. strength to get through a jail term, “Within a few weeks, Some of the things we learned Courts, jails, treatment facilities, and knowing they would have friends to we find our newcomers were: Hold all meetings in the same social agencies were urged to utilize come out to. place; keep the continuity smooth; do this new beginners meeting – a meet- Sponsorship has taken on a new helping newer not create an “authority” atmo- ing about AA by AA. Our members zest in our district. Many of us pick newcomers” sphere; let newcomers know there are were urged to bring their newcomers. up court-referred newcomers at the no experts in AA; find knowledge- That first meeting was well attend- jails or meet people on their release able persons to lead and sit in on the ed, not only by newcomers, but by from the treatment facilities, trans- as a tool to keep one’s cool during meetings (we decided to suggest a many who wanted to be part of this port them to the meetings, and give those early days of sobriety, and beminimum of one year of sobriety); if milestone in our district. There were them a taste of fellowship afterward, yond. possible, hold the meeting at. a time those, too, who wanted to make sure with coffee-and at a local restaurant. Our attendance? Well, we average and place separate from other AA all our careful preparation to safe- We see former members coming back about four or five newcomers at each meetings; ask AA members not to guard our Traditions had not been in to AA after years away, saying that meeting, plus the AAs who are there monopolize the meeting, but just vain. Pity that poor first chairperson! they need to go slow, that this meet- to help carry the message before, share briefly; let newcomers know We had kinks to iron out, sure. Since ing teaches them “Easy Does It,” during, and after the meeting. Within there are no “dumb” questions in this was an AA meeting, about AA, and that they are less bewildered than a few weeks, we find our newcomers AA; make them comfortable – then only AA literature ought to be before. helping newer newcomers; little don’t lecture; “keep it simple”; and displayed or quoted from. Easily This is an open meeting, for any in- groups cluster together after the use the slogans. Our purposes should remedied – AA has a wealth of ma- terested parties, not just for alcohol- meeting, deciding which meeting to terial that will never grow stale. We ics. The occasional drug addict that travel to next. Our district is rather hand out pamphlets free of charge, may show up is given appropriate AA large and spread out – twenty-seven “Those newcomers. . . and Big Books may be “charged,” on pamphlets explaining our position. groups in an area 100 miles long and are showing up at a pay-as-you-can basis, if a new- Concerned spouses of alcoholics are forty miles wide – so these trips comer hasn’t enough money that told about Al-Anon Family Groups allow more time to carry on the other meetings as night. (We haven’t been “taken” and, if possible, put in contact with Twelfth Step work of the beginners well – we’re not yet!) We have meeting schedules Al-Anon members. Our meeting does meeting. losing them!” available and tell newcomers what not start with the Serenity Prayer or We’re proud of the way our district meetings are on later that evening. end with the Lord’s Prayer, out of has met a need and a challenge, and There is an hour between the end of consideration for newcomers or other we bless all our Traditions-minded be to inform, to share, and to help the beginners meeting and the start of interested parties attending – we folk who came before us, “ever renew people understand what AA can any other AA meeting in the area, so don’t want to scare them off. But we minding us to place principles before and cannot do. Familiarity with the travel time is no obstacle. pull no punches, either, in stressing personalities.” pamphlet “Speaking at Non-A.A. How is it helping those original the spiritual (rather than religious) C. C., Aurora, Minn.

The challenges of the ’80s call us to remember that

AA Unity Comes First I

W HERE WERE they when I need- hurting, asking why, and not undered them? They were there. standing. And I would be getting Where were they when I felt like cry- drunk and not understanding why. R ECENTLY, a friend with less than a year in the program approached me. “I need to talk to somecity. When I came to AA for help, there wasn’t a single center in the entire metropolitan area. At that ing? They were there. Where were So where am I? I have had to take a one who’s been around awhile,” he time, stubborn cases were sometimes they when I felt like getting drunk in new look at myself and my willing- began. “My thinking’s messed up.” taken to Rosary Hall in Cleveland, or the middle of the night and needed ness to carry the program to the new- It turned out that a genuine to St. Thomas in Akron. There were someone to talk to? They were there. comer who is still hurting. I have to “bleeding deacon” – a few can still also a few “wringers” scattered Where were they for a meeting when look at myself and be willing to go to be’ found – had just delivered a throughout central Ohio, but soberwe needed to hear their stories any length if I want to keep what 1 lengthy discourse at a nearby ing up was usually a cold-turkey (though they were probably tired of have. What I have is a gift from God, meeting. He had fulminated against process. Experienced members often telling them)? They were there. and 1 can keep it only when I give it treatment centers, denounced the sat with newcomers who asked for And where was I? away. lack of “real” Twelfth Step work, the help and nursed them through Recently, I have been complaining, So, Lord, forgive me for not doing demeaned the sobriety of AA mem- early withdrawal. The involvement along with many other old-timers, all that I should do for other alco- bers, and prophesied the imminent with “wet drunks” was more wide- I that the meetings are boring: 1 am holics. Please help me to be willing collapse of the entire Fellowship. I spread in those days, and I am sure tired of living in the problem; 1 an1 when I don’t feel willing. Please help knew the old-timer personally, and I everyone benefited from it. tired of hearing the same stories; I am me to have a new interest in the lives credited him with good intentions – But I wonder how we’d deal with tired of talking; 1 am getting nothing and feelings of others. Thank you for but he was woefully lacking in per- the large numbers coming into the from the meetings; I feel like going on your many blessings. 1 do want to spective, and his gloomy tirade had program today if it weren’t for the to something that I can get my teeth keep what I have, for it is the most alarmed my friend. centers. And now, we usually en- into something for me. valuable thing in the world. It is all I understood the new man’s reactions. In the past, I had listened to counter something besides simple alcohol addiction in the newcomers; Now, where would I have been that I want out of life. All of the mawhen I was a new-timer if the old- terial things in the world could not re- similar laments and had often experi- they are often of the high-bottom vatimers had felt that way and had not place the serenity that I feel when 1 enced panic. “What if he’s right?” I riety; their use of drugs other than albeen willing to give me what they had trust my life to you and work the would say. “How would I stay sober cohol complicates and extends the gotten? I know where 1 would be. In- beautiful program for living that you then?” But that reaction seemed safe- withdrawal period. Because of interstead of feeling the serenity that I feel have given. ly behind me, and on this day 1 had vention techniques and greater today, I would be going out of my Thank you for causing me to stop something positive to share. awareness of the problem of alcomind, drinking to escape my prob- and take another look at myself. I spoke first of the years before holism, many are motivated to quit lems, real or unreal. I would still be J. B., Salem, Oreg. treatment centers proliferated in our drinking while they still have jobs and

health insurance. And if they go wanted to stay active in AA, they their noses stuck in bottles. A physi- gressed in the public schools and through with treatment, attend our began to soft-pedal the drug talk. The cian in AA recently informed me that learned of the exciting discoveries of meetings, and stay off the sauce, isn’t more drug-oriented moved into NA, there are people making it in the Fel- scientific investigations, I began to and that program grew considerably. lowship with serious mental disor- experience tremendous conflicts with that what counts? In the Columbus area, we’ve made Those changes took place over a ders, such as schizophrenia, for my religious views. I struggled with progress in dealing with people who period of months. There are still a which regular doses of major tran- the problem for many years – but have mixed alcohol and drug experi- few strongly drug-oriented AA quilizers are needed if they are to eventually lost the faith. And yet I ence. A couple of years ago, some of meetings around town, but their pres- function well outside mental wards. took religion very seriously and spent our members of long standing raised ence no longer seems to disturb the So I’ve finally learned to avoid giving years searching, trying to recoup that a stink about the drug talk they were community as a whole. advice to others on their medical loss. hearing in the meetings, especially the My friend’s body language told me problems. “Thank God,” I told the newcomuse of street-drug terms. They object- that he had regained some inner Another matter that irritates a lot er, “AA is broad enough to have ed vigorously to such phrases as “al- poise. So I continued, “If you have of old-timers is the procurement of room for all kinds of interpretations coholic and drug addict,” “polyad- the time, I’d like to mention a couple guidance and help from sources out- and opinions, so long as the ideas dicted,” and “chemically depen- of other issues you’ll be faced with side the program – I’m talking about don’t violate the basic principles in dent.” They even sent letters to group sooner or later.” professionals like psychologists, psy- the Twelve Steps and Twelve Tradisecretaries protesting the dangerous The first topic I brought up was the chiatrists, Recovery, and other sup- tions. Some of us have needed more state of affairs. They insisted that thoughtless disapproval expressed by port groups. specific help than we could get from “people who talked like that” had no some AA members toward those us- “If it’s not in the Big Book, then meetings or in private from other place in AA and ought to go to NA ing medications prescribed by physi- it’s not AA, and you are not really members. ” (Narcotics Anonymous) – or some- cians – particularly medications working an AA program. You ought Realizing that I had talked long whe~e- anywhere but AA. Today, known to have some effect on mental to consider another way to stay enough, I asked him whether my retheir opinion seems narrow – yet reactions. I do not deny that the use sober.” Those words were recently marks had helped. After a brief they really believed the sky was fall- of prescription drugs is a matter of spoken by .a man long sober in AA to pause, my friend replied, “I can see ing. And the protest did serve to bring great concern – plenty of physicians a troubled neophyte. I respect the we’ve got to keep our unity of the matter to a head; the entire AA still don’t understand the nature of man and love him dearly, but the purpose if we’re goingi to stay togethcommunity began to realize that the addiction and alcoholics, and pa- words aroused anger and uneasiness er and help each other-recover from real issue at stake was unity within the tients are not always open and honest in me at the time I heard them. They this disease. There isn’t room for a lot Fellowship and that rampant dissen- with their doctors. But the ranting reminded me of the warnings issued of petty arguments – but I guess sion was undermining it. you are likely to hear to the effect that by the pastors of the church in which these hot discussions do help clear up Bill W.’s paper on problems other no alcoholic has any right to take any I was reared. That church prided a few points. What’s amazing to me is than alcohol became a common topic kind of mind-altering chemicals is ill- itself on a plentiful accumulation of the way good judgment has won out at discussion meetings for a while. advised and has no place in the meet- creeds and literal interpretations of all these years. Must be the grace of The outcome was that members who ings today. biblical writings that were to be en- God I’ve heard so much about. Isn’t had extensive drug experience along “You see, 1 once thought that way, dorsed uncritically by its members. there an old saying, ‘United we with their alcohol problem began to too. I even said that taking pills was To doubt any part constituted error stand . . .’?” My friend chose not to grasp the futility of speaking to AA like sipping – the only difference is – and probably sin. But as I pro- complete the slogan. groups in a manner that prevented a they don’t smell.” D.J., Columbus, Ohio high percentage of the listeners from I now know that quite a few people relating to their stories. If alcohol was in this program have a lot more their drug of choice and they really wrong with them than having had

1 “

AA GRAPEVINE, FRBRUARY 1984

The Requirement in an incoherent daze (overdosed on alcohol). I stole money from my mother’s purse (in order to drink). . And over time, I settled for less and less and less – settled, at last, for what I could get. I am not unique; if you are an alcoholic, my story is identical to yours, no matter who you are – or who you think you are. Alcoholism is a disease that ravages us – you and me – mind, body, and soul. We crawl into Alcoholics Anonymous, guided by a Higher Power, and if we are accepting, we may remain. Many of us have never been comfortable

I AM AN alcoholic, sober through the grace of God. And although it has no bearing on my alcoholism, I one of the “black groups” in the area. My alcohol-numbed mind was unprepared for that information. If, the product of my surrender – my admission and acceptance of my powerlessness over a disease. anywhere with anyone (including ourselves) until we get here. We are fragile and wounded and needy (for am also black. It has been a few years as I heard in the Preamble and the I am learning to be happy, to enjoy concern, compassion, a smile). Our since I first heard a racial epithet Third Tradition, “The only require- my new life through the Twelve Steps egos vacillate between s m u g from the mouth of an alcoholic “car- ment for AA membership is a desire of recovery. I am also gay. But superiority a n d paranoid selfrying the message,” but I remember to stop drinking,” why were there hanging out in gay bars neither in- belittlement. And running through it the chill that went through me. “black groups”? Was Alcoholics creased nor diminished my chances of all, a constant, is the desire (that I was very newly sober, and my Anonymous a Jim Crow organiza- contracting alcoholism. After all, a sometimes kills) to drink. We come understanding of Alcoholics Anony- tion? Fortunately, I was still much bar is a tavern is a saloon; and every here, to Alcoholics Anonymous, on – mous was dim and unformed; but somehow, having a slur against my race dropped into my lap from the too sick to attempt an answer to the mystery. Through God’s benign grace, my one I ever did time in, whether patronized by gays or by straights, was in business for the sole purpose of our last legs, because we are dying and we know it, and because,we want to live. We are shown how, slowly, podium did not fit with my develop- memories of my drinking were be- selling booze. When I “decided” to painfully, one day at a time, through ing idea of AA. I was already in de- coming honest ones for the first time. leave college after three years (still a a design for living thbt is tailor-made spair, suffering horribly from the I knew that my father had asked me, freshman), it was because my alco- for each and every one of us. It is a disease of alcoholism, and this inci- finally, to leave our home because he holism had me by the throat. peculiar (and saving) fact of AA that ‘ dent fed my depression. My sponsor, had had enough of my illness – not My personality changes were either our recoveries are so specifically inneither surprised nor visibly upset because of my color, which is the disconcerting or terrifying, depend- terconnected; if one of us is shortwhen I recounted the story, said same as his own. My inability to hold ing on the other person’s proximity; changed, we all are. simply, “Pray for him. God knows a job was due directly to my increas- but they were, in any case, unpleas- “When anyone, anywhere, reaches how deeply he must be hurting to say ing consumption of alcohol and the ant. I was evicted from apartments out for help, I want the hand of AA such a thing.” resultant negative behavior; race was for not paying the rent (spending the always to be there. And for that: I am Soon after, someone else suggested irrelevant. And my eventual cry for money on booze). I was arrested for responsible.” that I might be more comfortable in help on a South End street corner was wandering through predawn streets D. S.,Brighton, Mass.

A A GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1989

HoldingFast

W HEN I GOT sober some years ago in Tucson, Arizona, I was unable to understand the importance knocks. I discovered that AA is the serious trouble.” AA, at that point in way it is because that is the way AA its history, had not yet learned to works best. mind its own business. The lesson, of the Twelve Traditions of Alco- Tradition Six keeps The co-founder of AA wrote the however, was finally learned, and holics Anonymous to my sobriety. Since then, I’ve seen more people get AA on the right track – following about pioneer members’ with it, a paradox: The more we stick and out of trouble thinking in those early, heady days of to our primary purpose, the more inglazed eyes when that topic is men- success with the program, when they, fluence we have. tioned at a meeting than any other – too, felt that maybe -just maybe – Many of those early experiences, with the possible exception of “the the world could be their oystel’: “If painful as they were, led to the adopimportance of service.” These phras- My sponsor in Tucson suggested alcoholism could be licked, so could tion of the Sixth Tradition. It took es are sometimes known as “room quietly that I might want to read Al- any problem!. . .Having learned to real courage and faith to accept the emptiers.” coholics Anonymous Comes of Age live so happily, we would show every- idea – as a working principle of the But as my own recovery process to find out how the Traditions had body else how. . . .Our principles Fellowship – that we would “never began, the Traditions took on a been formed in the Fellowship. I might transform the world!” endorse, finance, or lend the AA meaning that was special and per- agreed, although I secretly doubted But alas, the best-laid plans of mice name to any related facility or outside sonal – not, however, before I got a that the book would be of any real and alcoholics often go astray. Yet enterprise, lest problems of money, few knocks on the head! help to such a zealous missionary as how providential for those of us who property, and prestige divert us from After several months of sobriety, I myself. I read the book and dis- followed that the founders’ first flush our primary purpose.” And AA’s decided from the Olympian heights covered anew the meaning of humili- of enthusiasm faded with experience. primary purpose, of course, is to of my pink cloud that not only was ty. Everything I had thought of had AA did involve itself in education, “carry its message to the alcoholic AA the answer to everything that already been thought of, earlier in politics, hospitals, clubs, “Twelfth who still suffers.” ailed me, but if only a few clever men AA’s history. Step houses.” But as the founders tell I know that my continued life on (such as I) pushed hard enough, AA I learned that the Twelve Tradi- us, “The moment we lent the AA the program and the very life of the could change the world overnight, de- tions did not come out of some twen- name to any outside enterprise, we Fellowship itself depend on that prinfeat evil, and allow good to finally tieth century “burning bush”; they got into trouble, sometimes very ciple. It reminds me that I must triumph. came from the school of hard

j*’

present myself to the still-suffering Bill W.’s answer can be found in alcoholic as an expert in one – and “Let’s Be Friendly with Our Friends” only one – thing: what I was like as a (reprint of a 1958 Grapevine article). practicing alcoholic, what happened He encourages us to develop a strong to me when I picked up the tools and constant attitude of cooperation, given to me by AA, and what I am to “work alongside all these projects like now. And as the newcomer be- of promise to hasten the recovery of gins to identify and see a way out of those millions’ who have not yet his personal nightmare, the miracle found their way out.” begins. So our history as a fellowship, our Yes, we know miracles in AA, and Traditions, and our plain common it is easy for many of us to believe sense clearly suggest to us that we that AA has a monopoly on such need to preserve most zealously what metaphysical delights. We may have we are – a worldwide fellowship of tried other ways to escape our drink- men and women who help each other ing trap, and so perhaps we look with stay sober – yet at the same time, a jaundiced eye at any other attempt that we lend a helping hand to the to help the alcoholic. We’ve been that others wishing to make a contriburoute, we say. We tried the priest, the tion in this perplexing and complex minister, the rabbi. We tried the field. social agencies. We tried the doctors, And as long as we hold fast to our the psychologists, the psychiatrists. Traditions, no force on earth can Nothing worked! So why do we need diminish the value or hinder the h a p to cooperate now? Isn’t it true that py progress of our Fellowship. AA can fix any drunk? Co-founder F. P., Spokane, Wmh.

April 1984

What Is Unlque About AA? A lot of mental horsepower has been generated in defining what is unique about AA. I would like to submit that the uniqueness of our Society is our obedience to the Traditions – other than that, I don’t see ivhat we have going for us that is so unusual. We have proved that large numbers of drunks can recover by spiritual means, but the Washingtonians proved that, and so did the Oxford Group. Churches right now are proving it every day. Our Traditions are even more remarkable for the fact that we choose to submit ourselves to these restraints. The Twelve Traditions are not a bunch of guidelines set up by “them” and handed down to us with the directive “This is what you are going to do, or else.” The Traditions are the result of mistakes that almost tore our Fellowship apart, and we voluntarily accept them. When speaking of the Traditions, we are speaking of life or death. I cannot live without AA. You cannot live without AA. Yet you and I are Ah.In spite of ourselves, we have to be responsible for ourselves. In spite of myself, I have to be responsible, and responsibility is what the Traditions are about. Why the Traditions? They simply provide us with a direction, so that our Society can survive. If AA survives, we will live; and if we live, we are going to learn to love one another. When we love one another, we learn to serve; and when we serve, we guarantee that AA will be here in the future to carry its message to alcoholics still to come. Our Three Legacies are: Recovery, which brings us enlightenment through the Twelve Steps; Unity, which teaches us responsibility through the Twelve Traditions; and Service, which allows us to practice love through the Twelve Concepts. J. B., Modesto, Calif.

5;f AA Grapevine, May 1984

AA has come of age, so to speak, and When I was fifteen, someone should open its doors to all chemical- turned me on to pot. I was having ly dependent people whether they trouble staying awake, so someone drink or not. gave me whites – I could drink all Personally, I don’t fit into either night and still be standing! Someone category. There seems to be a middle else asked if I was ready for a spiritual group that feels the job of deciding experience, and I tried my first hit of who is a member belongs to the indi- acid (LSD). Heroin was suggested vidual and God. There seems to be a I was available. I continued to drink great deal of anger in my area when and indulge myself in whatever chemdiscussing drug addicts and AA, and ical came my way. In my mind, where I come from, that kind of drinking and drugs were inseparable. anger is usually generated by fear. It was a way of life. The point I am I would like to share one dually ad- trying to make is that from the time I dicted AA member’s experience and was fifteen years old, I exhibited all – because I can’t help it – opinion. of the classic signs of an alcoholic: Dual addicts are different from blackouts, inability to predict my be-

(DrugAddicts “pure” addicts. They are also as dif- havior, inability to have just one ferent as they choose to be from drink, etc. But I didn’t know that. “pure” alcoholics. I say this because I t was not cool to be a lush, and it is my opinion that a dual addict is God knows we had to be cool. Some just an alcoholic who had chemical of my friends died being cool. And Four presentations from the problems other than alcohol. It unfortunately for you, that’s how I 33rd General Service Conference happens to be so in my case. came into AA – too cool! There is a of Alcoholics Anonymous, April 1983 I grew up in the 1960s. Hippies, statement of policy making the peace marches, the Beatles, drugs in rounds in AA groups today that, general, gurus, and finding yourself considering my attitude and inability As Different were in. I was not. Being completely to accept my alcoholism, might have inadequate in all areas had become made it impossible for me to stay in Choose almost a natural state for me. Then, I found alcohol – peppermint Alcoholics Anonymous had it been used when I was new. It reads in part:

C ONSIDERING the panic that the question of AA and drug addicts is causing in California, it could let “them” in; better to lose a few dope fiends (who may or may not be alcoholic) than to jeopardize the schnapps, to be exact – and life became a real possibility. I became an intellectual, glamorous, and witty “These newcomers are truly welcome here as members of our Fellowship, provided their primary addiction is to be more appropriately described as program that saved our lives. They fourteen-year-old alcoholic. From alcohol – something they alone can “alcoholics versus drug addicts” or either decide to be at least partly al- the first drink (which I never forgot), decide. We ask only that when dis- “US against them.” coholic, or they don’t stay. They I knew that I had found the answer to cussing their problems, they confine There are several different opin- should also be willing to make this all of life’s problems. I just had to themselves to those related to their ions being expressed in California on decision within their first two or three figure out how to drink enough to alcoholism.” ‘

how we should deal with this “prob- meetings. maintain superiority without getting There is more to the statement, but lem.” Some feel we should just not Others I have spoken to feel that arrested or killed. it is that portion I would like to

address myself to. I have already told nity to choose to change these things parks are part of someone else’s the Fellowship of AA? you how difficult it was for me to and the freedom to d o it when I story. I wouldn’t think of telling you I have a few ideas to share that admit my alcohol problem. I also had could, and not when they thought 1 not to share all of you with me. might help. Since treatment facilities a serious attitude problem. If I was should. There seems to be a real tolerance seem to be sending us so many people told to d o something, I just couldn’t I had finally found a place where of people in my home group. “The who admittedly have no alcohol do it; if I was told not to d o some- – weird as I was – I was accepted only requirement for membership is a problem, can we send letters to the thing, it was absolutely essential that and encouraged to stay. I was given desire to stop drinking,” and we seem I d o it. If I had been told when I was love and understanding beyond my to have no trouble sticking to our new that I couldn’t talk about drugs comprehension, and when I got really single purpose, which is to carry the in meetings, I would have had to talk wild, one of the old-timers would message to still-suffering alcoholics, “There is a fine line about them all the time. If AA mem- take me aside after the meetings and however damaged and confused they between upholding our bers then would have reacted as hos- explain to me the damage I was are in the beginning. If we believe singleness-ofpurpose tilely as some d o today, I would have doing, or could do, and suggest al- what we hear in AA everywhere, said, “Later.” ternatives. In turn, I came to feel very miracles happen here. But they take Tradition and limiting I was incapable of telling you my protective of AA and of my group. I time. or restricting our developed a real desire to be a It is very hard for me to believe that membership ” contributing member of AA. a few hundred misplaced druggies I found that feeling different or could destroy AA. It is very easy for “I came into an AA group having an edge on the other AA me to believe that the kind of blind that was spiritually members by being an alcoholic- anger that fear brings could. I’m administrators explaining what AA addict was not appealing to me. I do talking about the kind of fear that is, what we do and do not do, just as fit enough that they leads us to take sides against each we send anonymity letters to newsnot refer to myself as an alcoholicdid not. . .censor my addict, for the very reasons I men- other and require sick minds to make papers and TV and radio stations? conversation or my tioned in the beginning. I truly feel rational decisions, like “Is your pri- Could we, the members with a little actions in order to that I am an alcoholic who had prob- mary addiction to alcohol?” – the time, remember that this might be lems with other chemicals, and if I kind of fear that caused the early such newcomers’ only contact with protect themselves” members of AA to make lists of AA, and treat them with tolerance participate in our program of recovery by practicing these spiritual membership requirements to protect and patience? Can we refer drug principles in my life, it just doesn’t their groups from “them.” There is a addicts to Narcotics Anonymous, problems in the beginning – primary occur to me to stick needles in my fine line between upholding our quietly, after the meeting? Can some or otherwise. I didn’t trust anyone, arm or smoke those funny cigarettes. singleness-of-purpose Tradition and of us with dual addiction start NA and I felt alone and isolated. I will I have found a great freedom in being limiting or restricting our member- meetings, with some healthy recovery continue to thank God I came into an one among many. ship. The day AA appears to be re- going on? Can we alcoholics who AA group that was spiritually fit I do, however, understand the need jecting people who may be alcoholic, have chemical problems other than enough that they did not find it neces- to identify – that’s why I believe AA we will begin to die. The bottom line alcohol relinquish our uniqueness for sary to censor my conversation or my talks should never be censored. When is: We are all we have. What good the unity that puts our common welactions in order to protect them- I am asked to speak at an AA meet- will it do us if, while defending our fare first? Can we remember that all selves. When I was new, I did talk ing, I share my experience with drugs “rights,” we destroy AA? It has people who suffer from alcoholism ‘

about drugs, and I used a lot of four- as part of my story – because it k always been said that if AA is ever are welcomed in AA – even if they letter words t o do it! Somehow, my part of my story, just as children, five destroyed, the danger will come from can’t admit their problem? Can we group managed to allow me the dig- marriages, prison; and sleeping in within. Can any of us survive without remember that the changes did not

occur overnight in any of us, and give May the power that presides over must always adhere to our primary God’s creatures, but only to grant us the new ones a chance to want to us all continue to do so. purpose. When individuals beset by the opportunity to stay sober and change? D.G., Huntington Beach, Calif. problems other than alcohol – and help other alcoholics to obtain more particularly, pure drug addicts sobriety. AA and Drug Addicts – turn to us for aid, our responsi- The sober alcoholic of today will bility is to inform them in a loving be the trusted servant of tomorrow, manner that the program of AA deals and I pray that tomorrow’s trusted only with the problem of alcoholism. servant will, through understanding At the same time, in the spirit of AA and service in our Fellowship, main- Do We Need Protection? cooperation, let us always remember that the ability of those other societies tain that which we now have. Let us be ever mindful that AA has but one to assist such people is based upon primary purpose. If we are to remain their uniqueness in their field, just as God’s instruments through which his ours is in assisting alcoholics. The grace flows to alcoholics, may we exclusivity of AA’s purpose was not ever keep this program inviolate! I N VARIOUS forms, the problem of AA and drug addicts has been in existence ever since the gift of sobri- Steps and Twelve Traditions. The responsibility to preserve and protect this way of life for alcoholics designed to afford us prestige among B. L., Clinton, Tenn.

ety and AA came into being. From presently here and those yet to come AA and Drug Addicts time to time, AA groups, areas, is ours and ours alone. If the history regions, and General Service Con- of organizations obliterated by their ferences have wrestled with the prob- deviation from their avowed purlem of protecting this Society. It is totally repugnant to this poses is any criterion, then we in AA need only keep faith in our principles Perspective from member to imagine or believe that and concepts to avoid a like fate for In the 19SOs, Bill U.: faced somewhere there exists some entity this Fellowship. whose avowed purpose is to infil- In Tennessee, I hear the cry that many of today’s issues trate, invade, and destroy the our groups are being taken over by inprogram of Alcoholics Anonymous. dividuals who have problems other Should destruction ever occur, it will be far more subtle. The God-given principles upon which this Fellowship than alcohol. I hear also that the person addicted only to drugs is coming to closed AA meetings and dominat- T HE ISSUE of drug addicts and AA is certainly not new to our Fellowship, but it does seem to be one there is much discussion on this topic at AA Regional Forums. In the late 1940s and throughout is founded neither incite nor invite ing them with drug stories, to the that is increasing and causing concern the ’50s, our co-founder Bill W. anattack from outside influences. total exclusion of alcoholism. AA is to many members and AA groups all swered many letters that expressed However, we sometimes fail to never punitive in its relationships over. That is clearly indicated today the same dilemma and questions we make it abundantly clear just what with anyone. We are better served by the numbers of letters and phone are faced with today. For example, in AA is and is not – and well-meaning when we treat these unfortunates calls received at the AA General 1951, Bill received a letter from a nonalcoholics, in their efforts to help with love and understanding, di- Service Office, and by AA newsletter couple who shared: themselves, enter AA closed meet- recting them to other organizations articles from around the country. We “My wife and I have been addicted ings. Our duty is clear, contained that can serve their needs. also hear this discussed at AA state to the use of drugs for thirty-four wholly and concisely in our Twelve It is my firm conviction that we conferences and assemblies, and years, and were never able to master a

cure until our last discharge from the “True, we often deal with drug firmed by numerous General Service Federal Narcotic Farm at Lexington, addiction in a left-handed way by Conferences beginning in 1964, and Kentucky. This has been accom- warning against sedatives and nar- then in 1969, 1970, 1972, and 1973. plished only through the teachings of cotics. We also have many members And in 1974, the Conference Litera- AA, which we received in the hospital who, like yourself, were both alco- ture Committee recommended this while we were incarcerated there. AA holics and addicts and therefore article be prepared in standard was brought in to us twice a week by qualified for AA membership on the pamphlet form. In 1979, the Consome wonderful people. We were ground of their alcoholism. But when ference Committee on Cooperation told when discharged to contact AA it comes to straight addicts, I’m with the Professional Community immediately, and to attend as many afraid our experience indicates you recommended Conference approval meetings as possible each week, may run into a snag if you try to of this pamphlet. which we have done up to date. We introduce them into AA groups The tone of the letters we are have heard of Narcotics Anonymous, everywhere as AA members. receiving today at the General Service but there is none within a thousand “In some spots, we’ve even had Office is a little different from that of miles from here. violent opposition to drug addicts’ the letters Bill answered -or perhaps “Here is our question. We want attending AA open meetings. Of the chief difference is that we’re the AA program and need it badly, course, that is nonsense – an open receiving so many. and to be truthful about it, we are just meeting means that anybody can For example, a letter from an AA hungry for it. Because there is no NA come. At least, it does in most places. member who also happens to be a in or around our home, should we But if you try to push it further and professional working in the alcocontinue on with our teachings of claim AA membership for straight holism field stated: “We treat alcohol A& or should we take the chance of addicts, then I’m rather afraid of addicts and addicts to other drugs todeviating by not attending the AA unnecessary difficulties. The real gether in our detox unit. We intromeetings here?” hope in this situation lies in what you duce them to AA meetings, have Bill responded: “I am delighted to are doing. Those who are alcoholics wonderful AA volunteers talk to hear of your release from narcotic would not object at all. But they and addicts both can bridge the gap them and with them, and urge them addiction. It has always been a fond might, hence I draw your attention to between the two worlds.” to attend AA outside, after discharge hope that one day many drug users the above facts.” By that, Bill meant (as indicated or after rehab. would find the same answers we AAs During the mid-1950s, this issue later on in his letter) that they could “It is awfully deflating to these have. By all means, I would continue became an emotionally charged one start their own groups, which would people to go compliantly to an AA to attend AA meetings. I’m sure the for a few people, not at all like the not be called AA groups. meeting, as instructed by their coungroup would have no objections so numbers today. Bill, in replying to In 1958, Bill wrote anarticle for the selors and physicians, and be told by far as the open meetings are con- some of these letters, wrote: “I feel Grapevine entitled “Problems Other an AA ‘officer,’ or even member, cerned, and would be very glad to glad that drug addicts seem free to go than Alcohol.” The principles set that they do not belong and must have you both attend for whatever to open AA meetings. But I doubt if forth in this piece are ones that Bill leave. There must be some less cruel inspiration you could find there. it be wise to encourage them to think shared in his correspondence previ- way to handle this dilemma. Up here, “It may be that you could dig up a that they can actually become Alco- ously – principles that are contained most of the meetings are open anyfew other addicts, later forming a holics Anonymous members. This within our Twelve ~raditionsand will way; but elsewhere, the opposite is narcotic group of your own. If the would have the effect of pointing the insure the survival of our Fellowship. true, and people are made to feel they AAs understood you were coming whole AA movement at drug addic- These principles, as they apply to have to go out and drink long enough with such a design in mind, they tion as well as at alcohol. drug addicts and AA, have been reaf- to develop a ‘problem,’ if they are to

get help from AA.” groups to deal with the problems of become dependent on the more other hand, many AA members be- As you can see, there is still con- their common addiction. As it is serious hard narcotics. lieve that if we are to remain confusion and misunderstanding about stated in our literature, AA cannot be Along with the problem drinkers, tented and secure in our freedom AA’s traditional policy regarding AA all things to all people. The reason these addicts are showing up at AA from alcohol, we should avoid the membership of nonalcoholic addicts. that AA has been so successful in meetings. Maybe they have read an use of any drug that poses a threat to It seems quite clear that we have our dealing with alcoholics is our single- announcement in the paper of an AA our sobriety. AAs stay away from the work cut out for us in correcting mis- ness of purpose. meeting, or have been referred to AA first drink one day at a time, and information on who and what we are One of our past trustees stated: by well-meaning but misinformed many of us find it just as important to and what we can and cannot do. “AA’s single-mindedness is the people. In any case, it is creating a stay away from the first pill one day Bill felt that we should share our strength of humility, because AA problem that concerns us as a fellow- at a time. In Georgia, we are handling recovery program with those who limits what it is demanding of itself ship and as individuals. dual addiction by sponsorship and in have other problems, but should en- and its associates. From this comes its There are three types of people closed discussion meetings. courage them to form their own real success in this limited target.” who are coming to AA today. First, The third type, and possibly the H. T., Manhattan, N.Y there is what the Big Book calls the most difficult, is the addict with no “real alcoholic” (page 21). Second, history of alcoholism who shows up AA and Drug Addicts there is the alcoholic and addict. at a closed AA meeting. These nonal- Third, there is the addict with no coholic addicts are referred to us by problem of alcoholism. All of these doctors, city and county treatment types have problems that are real to centers, freestanding hospitals, corthem, and each comes to us in des- rectional agencies, and the courts. peration. What can we do to help? Often, they read about AA in the We know how to help the alcoholic newspaper, or some columnist has – our record of success for almost advised them to seek help in AA. It is half a century speaks for itself. difficult for these well-meaning But what about those who are both people to understand that Alcoholics alcoholics and addicts? They pose a Anonymous has the answer only for

A LCOHOLICS Anonymous is a fellowship of people whose only membership requirement is a desire group, we cannot survive as individuals. That explicitly tells us who we are and what we can and cannot more difficult problem. Barbiturate and amphetamine dependence seems to go hand in hand with alcoholism in alcoholism; that, although we have no desire to be exclusive or selfish, we cannot help all of those who are to stop drinking and whose sole pur- do as an AA group. What we can many instances. Many of us in AA chemically dependent. pose is to stay sober and to carry this (and should) do as individuals is used these substances to ease the pain So what should we do? Should we message t o alcoholics. Nothing is said another matter. of a hangover or to sleep or to stay be rude to dual addicts, tell them to in our Big Book, our Traditions, our Today, we live in a drug-oriented awake. Most of us found no further get out, that we don’t care for them Steps, or any of our literature about society. Newspapers, television, and use for them once we were able to unless they are “pure” alcoholics? I taking, smoking, or shooting up. In radio are filled with advertisements stay sober. But some sober AAs still think not. Bill says in the pamphlet fact, the book Twelve Steps and for all kinds of nostrums to do all identify themselves as both alcoholics “Problems Other than Alcohol” Twelve Traditions and the pamphlet sorts of things. While many people and pill addicts (or some other kind). that, while AA is limited in what it “Problems Other than Alcohol” can and do use these things without Then there are those who continue can do, the AA member as an indistress the fact that AA cannot be all serious trouble, others cannot. They to rely on uppers and downers and vidual is practically limitless in what things to all people and survive as a become addicted to barbiturates and consider themselves sober because he or she can do. group. If we d o not survive as a amphetamines, and some of them they are no longer drinking. On the An AA who has a dual problem

can be very effective in working with who have dual problems, and having referring the dually addicted person pression of AA. The AA with an these people – the great principle of these contacts has been very helpful or the person with only a drug prob- alcohol and drug problem can be identification. I remember the case of in working with those who have prob- lem to NA works best for all of us. especially helpful in sharing his or her one young man with whom I was lems other than alcohol. On several Another thing we have found help- experiences. Also, high schools, colworking. He had a bad pill problem occasions, I have talked with the NA ful is to talk to doctors, counselors, leges, and military bases are having as well as his alcoholism, and he got state representative who is the coun- and others interested in alcoholism an enormous problem with alcohol into hard drugs as well. He always terpart of our area delegate. On the and drug addiction and share with and drugs. Often, an AA member identified himself as an alcoholic and basis of cooperation but not affili- them what AA can and cannot do. will explain to them what AA can and pill addict, and vehemently said that ation, I have found these talks to be “Dr. Jack” (Dr. John L. Norris, cannot do. I know of many instances one drug was the same as another. He very beneficial. former chairman of AA’s board of where new people have come to brought drug addicts to closed AA There are 87 NA groups in Atlanta. trustees) advised, “Sponsor your Alcoholics Anonymous because of meetings and was quite a problem for Other large cities, such as Savannah, doctor.” Our pamphlet “Problems such sharing. the AA groups he attended. Columbus, Macon, and Augusta, Other than Alcohol” can be very Our Twelfth Step tells us to carry But he stayed around long enough have several NA groups, and most of helpful to these health professionals. the message to the suffering alcoto get sober, and with the help of his the mid-sized cities, such as Gaines- Often, an AA member is called on holic. There is no greater joy than home group and a good sponsor, he ville, Rome, and Albany, have at to give a talk at a hospital or a sharing our experience, strength, and was able to distinguish between his al- least one NA group. Besides these treatment center. Some of these meet- hope with those in the throes of alcocoholism and his drug problem. He is groups, there is an NA contact in ings are for staff members only; holism. But our sincere desire to be a member of Narcotics Anonymous every section of the state, so that an others are for patients. These calls helpful may cause us to lead people and does a good job in working with addict would not have far to go to an usually come to central offices and without a drinking problem to believe those who have both an alcohol and a NA meeting. I have found that the are referred to an AA member. The that they can be helped by AA. That drug-abuse history. This is the great members of Narcotics Anonymous person asked to do this should be would be a tragedy. It is much better principle of identifying with a fellow are very cooperative with AA and do selected with care – one who is to show’ them where they can get the sufferer. not want to seek affiliation with us. knowledgeable about the Steps and help they so desperately need. In Georgia, there are many others We believe that our procedure of Traditions and will give a good im- J. L., East Point, Ga.

J, ‘ AA Grapevine, August 1984

from time to time, and found people in the bank being saved so that when ‘

to make coffee and clean up. That a club for AAs started in our district, was all fine – except that as GSR, I there would be some money to help kept receiving quarterly reports from fund it. I said, “You can’t do that.” GSO saying that no group contribu- He said, “Well, that’s what I’m tion had been made by this meeting. doing. And if you don’t like it, you Being fearful of going to the head know what you can do about it.” man and saying anything, I refrained I decided that the tactic I was foluntil my conscience got to the point lowing was not working. I went to a where I could no longer stand it. So I mutual friend of ours, who agreed to went to the man and said that I go with me. We sat down, and after thought we ought to have a steering some discussion with this man, he committee meeting. Hesaid, “Why?” finally agreed to rotate out of his I saw my opportunity and said, multi-positions in the group and to “Because my two-year term as GSR make a treasurer’s report. As a result, is up, and we ought to elect a new that group is now making regular one.” He indicated that the group contributions to the General Service didn’t need a GSR anyway, and the Office, has regular steering commithell with all that. tee meetings, and practices rotation. So I explained the problem to my Now, I learned some lessons from sponsor, who promptly told me that I this experience. 1 learned that there had an obligation to the people who are certain responsibilities attached to went to that meeting: an obligation to being involved in an AA group. I am call a steering committee meeting if responsible for seeing to it that you no one else would; an obligation to don’t violate our principle of rotahave this man make a treasurer’s re- tion. And you are responsible for port and have this money distributed seeing that I don’t violate it. Strict as it should have been. I had taken on adherence to this principle helps us those obligations when I accepted the implement our Traditions One, Two,

A GROUP OF people who had ten or more years of sobriety decided to start an open Saturday night that the length of each commitment was set forth. We had our new group listed at the AA central office in Chiposition of being GSR for the group, he said, and I ought to get off my duff and do something about it. Sudand Twelve, because one person’s control is not the best thing for any group or meeting. One person’s conmeeting in my hometown, and asked cago and at GSO (the AA General denly, I didn’t like my sponsor. He trol is not the group conscience. And me to participate. I was thrilled, be- Service Office) in New York. Every- was supposed to do all that for me. I one person’s control is not “princicause I had had only two years on the thing was done right – whereupon had always been fearful of rejection. ples before personalities.” But most AA program. My sponsor was in the my sponsor sat back and relaxed. He had just almost rejected me, and of all, I’ve learned why the principle group, and he made sure that it had a In a couple of months, the steering he was the one who wasn’t supposed of rotation guides all our service steering committee, a chairman, a committee no longer met. One guy . to. functions: It saves Alcoholics Anonysecretary, a treasurer, and a GSR took over the functions of chairman I went to the man and discussed the mous from the only people who can (general service representative), and and treasurer, appointed secretaries situation with him. He told me that, destroy it – ourselves. in fact, he had the money, that it was M. S., Chicago, Ill.

—

z AA GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1984

At our district meeting of general shop, “panelists” had received a

‘ SINGLENESS service representatives, someone brought up the idea of having a workshop on AA’s singleness of purpose. The district committee liked the idea and the subject and let the DCM (dis- “briefing book,” sixty-five pages of background material including: a list of references to singleness of purpose in Conference-approved literature; excerpts from GSO (General Service trict committee member) work out Office) reports on AA Regional the details, which they later ratified. Forums; “Trust,” an article from the Several months later, over 100 AAs December 1982 Grapevine; “The crowded into a smoky storefront for Washingtonian Movement,” an arour district workshop on singleness ticle by a former chairperson of the of purpose. We had five open AA AA General Service Board; articles meetings on predetermined topics, from AA newsletters; excerpts from When people with other addictions became a problem at chaired by some of our “elderstates- non-Conference-approved literature, AA meetings in thk dktrict, Traditions-minded AAs got men”: (1) “One Drunk Talking to such as Not-God (a history of AA) together and planned a workshop on AA ‘s singleness of Another” (chaired by our alternate and Alcohol and Drug Abuse Simdelegate), (2) “A Loving God as He ilarities and Difrences (a review of purpose. Has your group, district, or area found a May Express Himself in Our Group recent scientific research). GSO, the workable approach to this or any other AA problem? If Conscience” (a past delegate), (3) Grapevine, our central office, and so, consider sharing it in the pages of the Grapevine “Alcoholics Anonymous in a Chang- some treatment centers helped a lot in ing World” (our delegate), (4) getting the materials for the “briefing “Should AA or AAs help NA or NAs book.”

A ROUND 1980-81, several things pamphlet “Problems Other than happened that looked like the Alcohol.” We began to hear more beginning of a trend. A new treat- and more “drugalogs” at meetings. or Overeaters Anonymous, etc.? Why? Why not? How?” (DCM from another district), (5) “Specific In the spirit of the Twelfth Tradition, the “panelists” did not wear special badges and sat among the ment center in this state began to ag- It seemed that some people were Actions Groups Can Take” (our other AAs. The AAs chairing the gressively promote the concept of trying to be friends with everyone and intergroup chairperson). meetings had been asked to call on “chemical dependence,” i.e., that al- avoid controversy by pretending that People came and went as they the “panelists” first and then on the coholism and drug addiction are there was no controversy. All this pleased d u r i n g t h e s i x – h o u r others there. The atmosphere was “different symptoms of the same stirred up a lot of trouble, especially workshop. They listened to one tense at first, since there were people disease.” Graduates of the center in our district, where there are many another, They got excited, but present who probably hadn’t been tobegan to come to AA meetings in drug addicts but, until just recently, nobody got angry. gether in the same AA meeting for large numbers and were vocal and few Narcotics Anonymous meetings. About three months before the many years. The I Serenity Prayer persistent in their use of such expres- A very good history of AA began to workshop, thirty “panelists,” AAs helped a lot. After a few laughs, sions as “drug of choice” and circulate around the Fellowship. Its who held very different views on the people began to relax. I “addictive personality.” Some young nonalcoholic author thoroughly un- subject, had received a list of the five Our oldest member, who sobered AAs held a workshop on dual derstood the importance of AA’s topics, along with some references to up in Ohio over forty years ago, addiction; most of those present singleness of purpose. All this got the Steps, Traditions, and Concepts shared that an “alcoholic brigade” of seemed to feel that AA should “catch people thinking. Articles pro and con and some questions intended to stim- the Oxford Group began to meet at up with the times”; and few people began to appear in local AA news- ulate thought. Dr. Bob’s house, because they felt a referred to the Conference-approved letters, and the controversy raged on. About six weeks before the work- special closeness when nonalcoholics

weren’t around. A member of a “What am I doing in a meeting for young people’s group said that her alcoholics only?” He then became ‘ group had a lot of trouble when nonalcoholics were sent to its closed very active in helping to start NA groups and very enthusiastic about meeting. A wide range of views was NA’s book Narcotics Anonymous. shared on this problem. A GSR said Shortly after our workshop, we that, early in her sobriety, she had had an AA Regional Forum here. come to a closed AA meeting and Our delegate and two others made introduced herself as a “pillhead,” fine presentations on singleness of and the confrontation following purpose. The same subject came up helped her And out that she was in- in other presentations and during the deed “powerless over alcohol.” workshops. One got the impression Some expressed the opinion that al- that most of the AAs who spoke had coholism and drug addiction were the done a lot of thinking before speaksame thing. A nonalcoholic drug ing. Maybe our district workshop addict said that he had been asked to helped to get some AAs revved up for leave a closed AA meeting and that the Forum. Anonymous, Denver, Colo. the experience got him to ask himself, –

August 1984 Solutions for a tough problem for our co-founder to discuss other From New Bedford, Mass.: drugs in his story, then it’s good As soon as 1 opened the envelope enough for me. If, when I came to with the May Grapevine, I knew that AA, all I heard at meetings were this was a Grapevine I wanted to read “pure” alcoholics – again, I believe immediately. Across the top of the 1 would be dead today. front cover was “AA and Drug Ad- Like D. G., I no longer identify dicts.” myself as dually addicted or cross- D. G.’s presentation refers to a addicted. My sponsor pointed out to statement of policy making the me that I was still trying to be unique rounds in California, namely: “We when 1 tried to separate “my” disease ask only that wnen discussing their from most others’. J. L. problems, they confine themselves to those related to their alcoholism.” I From Buffalo, N.Y.: would like to ask whoever thought up I read with interest the articles in that statement: When was the last the May Grapevine regarding the altime you read your Big Book? It says cohol/drug controversy. This is how in the Big Book that we believe alco- we have handled the problem here. holism is an illness. It also says that In 19’19, we founded a new club, we believe alcohol is “but a symp- which originally hosted six indepentom.” I contend that no matter what dent AA meetings per week. In 1980, mood-altering drug is taken, that a young woman asked if she could drug is “but a symptom” of the start a Narcotics Anonymous meetdisease called alcoholism. ing, and we were more than glad to I feel grateful that no such state- accommodate her. We now host ment of policy was making the some twelve AA meetings and two rounds here over five years ago, when NA meetings per week. Many of our I approached AA – or I surely would young members attend both AA and be dead, along with my ex-husband, NA meetings. husband, and brother, all of whom Over five years, I have seen absoare also sober in AA. I am especially lutely no friction between these grateful that 1 was encouraged to groups. The club is not perfect, but share all of my experience, strength, all are welcome at our dances, picand hope at open and closed meet- nics, etc. Today, the average age of ings. Whenever I had my own doubts people joining the club is somewhere about dual addiction in AA, my in the late twenties, and two out of sponsor would point me back to the three of our members are dually ad- Big Book, in the chapter “Doctor dicted. In my opinion, the most im- Bob’s Nightmare,” and make me un- portant thing that the club provides is derstand that if it was good enough a place where all of these people can share their experience, strength, and hope. I might add that the club is completely self-supporting. D. o.

C O P

f. * AA Grapevine, September 1984

In 1935, society was much different, not only technologically, but socially as well. Even within many families, certain subjects were not openly discussed. So-called immoral behavior of any type was considered a blot on the entire family. What one did with one’s later life never completely overcame the stigma of past misbehavior. Thus, anonymity was even more necessary at that time. The motivation for this initial form of anonymity should also be considered. For instance, we can hardly be classified with some other groups that maintain anonymity, such as criminal and racially prejudiced organizations. To the contrary, our early development of this tradition not only offered members the right to whatever degree of protection each deemed necessary, but also offered them the opportunity to preserve and/or enhance their possibly endangered public reputation. The motive R ECENTLY, I have heard a small but growing number of members say that anonymity is no longer and unity. As we grow within the Fellowship, we become more aware of each of these one by one. Let us, munity knew of it – than of the new life that awaited them. Newcomers have always been offered immediate was not to conceal nefarious activities, but rather to offer new personal dignity. necessary for members of Alcoholics then, trace this growth as it usually respect in the assurance that the de- Although all members have always Anonymous. I am sure that they are occurs within us, and as it may have gree of their anonymity will be of had the right to break their own referring to the maintenance of indi- occurred within the Fellowship itself. their own choosing; that they, and anonymity, it soon became apparent vidual identities, but 1 believe that When Alcoholics Anonymous was only they, will have the right to break that anonymity of representation this is only the beginning of the road founded, the reasons for the ano- their own anonymity. How person- must also be considered. The climate in understanding this vital principle. nymity of personal protection were ally anonymous each member is out- of the times was such that the break- Anonymity as we in AA practice it probably as straightforward as the side AA depends upon personality, ing of one’s anonymity at the public seems at first blush to be fairly sim- need of any newcomer for the same line of work, nature of the com- level created a national stir. When ple, but as we consider it more care- assurance today. Then as now, I am munity, and many other factors. But this was done, it not only associated fully, it presents at least five different sure that most came to AA more when AA was founded, other forces that individual’s personal ideas or aspects. These could be defined as the aware of the “defeat” they had suf- making anonymity virtually manda- private goals with Aicoholics Anonyanonymities of personal protection, fered – and the embarrassment they tory were even stronger than they are mous, but was also in conflict with representation, equality, humility, believed would ensue if the com- at present. the ego deflation so necessary to the

we are more than his instruments. what Alcoholics Anonymous truly is. maintenance of sobriety. Thus, harm say is not necessarily what others Another level of anonymity comes could be done both to AA and to the hear; and that the effect on each indi- There is still one more aspect to person involved. vidual is determined by a power to us when the program becomes a anonymity, and it might be called the part of us and we are able to carry it anonymity of unity. It begins where The conclusion was that individual greater than our collective abilities of into our everyday lives. At this point, the last ends – with the giving of self members could not practice this form either expression or action. the vanity of attempting to impress freely, without expectation of gain or of anonymity-breaking (regardless of While granting to others the right others is diminished. We recognize to do otherwise, many identify them- recognition. We see further signs of it their good intentions) without setting that true dignity and inner satisfac- in the evidence around us, wherein a a precedent for others that would selves only by first names at AA tion are determined by the rightness people as self-willed as any on earth ultimately be destructive to the Fel- meetings – some simply to follow of what we do. Conscience becomes a come together and place the good of lowship. Co-founder Bill W. called the example of the group, most be- part of our communication with our our Fellowship ahead of personal this principle one of sacrifice – sacri- cause they find in it a certain serenity. Higher Power and a way of determin- interest. fice of “our ambition and our illegiti- Perhaps, this can best be described by ing his will for us. We come to know We cannot know whether this conmate pride. . .for the protection and saying that the presence we feel that what others see of our outward cept extends to the human spirit in welfare of each member, and for AA within an AA meeting diminishes our accomplishments is trivial compared much the same manner. Science tells as a whole!’ need for personal recognition. The to our understanding of our inner us the material that composes our As a result, the Eleventh Tradition anonymity of equality symbolizes selves and our God. We learn that – bodies was once a part of long-dead – not breaking our anonymity at the one AA’s being interchangeable with paraphrasing our other co-founder, stars and will, in the fardistant level of press, radio, and films – was another, without any real change in Dr. Bob – the anonymity of humility future, return to a universe of a size developed. That principle was ex- the message. does not mean we allow others to too vast for the mind to comprehend. tended by the decisions that no indi- Those who identify themselves by walk over us, but .rather that we Might not this analogy and our simvidual could speak for AA and that full name at meetings may still carry remember who gave us these gifts and pler evidence imply that the ultimate no member might be placed in a the message to newcomers that they that we thank him for them. anonymity is also our ultimate unity position of unqualified authority need have no fear of their identities’ We say that we should walk as we with one another and with our over others. being revealed. Other members offer talk, but this last truth comes to us Maker? We must leave further specu- ‘

So far, we have looked at only the assurance that the newcomers need with the reminder that “we are not lation to the philosophers and theolopractical reasons for the development tell only as much about themselves as saints” and that we can only strive for gians, for it is beyond our scope in of our anonymity Traditions. It is they wish. Thus, the cycle begins the development of humility within AA. certain that the spiritual values were again for those who still feel insecure. ourselves. When we realize that we Anonymity, it would then seem, is also quickly realized. This third level, In the interests of unity and of have been putting self aside over a another of those gifts we have been the anonymity of equality, is far carrying the message, most members period of time – before our egos given through the force of necessity, harder to describe. Within Alcoholics Anonymous, there is no anonymity. realize that if they are to be of any real use to AA, they must be willing once again edge in for action – we and yet it is truly the foundation for look back on our performance and individual and Fellowship integrity. We need to know one another to be to inform other members of how to perhaps feel that we have lived a Is this but a coincidence? I think not. even somewhat functional. Neverthe- get in touch. We do this by exchang- prayer. Then, we begin to realize R. G.,Thousand Oaks, Calif. less, we are all aware, through bitter ing phone numbers, by handing out experience, of our inability to gain cards, and by allowing our names to sobriety through our own efforts. be printed in full in AA service publi- Thus, we must conclude that in meet- cations as necessary. I like to think of ing for our own individual benefit, this seemingly double standard as we are expressing something beyond making ourselves available to do our separate capacities; that what we God’s work while not assuming that

l A A GRAPEVINE, O ~ T O B E R1984

I 0 NE DOLLAR doesn’t buy much today. Hamburgers, haircuts, gasoline, theater tickets – in fact, all can’t carry our message of recovery as effectively without adequate funding. And there are millions of other our local groups’ contribution to our intergroup office. Is that responsibility? Is one dollar consumer goods and services – cost alcoholics around the world awaiting – the price of a bag of popcorn at a at least three times as much as they a message they may never hear. movie – the value that we place on did twenty years ago. Obviously, if the average contribu- AA? But we still have 1964 bargain-price tion is only one dollar, a group of fif- Wake up out there! Let us not deny AA, at least in the metropolitan area teen or twenty members will have our precious, lifesaving heritage to where I live. One dollar is still the little, if any, money left over to make other alcoholics for lack of a few average contribution when the basket badly needed contributions to those more dollars from each of us. If we is passed -unchanged since the day I AA service units, after paying for truly believe our Declaration of Rearrived at AA over twenty years ago. coffee, rent, and literature. sponsibility – that the hand of AA Well then, why hasn’t the average Is this one explanation of why only always be there -we must talk about contribution also increased threefold fifty-fivepercent of the United States financial responsibility at meetings to three dollars? Probably for the and Canada groups contributed to and start increasing our contributions simple reason that the traditional dol- GSO in 1983? That lamentable per- so that the flame shall never die. lar has become, well. ..traditional – centage – little more than one out of “And for that: l a m responsible.” almost as though it had been carved two groups – is about the same for J. H., Seattle, Wash. in oak on a wall plaque. We have not really paid serious attention to inflation in AA, even though we recognize the rising costs all about us. Surely, we’ve noticed the ever-increasing size of our paychecks in the past few years. We have, alas, taken things too much for granted in AA, even though the church or other facility to which we pay rent (your group does pay rent, doesn’t it?) has seen the cost soak for heat, light, maintenance, and salaries. The rent that we pay should have tripled, but has it? If not, is that being responsible? Are we truly selfsupporting? Shouldn’t we be paying our fair share for these things? Likewise, there have been continuously increasing expenses in maintaining our vital intergroup offices, the area assemblies, and the General Service Office in New York. They

AA GRAPEVINE, JANUARY 1985

two different things, with completely was completely turned off. 1 thought different purposes in our lives. You they were trying to shove me back won’t find sobriety in church; that into the harsh religion of my childisn’t what church is for. And you hood, toward the cruel God I couldn’t NOT ALLIED won’t find a prescribed mode of wor- accept, but who was the only one I understood. It scares me stiff to think ship in AA; that isn’t what AA is for. WITH ANY SECT OR I suggest you use AA strictly for stay- how close I came to leaving AA completely.” ing sober and practicing the program, DENOMINATION ,and deal with your religious problems homewhere else.” ., “What stopped you?” Winifred asked. ::ep, “I was lucky or,” Martin grinned, “maybe my Higher Power stepped I THAD BEEN such a wonderful conference up to the closing meeting that I hated to miss any of it. I had are talking about religion. One of these was a woman I spoke t o at the conference while trying t o in. Anyway, I started visiting various groups, and met Sally. She shook me up by saying she wasn’t sure she befound a much more convenient flight decide whether to miss the last talk. lieved in God, but she did believe in home, but not even that could have She was standing near me as we wait- prayer, was convinced it worked, and persuaded me to skip the final session ed to go to the banquet, and I asked if recommended it to everyone in AA. if I hadn’t heard the closing speaker she had heard tomorrow’s speaker Naturally, I asked how you could before, and been appalled rather than before. She had. e,p- pray to someone who wasn’t there. inspired by her approach to our pro- “I understand she gives a very reli- ;$1 Other members chimed in. “I wish Sally said, ‘Someone’s there, all gram. gious kind of talk,” I said. someone had explained the difference right. I’m there. Perhaps another I felt that she had not given an AA “She’s supposed to. It’s the spiri- between religion and spirituality to Someone is, too. I don’t rule out that talk, but had preached a sermon. It tual meeting,” was the reply. me when I was new to AA,” Martin possibility, I’m just not sure. But was an eloquent sermon, true, but Another was the man who took up observed. “I had some bad months when I pray regularly for greater confused newcomers might have left part of an AA discussion meeting and almost left the program because patience, or fuller knowledge of what the hall convinced that most AA agonizing over whether he should go to me any mention of God or a higher is right for me, my prayers are anmembers were asked to follow the to church. He didn’t have a particular power meant religion, and that was swered. Whether by a force outside Christian religion, preferably the church in mind, and didn’t really something I wanted no part of. I grew myself, or because I am tapping a speaker’s own branch of it. It seemed want to go to any, but was having up in a rigid, narrow, very religious previously unreachable power inside to me that atheists, agnostics, Jews, attacks of conscience over not being a household, with the concept of a myself, I don’t know.’ and the world’s millions of believers churchgoer. The third time he dragged vengeful God who inflicted terrible “Well, there certainly was nothing in other faiths could not have related the discussion back to his problem, calamities on people as punishment religious about that! And there defito her at all. the leader expressed the opinion of for any wrongdoing. By the time I nitely rj. something spiritual about The speaker did not distinguish be- most of the group. was grown and ready to leave home, I Sally. She is radiant with love for AA tween the religion of her church and “What you are talking about has totally rejected such an idea of God, and joy in her sober life. I got the first the spirituality of AA. As my years in nothing to do with AA. If you feel the but I had no spiritual values to put in glimmer that AA is not a religious AA add up, I encounter many AA need of attending church and think it its place. organization.that night, and decided members who think, mistakenly, that will add a new dimension to your life, “When I came to AA and people to stick around and find out more.” when we speak of spiritual growth by all means go. Only don’t get your started talking about relying on the “Listen, people!” Janna’s voice and reliance on a Higher Power, we religion mixed up with AA. They are help of God as I understood him, I had a note of urgency that brought

her the instant, total attention of the ics who are not Christian, I can only group. “I’ve been worried for a long speak for myself. I am not disturbed time that we may be losing new peo- by the fact that the Lord’s Prayer and ple, as we nearly lost Martin, by let- the Serenity Prayer-and we could ting AA appear to be a religious add the prayer of St. Francis of Asmovement, although it isn’t. In the sisi, which is often quoted in AAway we conduct our meetings, aren’t are Christian in origin. Every faith we using practices associated with a has the concept of a supreme being specific religion?” and of its followers ‘becoming better “I don’t understand, Janna,” the persons. These are what I call univerleader said. “What practices?” sal prayers, applicable to anyone. I “Closing meetings with the Lord’s would not object to a prayer that Prayer is one. Don’t get me wrong. originated in the Shinto or Hindu or I’m a Christian and devoted to my Muslim religion, if it reflected our church, and I love the Lord’s Prayer. AA philosophy. I just don’t think a prayer associated “However, Janna has a valid point with a specific religion is appropriate that new people might think we were in AA. You could say the same thing trying to force a specific religious about the Serenity Prayer. Since the faith on them if we don’t make it majority of Americans follow some clear that we are not. Just how to do form of Christian religion, it’s easy to that could be a good subject for a see how these practices started. Now I group conscience meeting.” have two questions I hope someone Winifred laughed. “Here we are, can answer. Do AA groups in coun- meeting in a church basement. If you tries where the dominant religion is want proof that AA spirituality and not Christian use customs related to religion are two entirely different their religion? And are non-Chris- things, ask yourselves why so mariy tians disturbed when we do it in this AA groups meet in churches. Miniscountry?” ters welcome the opportunity to pro- “Sam, maybe you can answer vide meeting facilities for AA, and her,” the leader said. “You’re Jewish, they are the experts on religion. If and you’ve traveled a lot.” they thought religion could produce “I’ve attended AA meetings in sev- sobriety in alcoholics, they would eral non-Christian countries,” Sam say: ‘Don’t bother with your AA told them, “and those groups did meetings. Come to our church and nothing in any way related to their find sobriety here.’ They don’t say religion. Incidentally, in some Chris- this, for they know, better than some tian countries in Europe many groups of our own members seem to, that if don’t use the Lord’s Prayer, but close sobriety is what you want, AA is the with the Serenity Prayer. As to wheth- best place to look for it.” er our practices might offend alcohol- E. E., Tuka, O k l ~

February 19

sobriety a great deal to share with or any other of the many facets of Loners who cannot attend meetings, Who Carries as others and I are privileged to. These Loners are as a rule sober, but AA, and send them to your AA Grapevine. Voice your opinions. They may not be printed, but it will when the Twelfth Step says, “carry d o you good to write them. this message to alcoholics,” it doesn’t We must do all in our power to necessarily mean drunken alcoholics. carry the message of AA, for there Every Loner I have ever corre- are millions of lost people who are a11 av, sponded with has replied with really still drinking and have not yet been in a surprking beautiful letters. It is truly a reward- chosen to find the miracle of AA. I variety of ways ing experience. feel they deserve sobriety as much as I A still-practicing drunk is a very do, and perhaps their sobriety can belonely person, and many can be gin with me. found in rest homes and in senior Finally, you are not breaking the citizen high-rises. Go visit a rest home anonymity Traditions if you go to or a nursing hoxc !2s:’,:~; wit:. the your priest, pastor, or rabbi, ask who patients, and you will find many in the congregation needs help, and alcoholics to whom you can carry the offer your services. Or you can do the message. same thing with your physician or In almost every large city now, your attorney. I do not believe your there are detox centers. Recovering offer to assist will be turned down. alcoholics are always welcome at In trying to carry the message, we them. Work with your local AA com- not only may help those people who mittees to put on meetings there. are still suffering, but we are definite- Write down your thoughts and ly helping ourselves and our own feelings concerning the ~ w e l v eSteps, sobriety. T HE MIDDLE part of our Twelfth Once people sober up in AA, when Step reads, “we tried to carry they walk down the street holding this message to alcoholics,” and our their heads high, with smiles on their G. T., Minneapolis, Minn.

AA preamble concludes with “Our faces, their eyes clear and shining primary purpose is to stay sober and with enthusiasm, they are carrying help other alcoholics to achieve so- the message to those who remember briety.” Naturally, the best way we them as hopeless drunks. Their forcan help other alcoholics to achieve mer drinking pals can easily see a sobriety is by trying to carry the AA marked change, and chances are very message to them. Unfortunately, good that someone will ask what it is. many people in our Fellowship be- I have found that another excellent lieve that the only way they can carry way to share my experience, strength, the message is by one-to-one contact and hope is to write to AA Loners. with the still-suffering alcoholic. The list can easily be obtained by I disagree. True, that may be the writing to the AA General Service Ofbest way, but it is not the only way. fice in New York. It has helped my

April 1985

D URING EIGHTEEN YEARS of sobriety, I have never heard a single person speak against the princifirst. By limiting the time an individual may serve in a specific position, we avoid “empire building,” The rotation practiced among General Service Office staff members obviously works very well. (GSO for success. As is most often the case in our Fellowship, we have paths to follow, and I’m going to try to follow ple of rotation. I think we all realize it “vested interests,” or any of those staff members rotate assignments the path of my husband, who has is a vital and unique part of our Fel- phrases that signify bureaucracies. every two years.) It ensures a continu- served the area for some years, inlowship – a safeguard we impose We are able to attract a larger number ity of service and a broad-based cluding a term as delegate. After his upon ourselves to protect the Fellow- of people into service, and new areas mutual sharing of knowledge. Its suc- term as delegate, he returned to his ship from ourselves. Everyone – in- of service are constantly opening up. cess is demonstrated by the fact that home group. He made himself availcluding those servants in their second Fresh approaches are encouraged; when we think of a particular area of able for Twelfth Step work, speaking term like me, who have loved their new ideas are inevitable. And we can service, e.g., public information, no to non-AA groups, and perhaps most time of service – everyone seems to guarantee enthusiasm from these specific name comes to mind; rather, important, setting up the tables on agree that rotation is a principle of newer members. Rotation seems to we think of several names or indeed meeting night. He has stood in the great spiritual and practical value. me to ensure that the circle of those in the collective staff. Bill W.’s discus- back of the room at service meetings Let’s take the practical benefits AA service is ever widening. sion of GSO rotation in Concept XI and assemblies, there for anyone who reminds us that if sometime in the might have a question, but he has future, we become dissatisfied with never intruded his voice upon the de- MUCH MORE this policy, we are at liberty to try and change it, remembering that we might well be jumping out of the frying pan liberations. He served, when asked by the assembly, as chairperson of a spe-. cia1 committee to consider a way to THAN MUSICAL CHAIRS into the fire. The spiritual benefits of rotation streamline our assembly meetings. He completed his term as delegate “Rotation is a principle begin, I think, with the fact that rota- without looking back, but instead, he tion is an exercise in humility. It is always looking ahead to another of great spiritual and practical value” makes us realize that while we have a day of sobriety – and service. proprietary interest in the Fellowship, His is the example I want to follow, none of us has proprietary right to and I think such examples exist for all any specific service position. Rota- of us. And they are the majority! But tion is a catalyst for personal growth, what of the occasional trusted servant a chance to learn again to surrender, who is rotated out of a service podwith grace, to the wishes of the Fel- tion, but can’t or won’t let go? Such lowship. It symbolizes the Twelfth “reluctant” servants are the excep- Tradition’s reminder to place princi- tion, of course, but probably everyples – …. before personalities. one in this room can think of at least So, knowing the benefits of prac- one. ticing this unique principle, how I remember my own sinking heart successful are we in actual per- when I heard my home group reformance? I think most members ro- ferred to as “J-‘s group.” I held tate gracefully and lovingly. On a no office in that group, and hadn’t personal note, since I shall soon for some time, but obviously, I was be having this opportunity “for giving the impression of “running” growth,” I want to share my formula the group. It was clear to me that I

needed to take an important step, That seems to me to miss the point. backward, to diminish my role in the Such service is t o be shared willingly group. I spoke less and listened more; and gladly with others. I encouraged others to chair the meet- Sometimes, people need help in ings; I missed an occasional meeting. learning to really step down. The sub- I’m happy to say that I have been so title to that Conference presentation successful that the next time I show wasUpry them loose gently.” It reup, I expect someone to ask me if I’m minds us that it may be necessary to new! pry their hands from the helm, figu- A presentation at the 1977 General ratively. But whatever needs doing to Service Conference talks about the make them let go – do it! We must thinking process of those who cannot always remember, though, that these let go: “Sometimes, an ex-servant people were often great servants and sincerely feels his successor simply whatever they did, they did out of isn’t doing the job right. Naturally – love and devotion to the Fellowship. ‘ for the good of the Fellowship, of So, we should not forget our graticourse – he feels it is his duty to tude to them. “Let’s pry them loose straighten the new person out. Some- gently if we can, but, if we can’t, pry times, he realizes he knows more than them loose any way.” This is a service less experienced members. Is it his we owe to the Fellowship. I believe fault if he’s wiser than they? Why, absolutely in the spirit of democratic it’s practically his duty to run things idealism which shines throughout the from behind the scenes.” Fellowship, and I realize one way to One phrase often heard in this con- sustain the shining spirit is to pass the nection is “I don’t mind doing it.” torch t o other hands. J. P.,Spokane, Wash.

May 1985 & First, that with the help of a power by which we are trying to live sober greater than ourselves, we can do to- and solve our common problem, gether that which, as individuals, we alcoholism. could not do by ourselves. By coming The general service representative together in meetings, we give living, may keep the group informed of acbreathing proof to one another that tions affecting the group and AA as a this program of recovery works. By whole, in order that the group may listening to the sharing of others, we better function in its role as messagelearn that we do not have to live as we carrier. had been living – in fear, bewilder- The steering committee may help ment, remorse, and loneliness; that carry the group’s message by setting there is a better way of life, ~ h i c hcan an example. Its members may see that be ours for the asking. The people an attractive meeting place and regathered at the meeting place are freshments are provided for those atphysical witness to those facts, and tending. That was a very important that is part of the message carried by part of the group’s message to me the group. when I was new. 1was ashamed of be- Next, it is in the group that most of ing an alcoholic and having to go to us are exposed to the literature pro- AA, and I assumed meetings would vided by Alcoholics Anonymous be held in flea-ridden rooms near skid World Services, Inc. Books are for row. That you came together in nice ~ .- sale in most groups, and pamphlets rooms, provided yourselves with reaction, principally the Twelve Steps. are provided. A responsible group freshments, and seemed happy to be together in a group – those discover- In These There is no Step, however, that states, “We did not drink alcohol.” that desires to “carry its message” will be sure to have those items al- ies gave me a positive impression of

Rooms. .. Nor is there one that states, “We attended meetings.” Yet both of those actions are a vital part of the message carried today by a recovering alcoholic to one who still suffers. ways available, and members may stress to newcomers the importance of the valuable sobriety tools. Most groups have, at all times, one or more trusted -servants, as menthe Fellowship as a whole! The attraction I felt was an important part of the message that I received at my first meeting. And that message could not have been carried by an individ- Tradition Five tells us that “each tioned in Tradition Two. It is the re- ual nor by the literature. It was cargroup has but one primary purpose sponsibility of these trusted servants ried by the group, assembled there as We carry out our – to carry its message to the alcohol- to ensure that the group fulfills its a group, at that place on that night. It ic who still suffers.” Just what is “one primary purpose.” was the group’s message. primary purpose meant by “its message”? Isn’t it the The group secretary may do this by If the group did not have its own same message spoken of in Step inviting speakers whs shzre with the message to carry, AA obviously in a wide Twelve? Isn’t it the same message group their personal experiences in would not have grown up in the manvariety of ways carried to each of us by the Big Book? living the Twelve Steps and Twelve ner it has. If the group did not have Obviously, yes. And doesn’t that Traditions in their own lives. The its own message to carry, then Tradi- . message include some of the follow- secretary may provide discussion tion Five wouldn’t say what it says. ing? topics centering around the principles L. B., San Francisco, Calg

AA GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1985

Holding Fast to Our Principles In the early days of Alcoholics I am firmly convinced that the plan Anonymous, when our Big Book was of the Higher Power is simply stated

I N MY SERVICE experience, the challenge of back to basics has never been the problem. The problem has written, the co-founders received many requests, complaints, and concerns from the new AA groups. Bill’s in the words of our Preamble, which we hear and read so often: “Alcoholics Anonymous is a Fellowship of been one of maintaining the basics – answer was always, “Work it out men and women who share their exthe principles of ,414 that pervade our yourselves, and then tell us how you perience, strength, and hope with did it.” Essentially, that is what we each other that they may solve their Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, and do at this World Service Meeting; we common problem and help others to Twelve Concepts for World Service. practice the basic principle of sharing recover from alcoholism. The only Without Recovery through the Steps, our experiences without giving an- requirement for membership is a dethere will be no Unity; without Unity swers or advice. Whether in our indi- sire to stop drinking. There are no through the Traditions, there will be vidual lives or our service lives, we dues or fees for AA membership; we no Service; and without Service fol- apply the solutions we have found as are self-supporting through our own lowing our Concepts, there will be no the result of mutual sharing and thus contributions. AA is not allied with message to carry to the alcoholic who find answers for ourselves. any sect, denomination, politics, orstill suffers. Given the vital importance of this ganization, or institution; does not The World Service Meeting finds sharing of experience in all AA mat- wish to engage in any controversy, ways and carries the message by serv- ters, I ask two questions: Why go neither endorses nor opposes any ing as a forum for sharing among back to basics? Why not just main- causes. Our primary purpose is to delegates who come together every tain the basics we already have prov- stay sober and help other alcoholics two years from all parts of the world. en by nearly fifty years of experience? to achieve sobr:ety.” We share our experiences, frustra- This is our real challenge as instru- If each of us allows this plan to tions, joys, strengths, and weak- ments of a Power greater than our- flow through our AA lives, we can nesses, not only with each other, but selves. then put into action the AA “basics” afterward with AA members in our -love and service. own countries and with legions of D. A ., Dallas, Tex. nonalcoholic friends worldwide.

AA GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1985

Is Your Group a Charity A s A GROUP treasurer and secretary, I often focus my attention on our Seventh Tradition. This Trawith the pastor, I found myself making little excuses. supporting? Are we accepting the church’s charity as a reason for not dition and its value to the Fellowship The group has certainly been grate- trying to be self-supporting? I think became clearer to me after a discus- ful to the church, and the church has those questions could be used in the sion with the pastor of the church in expressed its willingness to have us go all-important self-inventory, indiwhich our group has graciously been on holding meetings in their building vidual or group. allowed to hold its weekly open meet- regardless of what we are able to con- Had the group and I adhered more ing for many years. tribute. As the pastor put it, it is closely to the Seventh Tradition, I Am I as an individual AA member God’s will for the church to help the believe a slightly embarrassing situaand is the AA group I .belongto being suffering no matter who they may be. tion might never have arisen, and I self-supporting, or at least making a Gratitude and charity are both vir- am sure that the attraction of AA strong endeavor to do so? It is my tues. But is our gratitude at times a would have.been enhanced. opinion that both the group and I having in keeping up with rising partial substitute for being self- R. T,Massena, N. Y. have been lax. In this day and age of costs, especially of repairs, light, and inflation, I believe it would be of heat. I believe he was embarrassed value for each AA member and each himself when he asked if the group AA group to give serious thought to could possibly give a little more to the Tradition Seven and the power of at- church fund to help offset rising traction it brings forth for our costs. I do not know what other or- Fellowship. ganizations pay as rental for the privi- For me, the discussion with the lege of meeting in the church, but I pastor was a strong incentive for self- had never before been asked to make inventory. Our talk related to fi- a contribution. Each year, our group nances. I recall mentioning our Tra- has always given a certain amount to ditions several times, and I became a the church, to be able to say that we little embarrassed, especially when were trying to be self-supporting. But speaking of Tradition Seven. our offering was on the lean side. I The pastor was talking about the think we were not truly declining outfinancial problem the church was side contributions. In my discus~ion

2 AA GRAPEVINE, GEPTEMBER 1985

drugs): “I am now an AA among for Al-Anon/Alateen, Cocaine AAs and a NA among NAs, with Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous, home groups and sponsors in both” Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics (Love and Cooperation,” page 40, Anonymous, Overeaters Anony- December 1984 Grapevine). His ap- mous, and Pills Anonymous. This is proach is possible only where there no more of an endorsement than the are meetings that focus on recovery listing of the address of the National from addiction to drugs other than Council on Alcoholism and four alcohol. In the last two years, NA other non-AA organizations in the here has grown from two meetings a Conference-approved pamphlet, week to twenty-five. “The AA Group” (pages 42-43). Here’s how “cooperation but not 4. We had an all-day workshop on affiliation” has been evolving in this the problem, as reported in “Singlemetropolitan area. ness of Purpose,” August 1984 1. Since May 1983, we’ve distributed Grapevine. One topic was: “Should meeting lists for other Twelve Steps AA or AAs help NA or NAs, OA or fellowships to general service repre- OAs, etc.? Why? Why not? How?” sentatives at a district GSR meeting. 5. In February 1984, the GSRs voted 2. Our central office lists the NA hot- to hold their March district GSR line phone number (along with the meeting as an open AA meeting, so numbers for the twenty-four-hour, that nonalcoholic addicts from NA tax-supported detox facilities) on its could come and tell us about their instruction sheet for AAs who volun- growing fellowship and watch how teer to field after-hours Twelfth Step we do things. Normally, our district calls. GSR meeting is,a closed AA meeting. 3. Our district newsletter sometimes 6. Last summer, the public inforhas a section called “For Your Infor- mation chairperson of our intergroup W a healthy answer t o a big problem: How can we maintain our focus on our primary purpose? I ahses I mation” listing the phone numbers was invited by NA to an NA workshop on PI, where she shared her experience. With her approval, an- We can keep our focus on recovery other AA and I gave a PI talk to a from alcoholism by cooperation but housewives’ baby-sitting co-op; imnot affiliation with other fellowships mediately afterward, two NAs gave that use our Twelve Steps, in adapted similar talks. Also during the sumform. mer, with the approval of the nursing Here’s how one “double winner” staff, I gave a fifteen-minute “intro (a member of both AA and Narcotics to AA” to detox patients, and that Anonymous) stays clean and sober was immediately followed by a simwithout expecting AA to broaden its ilar talk by an NA. Both “two for the focus t o include recovery from price of one” experiments were en- “chemical dependence” (alcohol/ thusiastically received.

I

7. In October 1984, we had another you decide whether or not you’re reminding AAs who go to both AA newcomers to help them with the first district workshop. The GSRs had powerless over alcohol.” Then he fo- and Al-Anon meetings that Al-Anon question. The same newcomers may voted to conduct aIl one-hour ses- cused on his drinking and his recov- has a focus entirely different from find it helpful to also attend NA sions as open AA meetings, so that ery from alcoholism. I thought, AA’s. Result: We have an informed meetings to focus on the second ques other fellowships could come and “This is great! He’s helping her with group conscience. tion. When a meeting deals with both “steal what they like.” We invited our First Step. He’s probably helping 9. Last fall, our district PI chair- questions at the same time, every- NA to put on its own separate work- himself with our Fist Step. He’s person, after consulting with the PI thing becomes blurred, and this simshop at the same time and place. The helping the group with the Fist, and CPC committees of our inter- ply enables denial to continue. flyers made it clear that the money Third, and Fifth Traditions. group, distributed AA literature to “Shoemaker, stick to thy last!” collected at the NA workshop would It was no accident. This group has schools, local newspapers, and crimi- good advice when Bill wrote Twelve go to NA and the money collected at “surprise” Tradition meetings dur- nal lawyers, while NA’s chairperson Steps and Twelve Traditions in 1952, the AA workshops would go to AA. ing the week before regularly sched- distributed NA literature. Care was good advice in 1985, and good advice We invited other fellowships to dis- uled group conscience meetings. We taken to emphasize that, although the on into the twenty-first century. play and sell their literature at a s e p pass the Big Book around and take two fellowships can work together, Today, more and more newcomers arate table. The signs for AA work- turns reading the long form of the they are separate. There were separ- come to us from treatment centers shops and literature were red, and Traditions. The chairperson may ask, ate packets of literature and different and courts, with preset ideas about those for NA’s workshop and liter- “Which of these Traditions has been call-back phone numbers for more AA. One response is to do nothing. ature were white. The literature signs important to you so far and why?” information. Other phases of our Result: a slow but steady broadening for the other fellowships were also of Even newcomers join in, usually to district PI-CPC working plan deal of our focus from recovery from aldifferent colors. About 150 people say that they like anonymity or the with similar approaches to churches coholism to recovery from “chemical came. At our workshop “AA in Pris- Third Tradition. On the tables at and physicians. dependence.” Or we can learn from ons,” we talked about a joint AA- which people sit, we have the Confer- 10. Last November, the GSRs again history. Starting in Baltimore around NA meeting in a federal institution ence-approved pamphlets “Problems voted to conduct their next GSR 1840, 100,000 alcoholics sobered up here. It was suggested that if the war- Other than Alcohol” and “The AA meeting as an open AA meeting, be- by “one drunk talking to another” den insists on only one hour and one Group,” which both make it clear cause several of the twenty-five peo- through the spiritual program of the room for both problems, we have a that only alcoholics are members of ple from other fellowships who came Washingtonian Society. Unfortuhalf-hour open AA meeting using the Alcoholics Anonymous. “The AA to the October workshop had ex- nately, they had no Traditions and book Alcoholics Anonymous, fol- Group” also makes it clear that pressed interest in learning how we do broadened their focus from recovery lowed immediately by a half-hour closed AA meetings are for alcoholics things. from alcoholism to other concerns, NA meeting using Narcotics Anony- only, that nonalcoholics should not Why are these experiences worth including opposition to drinking by mous, splitting any collection fifty- be officers of AA groups, and that, sharing? By the turn of the century, it anyone. By 1848, the society had fallfifty. while special-purpose groups such as is possible that most AAs will be en apart. 8. Shortly after the workshop, a young people’s are okay, dual-pur- dually addicted. Newcomers who are We need to remember that our foyoung woman introduced herself at a pose meetings, such as alcohol-and- “double winners” in the year 2000 cus is on trying “to w r y this message closed AA meeting, saying, “I know pill meetings, are not listed in AA will need, just as much as they do in to alcoholics.” We help ourselves by I’m a drug addict, but I’m not sure directories, because of the Fifth Tra- 1985, to find their own, gut-level an- sharing with other Twelve Steps felwhether or not I’m an alcoholic.” dition. On a separate table, we have swers to two questions: “Can I lowships our experience with Steps The chairperson said, “Welcome the latest NA meeting schedule and drink?” and “Can I drug?” (If Two through Eleven, the Traditions, to AA. I had quite a problem with “The Al-Anon Focus” (formerly they’re honest, they’ll probably an- and the Concepts – cooperation but other drugs, too, but no amount of called “Double Winners”), an excel- swer: “No!” and “No! “) Alcoholics not affiliation. talk about other drugs is going to help lent pamphlet put out by Al-Anon, Anonymous will always owe it to our Anonymous, Denver, Colo.

AA Grapevine, October 1985

dues t o pay, no bosses in AA, no af- speech to them that wein A4 treasure filiation with outside groups, no today. The Oxford Group, which membership requirement except a de- sobered up Ebby T. to carry a messire to stop drinking – all to make sage to our co-founder Bill W., is our newcomer feel comfortable and gone. Buchmanism, named for Frank protected. We talk Traditions to our Buchman, who started the Oxford people in AA long before we broach Group, turned into Moral Rearmthe sensitive subjects in the Steps. ament; both are gone. Who is to say We think AA will be around for- that AA won’t have a similar obituever, but we have nothing to prove it ary in some article about alcoholism – no AA buildings, towers, or mon- treatment in the year 2085 AD? “Traditions”isrft uments. We are no more permanent than the length of our office lease and Some groups have Tradition meetings. Formats vary. Two groups that reallv a dirtv word the one year’s prudent reserve in our we know of read and discuss a Tradi- treasury. Our groups are month-to- tion once a month. Another group N OBODY WANTS to talk about the Traditions. “We don’t want to hear about all the politics stuff! Let’s month tenants in churches and meeting halls. The clubhouses are not allied with AA; there, the groups rent reads the AA pamphlet, “The Twelve Traditions Illustrated” and discusses them during the meetings in Novemtalk recovery program! ” meeting space only. The groups ber, Traditions month. Another Really? aren’t well organized, have no bylaws group puts on the Traditions play What do we talk about when we or charters. Officers are elected for (copies available through the AA take a newcomer to a meeting? We terns from six months to two years General Service Office), which gives a sure don’t talk recovery program! and resign at will. Meeting formats hilarious look at the results of break- Can you visualize a newcomer sitting, are loose and mostly unstructured. ing the Traditions and opens the door shaking, worried, fearful in the front No policing force exists to make to discussion and understanding by seat of the car riding to his or her first members conform to any rules or reg- the members. meeting? ulations. One longtime member of a group The AA sponsor announces, AA does have a service structure, summed it all up when he said, “You “We’re going t o help you recover but it is an upside-down pyramid, know, I voted against these Tradition from your alcoholism with this with the groups in charge over the meetings. And I refused to comment Twelve Step program. First, you’ll board of trustees. With groups as during the discussion. But I have to admit you’re powerless. Then, you’ll loosely designed as they are, one is admit that now we are doing the Trasurrender to God, take a moral inven- tempted to think about comparison ditions, I’m beginning to enjoy it!” tory, and confess your faults. ” to the strength of a chain. If AA is as It’s simple. The newcomer fumbles for the strong as its weakest group – just Informed members in AA will tell door handle. “Surrender t o God? how well is AA equipped to survive? you that if groups follow the Tradi- Confess my faults? Are you people What ever happened to the Wash- tions, AA will survive and grow and, some kind of religious nuts? Let me ingtonian Society? In pre-Civil War for a long time to come, continue to out of here!” days, they claimed half a million carry the message to the alcohoiic No, the AA sponsor talks sooth- members who helped sober up other who still suffers. ingly about things like anonymity, no drunks. Abraham Lincoln gave a N. A., Wenonah,N.J.

AA Grapevine, November 1985

‘ thk Spcritual *e*

Foundation’ During the Sunday morning meeting at the International Convention, the Fellowship reaffirmed the spirit of anonymity as Bill 3 last message was read “My dear friends, Recently an AA member sent me which we are capable; on the practian unusual greeting which I would cal level, anonymity has brought prolike to extend to you. He told me it tection for the newcomer, respect and was an ancient Arabian salutation. support of the world outside, and se- Perhaps we have no Arabian groups, curity from those of us who would but it still seems a fitting expression use AA for sick and selfish purof how I feel for each of you. It says, poses. ‘I salute you and thank you for your AA must and will continue to life.’ change with the passing years. We My thoughts are much occupied cannot, nor should we, turn back the these days with gratitude to our Fel- clock. However, I deeply believe that lowship and for the myriad blessings the principle of anonymity must rebestowed upon us by God’s Grace. main our primary and enduring safe- If 1 were asked which of these guard. As long as we accept our blessings I felt was most responsible sobriety in our traditional spirit of for our growth as a fellowship and anonymity we will continue to receive most vital to our continuity, I would God’s Grace. sa:; the ‘Concept of Anonymity.’ And so – once more, !salute you Anonymity has two attributes es- in that spirit and again I thank you sential to our individual and collec- for your lives. tive survival; the spiritual and the May God bless us all now, and forpractical. ever. On the spiritual level, anonymity Ever Yours, demands the greatest discipline of Bill” Reprinted with permission of AA World Service., Inc.

r

AA GRAPEVINE, NOVEMBER 1985

Our T HERE IS a Fifth Tradition group within our group. We think it helps to examine our group con- “group within the group” informed of all prospects that come to us through intergroup, local phone exscience every once in a while, espe- change, members of the clergy, or

Primary Purpose cially that part of our conscience which could tell us whether or not we are properly performing our primary purpose. that just come to our open meetings seeking information for themselves. We don’t hound or chase after those who don’t want us, but there are You will remember that Tradition probably some who need just a little Five reads: “Each group has but one more encouragement. primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.” That seems to place a re- “Thy are mere4 sponsibility on a group, over and beyond the responsibility of the indi- watchina in the vidual who might meet with or sponsor a suffering alcoholic. There have bac&&nd so that been at least a few occasions when one of us, after visiting certain prospects once or twice, decide that they are “not ready” or “too far gone” or “unwilling to stop,” and then our p’t*mavproceed to forget them, despite the fact that the suffering alcoholics pwpose-to he& approached the group for help. all who corn to Our little Fifth Tradition group (made up of four or five new and old members) tries to keep track of such -~ ~ – – ~

prospects and may suggest that an- Also, our small group extends its other member – closer perhaps be- interest to those who are new in AA, cause of neighborhood, vocation, or to those who seem to have a little difage group – give this still-suffering ficulty in stopping, and even to those alcoholic an occasional phone call or around for a while who haven’t suggest a pickup for a meeting that picked up any group activity or made might have some special mutual inter- any firm friendships. Often, this est. Sometimes it works. At least, it group will suggest that one of us bemakes us feel that we are giving this come a “friend” to such people. We alcoholic another chance, perhaps in don’t appoint sponsors for the newrecognition of the multitude of other comer, because we believe that each chances given each of us. one has the personal privilege of se- We ask our members to keep this lecting a sponsor, but many times

‘ these “friends” can make newcomers our guest speakers at open meetings feel more welcome and help them bet- and see to it that they know we appreter understand what is going on. We ciate their visit. They keep their eyes don’t spy or pry or try to find out open for any new faces indicating when they had their last drink; we that another suffering alcoholic is just want to be sure they know we are seeking help, and they try to neglect interested and eager to help when no one. asked. In fact, they are doing what prob- Our Fifth Tradition group meets ably all of us want to do, yet so often occasionally to review the group overlook. They are not relieving us of membership and remind others that our individualresponsibility nor stopsomeone has been around for a few ping any of us from being as active as months and may be ready to talk at we want to be. They are merely watchan open meeting or lead a closed ing in the background so that we as a meeting. They often suggest that a group will be ever mindful of our primember might be helped by being en- mary purpose -to help all who come couraged to get into a new group to us for help. Someone at some time activity, or that someone getting close helped each of us. We want to be sure to an anniversary should be given a that no one will continue to suffer chance to decide whether to celebrate just because we forgot! at an open meeting. They also greet Anonymous

AA G R A P E V I N E , MARCH 1986

coholic. 1 don’t tell him he doesn’t cals a year or two before I remembelong. I try to smile and invite him bered about the pills, even though to keep coming back. One man I they had almost killed me on three Searching for a New know came to meetings drunk for two years before he finally got sober. separate occasions. Now I sponsor a man who calls himself a “substance abuser.” 1don’t Group Conscience Five and a half years ago, when I got sober myself, I was a functioning, periodic, high-class, professionaltype drunk. Curiously, I was quickly know where he heard these words; they do grate a little. But I suspect the day will come when he calls himself able to identify with the man from an alcoholic. His illness seems the skid row, the narcotic addict fresh same as mine as far as I can tell. His

I t seems to me that the Fellowship is searching for a new group conscience about the problem of admitspeaks specifically of alcoholism and a desire to stop drinking, as do our Traditions. In my area, sobriety out of state prison, and my daughter’s contemporaries who were addicted to heaven knows what. I was told skin is black; mine is white. The difference in our illnesses is as unimportant as the difference in the color of ting new people into closed AA meet- means freedom from alcohol and all to look for the similarities rather than our skins, but this is just my feeling. ings who call themselves “nonalco- other mind-altering chemicals. the differences in our stories, and I I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I holic addicts.” This is as it should be. Today, I don’t pay a lot of atten- found that the differences had more love being sober. For me, the only cri- Our knowledge of ourselves and our tion to the newcomer who .- stoutlv …. to do with age and life-style … than with terion for belonging in a closed meetrelationship with each other and with maintains for a year or two that he is the true nature of our illnesses. ing of AA is whether a person wants our Higher Power should grow and a drug addict and not an aicoholic. A In fact, by looking at these simi- to be there or not. 1 don’t think it change from time to time, and what lot of them find out after a time that larities I realized that I too was dually threatens my sobriety or the future of was true five or ten or forty years ago they are indeed alcoholic. It is like the addicted. At one time or another I Alcoholics Anonymous if I simply try may not be true today. drunk who wanders into my closed have been addicted to just about any- to welcome whoever comes, love Our Preamble tells us that our pri- AA meeting and stoutly maintains thing I could put in my mouth, but I him, help him, and invite him to keep didn’t know that .at .first. I. was .sober . coming back. mary purpose is to stay sober. It also – while that he isn’t alfor the longest .

and free from mind-altering cheml- B. B., Long Beach, CaliJ.

AA GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1986

town in downtown Denver at noon AAs will be predominantly dually on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, addicted people.” But AA is not and Friday. about numbers, being all things to all Our group, like the rest of AA, is people, increased subscription rates hurting from the drug and pill for the Grapevine, or increased concontroversy. Today we talked about tributions to GSO. Each group has the First Tradition, and that issue bur one primary purpose – to carry came up. There are three viewpoints its message to the alcoholic who within our group, as there are, I still suffers.

ADDICTIONS think, in AA: 1. Right wing – “I don’t want to hear a @&*! thing about your *a#$! drug problem at an AA meet- There are indeed more dually addicted people at AA meetings. They should be welcomed. The focus of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting The following six articles highlight a ing!” These people have already should remain alcohol. There are so much-discussed subject, with the hope that begun to “go underground” and many dually addicted people today ‘:the time for coming to rest on this issue is finally at hand.” have a few by-invitation-only meet- that they should be able to start plenings which are not listed in the local ty of NA or PA meetings to focus on meeting schedule. drugs and pills, so that the nonalco- 2. Center – “Feel free to mention Whose Turf drugs and pills in connection with your drinking, but please focus on our common problem – the first holic drug addict has a place to help him recover, too. In Denver, this didn’t start happening until two or

AreWe On? drink, and on our common solution, a power greater than ourselves. AA has a different focus from Al-Anon, three years ago. Fortunately, there are now more than forty NA meetings a week in the Denver area. Today’s meeting, however, made T he noon closed discussion meeting I went to today is a good example of some of the confusion whites, Spanish-Americans, gays, straights, dually addicted and “boozers-only,” professionals, skid-row NA, EA, PA, GA, etc.” 3. Left wing – “AA must change. Alcoholism and drug addiction are me sad. Some of the right-wingers expressed so much anger and venom about people talking about their !$*$ within the Fellowship. Our group types, etc. It isn’t a perfect group, but the same problem. People should feel drug problems at AA meetings that meets four times a week in the heart it’s been getting better and better. free to talk about drugs and pills as some of the dually addicted newof the downtown Denver business More and more members are talking much as they want to at AA meet- comers were quite shaken. We have a district; three meetings are closed, about the Steps, sponsorship, and the ings.” Many who hold this viewpoint group conscience meeting next Wedone is open. Traditions; more and more are focus- are alumni of one of our local treat- nesday and, frankly, I fear that the We have from ten to forty people ing on the reason why’ we need to ment centers. left-wingers will show that “No one , at our meetings, which are all discussion meetings. We have one regular member who hasn’t had a drink in “keep comin’ back.” Our group is quite a melting pot of approaches to the program – every- 1 believe I am in the center on this question. Some feel that “God will can run us out!” by “packing” the group conscience with dually addicted people who don’t usually come. rake care of AA and the problem will eighteen years, a dozen with over five thing from “just don’t drink and go take care of itself.” I think this usual- Meanwhile, those of us in the midyears of sobriety, and plenty of peo- to meetings,” to “spiritual thugs” ly really means “I can’t handle con- dle wonder what will become of our ple with less than five years. We have who try to cram the Big Book down troversy, and when the right wing in group, and of AA in general. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, blacks, others’ throats. It’s the only game in AA dies off, the new generation of Anonymous, Denver, Colo.

”~ “

AA GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1986

– –pose of every AA group is to carry its The texture of the AA community message to the alcoholic who still suf- was slowly drifting from a clear at-

Another Vision forYou fers. As AA groups try to carry their message to anyone else, that atmosphere of identification for the alcomosphere of identification for the alcoholic, and the texture of those isolated NA groups was remaining holic is weakened. If an alcoholic pretty static. I am not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I am among the millions of people who owe our lives I am a drug addict who came to AA in 1978 looking for help. When the suggestion that I go to AA to walks into an AA meeting and encounters a discussion among junkies, gamblers, overeaten, or whatever, With the eighties came a vast change in that scenario. More and more recovering addicts began to to the Twelve Steps of recovery. Bill address my drug problem was first that alcoholic may just miss his shot turn our attention to the developing W.’s vision of other societies similar put to me I was puzzled. “My prob- at the miracle. I slowly became more Fellowship of NA. We got busy writto AA forming to address problems lem is this other drug. Why would I and more aware that I was the out- ing literature, developing our services other than alcoholism is very much a go to AA?” It was explained to me sider in AA; that old-timer who got at every level, refining our own thinkreality today. Thanks to the inspira- that AA is what works, and no one irritated when I shared about my ing and language for our own printion and vision of your co-founders, could kick me out. No one has the drug use was on his home ground, ciples of recovery. We had learned I and the current generosity of your authority to do that. “Just substitute and I was straining his Traditions. It so much from our forerunners in Fellowship in sharing its experience, a alcohol for your drug,” I was told, has been a tough issue for us all. AA, and now we were breaking some few of these other Fellowships are be- “and it will work.” But what were the AA people to do new ground. coming strong, well-developed pro- I did that. I went to AA for a peri- in 1978? Throw us out? Even if that It has been an exciting period of grams of recovery, with a network of od of about four years. I learned the were possible in AA, who had the new hope for the addict who still suflocal and world services, hotlines, lit- “passwords” that would not offend heart? “What would the Master fers. And ironiqlly, maybe it is an’ erature, old-timers, service centers the old-timers, and I made a place for do?” it says in the “Twelve and exciting period of renewed hope for employing special workers – all the myself in your Fellowship. I was also Twelve.” Where would we go? Most the alcoholic who still suffers too. By necessary ingredients. introduced to Narcotics Anonymous of our NA groups were not part of a going exclusively to NA, doing my As a member of one of those other from the very beginning, but in 1978 worldwide structure that could sus- service in NA, growing in my under- Fellowships, I’m writing to the NA had very little literature, no old- tain us in recovery. In many places, standing of the NA message, I have Grqpevine as an outside writer, but timers locally to serve as sponsors, no the compromise measure seems to left the AA groups just a little freer to the issue I’m addressing is not an out- network of services for its groups. I have been to just overlook the issue as focus on their own primary purpose. side issue. I’m writing about addicts went to that NA meeting to identify best as We could and go on about our That is not personal. It’s, sound attending AA meetings – perhaps an more fully and share more fully, and recovery. And the wisdom of the co- principle. issue that most of us are tired of I went to AA for the substance of re- founder has been borne out again. Today NA is thriving. We have our dealing with-but one whose solution covery. Those were the realities of be- Many AA groups have become a mix own basic text, and we’re in the later is finally at hand. After years of in- ing a recovering drug addict in the of alcoholics and people addicted to stages of producing a book on our ternal controversy in AA (and in fel- upper Midwest in the late seventies. other drugs, and many of those NA Steps and Traditions. We are experilowships modeled after AA), just As I stayed around and observed groups’ growth has been stunted. encing the kind of booming growth maybe we’re at a place where the tur- both Fellowships closely, I could not They were not seriously regarded as that AA experienced in the forties. moil can stop. The solution envi- miss the great dilemma that was part of a separate Fellowship capable Our world services are coming tosioned by Bill W., articulated in your brewing about us addicts in AA. I did of sustaining recovery. The service of gether in a way that can only be atpamphlet Problems Other Than Al- not take this problem personally, be- recovering addicts went into AA ser- tributed to a loving God, expressing cohol, can finally be implemented cause 1 read the words of Bill W. and vices. As addicts got some time in re- himself in our group conscience. It with confidence. they made sense. The primary pur- covery, they became AA sponsors. has been a time of the joy and pain of

rapid growth for us, and we expect days of worrying that addicts are just this growth rate to continue for some being kicked out into the street are time to come. over. Many addicts are pointed in our 1 guess I’m really saying a number direction by AA groups adhering to of things. First, thank you AA, for their own primary p u h s e . A fast your wisdom in taking the stand that friendship, based on “cooperation, you can best help the addict not by al- not affiliation,” is cropping up belowing us to become members, but by tween us everywhere. offering us the model of your pro- It goes without saying that these gram and inspiring us to build our words are one member’s views – I do own. Even though the realities of life not speak for my Fellowship any have sometimes forced us all to com- more than these other articles speak promise that, your Conference and for yours. But let’s all look at these your written word never lost per- issues now from the vantage point of spective. That vision is now bear- our best spiritual vision of the future. ing fruit. I also want to assure you The time for coming to rest on this that strong, stable, long-term recov- issue is finally at hand. ery is available today in NA, so the R. H.,Northridge, Calif.

A A GRAPEVINE, March 1986 I have a large population or to help each other? Do our egos suffer be-, Should aWindow Washer cause we cannot draw large crowds? Isn’t “I know how you feel” and

I s the AA membership forgetting its singleness of purpose? No! However, I do feel that there is a large juana, take nonprescription drugs, and firmly believe they’re sober. Those of us who are alcoholics canestablishing trust with a person more important than how many people you say it in front of? group of members who are purposely not convince them they are not sober. We know that other groups such as choosing to ignore it. Why? Because we haven’t been there. Overeaten, Narcotics, and Gamblers We now seem to have many who Here again, the key to helping others Anonymous are successful using the firmly believe that our principles can is identity. principles of AA. Why is it, then, that solve the problems of almost anyone; I sponsor a dually addicted mem- we refuse to refer, or indeed, take those who say, “an addiction is an ber, but we talk only about recovery newcomers to these groups? False addiction,” that “sticking a needle from alcoholism. He has someone pride? That little part of our brain between your toes or in your arm and else to talk to about the other drugs. I that says, “Aw, go on. Armed with drinking your drug from a bottle are can’t help him in that area because I the principles and Steps of AA, we the same.” have no such experience. The Big can cure anything. A dirty needle is We have groups that are allowing Book says we share our experience, the same as a dirty bottle.” drug addicts, overeaten, and almost strength, and hope. It doesn’t say we People go to colleges and universianyone to sit and participate in closed give our opinion. ties for years trying to understand meetings. A closed meeting is closed by defi- the alcoholic and fail. And we, just We have “doctors” in AA prescrib- nition: for alcoholics only. I have because we’re sober, pretend to uning medicine and worse yet, advising been told that if we don’t let drug or derstand all other addictions. new members not to take prescription food addicts stay, “We might lose In summary, let me try to emmedication. A few short twenty-four them.” What do we mean by “lose” phasize that these are my feelings, hours ago we couldn’t even help our- them? Did we ever “have” them in maybe not anyone else’s. I voice them selves, and now we can heal all. the first place? And what of the because I have wanted to for some The key to recovery for the alco- alcoholic who can’t relate and may time now. holic is the ability to communicate never come back? Dually addicted people are weland relate to another alcoholic. What is wrong with taking a group come in any open meeting. They are Nowhere in AA history or in current conscience to open the meeting to welcome in closed meetings if one of literature can I find where it says that, make sure that everyone is comfort- their addictions is alcohol. We have upon recovery, we will suddenly able. If this fails, cannot a member too many alcoholics out there who become all things to all people. In take the nonalcoholic for coffee and are dying. Let us try ever harder to fact, all our literature points out that have a “meeting”? After all, how help these people, and let the ones deviating from our primary purpose many members does it take to have a that have the “experience” try to help will divide our Fellowship and meeting? Cannot a dually addicted the others. Let’s put our egos aside destroy our unity, without which we member start an NA or overeaten and strive to help the still-suffering cannot survive. meeting? “No!” someone will say, alcoholic. As our history proves, this There are those who come to us “only he or she and I will come.” But is the only thing we know how to do. and stop drinking, still smoke mari- what is the purpose of a meeting – to B. F., Fountain, Colo.

March

that disclosure of AA membership in A nonyrnity is a positive force, the glue that holds Alcoholics Anonymous together. Anonymity tried AA. Some are sober and others, although dry, are not going to meet- “I respect the spin’twl our private lives will do more to dispel the stigma of being an alcoholic gives me the freedom to be just a ings. Some are still “out there.” The second point concerns the essence ofanonymity than going full face on TV will. As a member of AA I can only member of a group, an alcoholic sharing with others the nature (spirit) public level. I have refused to go on national TV because the producer at the ptrblic [evel, share what drinking did to me and what AA has done for me. I have a of my disease, and recovery from it, would not guarantee anonymity as I but am always m’lliy responsibility as an AA member to without concern for status, finances, perceive it. On TV newscasts I have foster this Fellowship, and to pass it or many of the pitfalls that abound in used my voice in the background for at any other time on in at least as good a condition as it other organizations. Two things about anonymity are pictures of coffee cups, hands pouring coffee, etc., and I have spoken at and place to pms found me. To me, the whole program is a spirvitally important to me. One is that personally I am free to tell people that many public information meetings. on to others the itual entity vibrating throughout the But there is no question in my world, unfettered by theological ter- I am an AA member if it may serve a mind, contrary to the feelings held by minology, language barriers, and purpose in helping someone who has some other AAs, that going full face geographical boundaries. It has re- And whatabout my ego if I go full newed my life and for nearly twenty face. on TV? I’d be looking around years has been my leading interest.

N1ot lust a -.~. –

for a place to buy a tape of the show, Through its power, living has been or even better get a freebie. Better for made manageable. In return I respect me and my sobriety to let that one the spiritual essence of anonymity at alone. Better for AA if we let the spir- the public level, but am always willing 8 itual principles of our Fellowship be at any other time and place to pass on discussed freely by anonymous mem- to others the message of recovery-so bers. Personal contact from an AA hard won by our founders, and so . member is still the most effective way freely given to me. L of attracting alcoholics, and I believe R. H., Hollis, N.Y. a problem with alcohol, whether it is on TV, even though using the term the alcoholic or someone close to the “recovered alcoholic,” is not being alcoholic. Granted, it was perhaps a anonymous. There are many who bit too soon, only a month after en- have commented after one of our tering AA, to burble on to our minis- well-meaning friends has gone full ter that I was ready for any alcoholics face on TV as a recovered alcoholic, he might know. Fortunately, for me, “Oh, I see so and so is in AA,” and and any reflection on AA, sobriety when I ask, “Did he say that or did he stayed with me. There’s an inner say he was a recovered alcoholic?” voice that tells me, sometimes after the response has been, “Well, you the fact, whether the disclosure was know, that’s just a technicality.” really to help or was an ego trip on my Can we be technical about the spirpart. Gratefully, since then, several itual foundation of the program? In members of our church group have my mind the answer is “no.”

)< – A A GRAPEVINE, A P R I L 1986

You’n I being together has also sires and wants must take a back seat made my recovery through the in AA affairs. Many times this was a Twelve Steps much easier. With an difficult rule to live by. But all I needego like mine, admitting to another ed to d o was think of the alternative. human being the exact nature of my Desperately, desperately, I didn’t want wrongs is laughable. But you told me to go back to that kind of a life. that you did it. Because of the love Once You’n I have achieved a modiand respect I’ve developed for you, I cum of sobriety we are entitled to cerdid it too, with your help. tain rights: the right to live in dignity, The first words in the long form of the right to make choices in our lives. the First Tradition are: “The unity of and the right to all the freedoms that Alcoholics Anonymous is the most God has given us. The only requirecherished quality our Society has. ment for keeping all these gifts is that Our lives, the lives of all to come, we never forget where they came from. depend squarely upon it. We stay Before turning in tonight, I will get whole, or AA dies.” Principally, we out those Twelve Traditions and read are still talking about You’n 1 and them again. I will think of them in I got sober on the Twelve Tradi- Our Fellowship is so big today. We tions of AA and, for more than sometimes lose sight of our own inseventeen years now, I have stayed dividual importance to each other. I that one other member. For most of my life I was completely self-centered. The world revolved terms of just the three of us and how they hold us together. That’s what they are designed for, to keep the sober on those Traditions. When I go to meetings to meet with you. I go around me and a whiskey bottle. It three of us together. For if the three say that at a meeting all my friends to AA conventions, not to glory in was explained to me that I played of us can stay together, then the enraise their eyebrows. seeing a thousand or more sober only a small part in a big show; that I tire Fellowship of AA will surely stay This is not such an unusual state- drunks sitting together in a grand could survive just as long as I re- together. ment to make when you think about hall. I go there to meet with you – to membered this. My own personal de- J. M.,Indiana, Pa. it. Most of us got sober on the First laugh with you and cry with you, to Tradition. What are the last seven remember with you and to talk about words? “Personal recovery depends our recovery and how wonderful life upon AA unity.” And what do we is. That’s why You’n I like to be mean by “unity”? My Webster’s dic- together. tionary uses about one hundred words When 1 read the Traditions, I to explain unity. But any sober mem- sometimes forget about the General ber of AA can tell you that the sim- Service Office, worldwide service, my plest definition of unity is the first district, the intergroup, and all those three letters of that word, U-N-I. other good things. It helps me to You’n 1 together can do what neither think about You’n I and one other of us could do separately. It was only member, just the three of us staying after I met you that I found hope for sober together. When I do that it is my life. Today I realize I can only easy for me to see how each of the keep this sobriety as long as You’n I Traditions is necessary to keep us can stay together. toget her.

— Y – ). AA GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1986 I for alcoholics only – and that there meeting, and then discovering that was an open meeting later that night the only group meeting that night is if they wanted to return. With a per- restricted to nonsmoking, black, gay, plexed look, they turned and slowly female, Spanish-speaking alcoholics. left the room. I don’t know if they No one denies it is the right of any ever came back to the second meet- two or more alcoholics, meeting for I ing. I can only hope they did. the purpose of mutual sobriety and The juxtaposition of these two in- having no other group affiliation, to cidents involving eligibility to attend call themselves an AA group, and meetings set me thinking and brought within reason, to limit membership as to the surface some thoughts I’ve had they see fit. But if our primary purfor some time. I understand the pur- pose is “to help the alcoholic who still pose of closed meetings, and I value suffers,” I wonder if we ought not the discussion that can take place consider very carefully the proliferaunder circumstances that might be tion of so many, in effect, specialty inhibiting if nonalcoholics were pres- alcoholics. ent. But I wonder if perhaps the non- I have rarely, if ever, met an alcoalcoholic young woman (apparently holic who couldn’t help me stay a

“standing by her man” – a boy- \Jfornia. I attended a meeting friend? a brother? a husband? a sober. Such helpful fellow sufferers come in all genders, Ages, colors, near where 1 was staying, which was the language may be a little rough, neighbor?) might not have been invit- sexual orientations, and degrees of clearly marked (if you understood the but please don’t go.” ed to stay for the First Step meeting, experience. I would miss the presence “code” in the area directory) as The young woman calmed her em- with the understanding that partici- of any of them – they remind me a closed meeting for men only. barrassment, returned, and took a pation in that meeting would (as that alcoholism is an “equal-oppor- Although most of the members of the seat. She didn’t comment and she always) be voluntary? tunity disease” and that my problem group obviously knew each other didn’t stay very long after the meet- I also understand the purpose of is alcoholism. That is something I . well and there was a sense of being in ing, but she probably stayed sober for men only, women only, and similar occasionally tend to forget. the locker room of an exclusive coun- another twenty-four hours. groups. It is often easier both to I was proud of that men’s grpup in try club, I was warmly welcomed – A few weeks later, I was at a meet- develop a sense of comradery and to California for being willing to reach but, of course, although a stranger, I ing of my home group, a closed dis- reveal one’s problems and one’s tur- out to someone whose need for a was male. cussion meeting, as identified in our moil when no complicating sexual meeting exceeded her ability to Just as the meeting was getting un- local directory. Just as the meeting issues are likely to arise. But I note an decipher directory codes. And I derway, a young woman dashed in, was getting started, a young couple increase in the percentage of meetings confess to being slightly ashamed of did a double- or triple-take, blushed, came in. The young man was attend- listed in our local area directory my home group for insisting on the and started to back out the door, ing his first meeting, and a First Step which are in some way restricted: letter of the law when a creative way mumbling something about “I must table was hastily assembled. The groups for men, groups for women, around it was possible. Sometimes we have come to the wrong place. . .” young woman with him (who just groups for gays, groups for non- may need to ask whether or not we The chairman, without a moment’s moments earlier had found herself smokers only and lately, for example, ought to place directory code . hesitation, got up, walked toward “volunteered” to read the Steps) groups for nonsmoking women. wording before reaching out to those her, and said, “If you’re an dcohol- turned out not to be an alcoholic. My nightmare is of being in a in need. ic, you’re welcome. This is supposed Rather abruptly, the couple was strange city some evening, needing a R. W.,Berea, Ohio to be a men’s meeting, and some of told that this was a closed meeting –

I AA Grapevine, Segteniber 1986 ticing anonymity at the public level, the newcomer – and all of us we are ~rotectedfrom the egocentric from prejudice, and enables us to individial who would not hesitate to assure the still suffering alcoholic that interpret the Fellowship for all of us he or she is safe with us. – and straighten out all of us. Easily In view of these important considerations, then, why do we need public information? Why not just keep quiet tion of self-government. about our Fellowship? At issue is the fact that far from being a secret society, we need, in Bill W.’s words, “The increasing goodwill of editors, writers and television and radio channels.” Yes, we need to publicize AA but not to publicize AA members. The principle of anonymity reveals to us its “immense spiritual significance,” and teaches us to “practice a genuine humility.” We may then be moved to see that anonvmitv is so much “more than a

A t issue is anonymity as the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions; our great symbol of self-sacnymity is vital to the health of our society. On an annual basis, we request cooperation from the media, and, in At issue, too, is our trendy world, s&nd public relations policy. It is in which some now say AA is respect- more than a denial of self-seeking. It able – even fashionable. We need to is a constant and practical reminder rifice. It protects the individual mem- most cases, they do cooperate. Let’s stay aware of the considerable stigma that personal ambition has no place ber from notoriety, disciplines AA to be careful not to berate the media for that surrounds our disease in the in AA.” May we treasure it with wisplace principles before personalities, reporting what an AA member has minds of many, including the poten- dom, courage, and love. retards the growth of self-appointed told them! Yes, we inform the media, tial AA member. Anonymity shields E. G., Manhattan, N.X oracles, and insures a safe haven for but it is we who must be both humble . – —-newcomers. enough and assertive enough to re- That being said, how then can we main anonymous at the public level. make sure that the media doesn’t At issue, as we all know, is that break the anonymity Traditions? At there is no spokesperson for the Felissue is understanding and helping lowship. Our personal anonymity in other AAs to understand that it is we public assures each the freedom to – not the media -who are responsi- journey along his or her own sober ble for anonymity at the public level. path; to bring an individual perspec- Each month an average of fifteen AA tive to the same truth, to experience members break their anonymity at the precious gift of sobriety fistthe level of press, radio, TV, and hand. AA is a Fellowship in the truest fdm. We must help them to see that sense; we get sober and we stay sober nothing short of 100 percent ano- with the help of our group. By prac-

– —

AA G R A P E V I N ~ , SEPTEMBER 1986

AAh FUTURE alcoholics because they had been sponsor calls “icing on the cake.” I transformed from useless, leaden found my group was interested in becreatures and because they deeply felt ing part of AA as a whole, so I wanted what Bill W. said to be true: “We to be part of AA as a whole. And they OUR RESPONSIBILITY must carry the message, else we our- let me. It has been through service that selves can wither and those who I’ve gotten even a small idea of the haven’t been given the truth may die.” message that is being camed world- The following three articles were originally One of my earliest feelings in sobri- wide. It is through service that my presentations at the 1986 General Service Conference ety was relief in the discovery that at group communicates with other last I had a primary purpose, that groups, my area with other areas, and there could be more to my life than not the General Service Conference with

AreWe Fulfilling drinking. I was given opportunities to our Fellowship around the world. share my experience, and I did so will- Through this communication, we all ingly, perhaps more willingly than I do strengthen each other in fulfilling our

Our Primary ~ur{o;bse? today. Today I get involved in serving primary purpose. the Fellowship in different ways – In a letter written in 1966, Bill W. committee meetings, conferences, said: “The chief purpose of AA is workshops – but are these ways “pri- sobriety. We all realize that without d a y we are asking the same mary”? They assuredly benefit me, sobriety, we have nothing.” Then he question we’ve been asking for but do they benefit the suffering alco- went on, “We are not living just to be nearly fifty-one years and, hopefully, holic? Have I let these ways replace sober; we are living to learn, to serve, will continue to ask for countless direct encounter with the one who and to love.” There is no question in more years: “Are we fulfilling our needs me most? my mind that we have learned and primary purpose?” I think it’s the When I discovered that those help- continue to learn, have served and most important question any of us, ing me declared themselves members continue to serve, have loved and from the newest member of our Fel- of a group, then I wanted to be a continue to love. There is also no lowship to the eldest of the elder member of the group. I found the question in my mind that I do this statesmen, can ask. group to be interested in other alco- imperfectly, that my group does this The very first printing of the Big holics besides me, so I became inter- imperfectly, and that AA as a whole Book contained a foreword with this ested in other alcoholics. I tapped into does this imperfectly. message: “We simply wish to be help- the power of the group to help me Fulfillment of our primary purpose ful to those who are afflicted.” This carry the message. I began to welcome is an individual and a collective renewcomers, to give them my name sponsibility: “Unified we live; disand telephone number, and to try to united we shall perish.” Although we give them some hope rather than my become impatient with our progress, latest resentment or war story. I there is progress. More than once I’ve learned that sobriety was the sole pur- been distracted with counting pose of the group. Is sobriety still the counting members, groups, and console purpose of my group? tributions. I’ve been distracted with When my group held an election to judging – judging commitment of fill service jobs, I discovered what my GSRs and committee members, judg-

ing what I perceive to be a general upan to insure AA’s future. Clearly, lack of interest in some groups in my job henceforth is to let go and let being part of AA as a whole. These God. Alcoholics Anonymous is at distractions are relieved only by the last safe – even from me.” arrival of the newcomer who gives me We have daily reminders of what and gives you the opportunity to ful- we are about -in newspapers, magafill our primary purpose. zines, radio, and television, but main- The newcomer is from an inex- ly in our association with recovering haustible supply, yet each one is of alcoholics. The symbol of our Fellowmonumental importance to us. The ship is a complete triangle enclosed in newcomer isn’t distracted by what a complete circle. So long as we are distracts me. He knows with a deep responsible when anyone, anywhere certainty that he is fulfilling his pri- reaches out for help, we are fulfilling mary purpose – to stay sober and our primary purpose. So long as I do then, later, to stay sober and help and you do what we have been taught other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. to do, then AA as a whole is fulfilling As long as the newcomer fulfills his its primary purpose. We will conprimary purpose, I am sharing in that tinue, so long as it is God’s will, to fulfillment. As long as I am sharing, pass it on. my group, my area, and AA as a H. M.,Bellaire, Tex. whole are sharing in fulfilling our primary purpose. I often need to recall Bill’s thought, put in the present tense: “The conscience of Alcoholics Anonymous as moved by the guidance of God can be depended

Illunratiocnand cover an murtay of A.A.W.S.. Inc.

September 1986

jeopardy. For without AA as Bill W. Sharlng the road and Dr. Bob founded it, I would be I have followed the continuing disdead today. cussion of “what shall we d o with the

YOURMOVE \ I ask my fellow members to stop addicts?” from a number of pertrying to save the world, and let us spectives: as a member of an AA be as sure as we can that our deci- group, as a Grapevine reader, as a sions have one main focus: to ensure group representative to our local centhe survival of the AA Fellowship tral service office intergroup comas a whole. mittee, and as a member of another Today’s controversy is: Should Twelve Step fellowship. The fine Reader responses to the Mazch 1986 %A and Other drug addicts (nonalcoholic) be al- series of articles on this subject in the Addictions” section lowed into closed AA meetings? March 1986 Grapevine goes a long What happens if we decide to adhere way toward development of the in- We received so many reaclons to this seclon that It proved Impos- to our Traditions and say “no”? formed group conscience that Alcodble to select or excerpt brief segments for PO Box 1980 and 5111 do 1) NA will grow; 2) AA will survive. holics Anonymous must have in Juslceto the many thoughtful letten that came In. What happens if we decide to ignore order to move on. Though space does not permit the publlcatlon of every letter, the our Traditions and say “yes”? 1) NA It occurs to me that we in AA faced pages that follow Include the thoughts of nine readers, whose will probably still grow; 2) the the question, “What shall we do with opinions represent as fully as possible the range of responses to the controversy will continue and the them?” in the late 1940s and early mrch section. unity of AA will be lost; 3) years 1950s, and found the answer if we Thls Is your magazine, and onty with your help can the Grapevine down the line, what will prevent an care to see it. Back then, “they” were truly be the Fellowship’s “meetingIn print” and “forum for debate.” If AA member from saying, “Well, our loved ones, the nonalcoholics you have experiences and thoughts to share with fellow AAs, write them out and send them to: MltorlalDepartment,PO Box 1980,Grand back in the ’80s we were able to help around us. From the very beginning, Central Salon, New York, NY 10163-4980. the drug addicts, so why not allow AAs knew “they” were around. people into AA who are addicted to “They” attended our open meeteating, gambling, or whatever? We ings, provided refreshments for our can help them too!” closed meetings, and began to dis- A rlrange chapter stop drinking and stay stopped re- Who is the loser? Not you and I. cover for themselves the positive In response to “Whose Turf Are quires total commitment and empa- For today we have the AA Fellowship effect the Twelve Steps could have in We On?” the time has come to call a thetic peer support. AA is a compas- with the Traditions still intact. The their own lives. The Big Book even spade a spade. Treatment centers for sionate, but not a moderate, outfit. loser will be the still-suffering alco- has a chapter directed to “them” chemical dependency are now part of It is a strange chapter in our history holic. Where will he turn for fellow- (“TO Wives”). the health care delivery system. By when some AAs feel that they are ship tomorrow? Lois W.’s autobiography Lois Rereferral and by van load their clients forced underground to adhere to our So throughout this controversy let members describes how “In the behave increased the size and nature of traditional principles. us never lose sight of the still-suffer- ginning, AA was a family affair. AA meetings. The philosophy that all K G., Largo, Fla. ing alcoholic. Let us make sure that Mates, parents and children attended addictions are the same is repeatedly when he or she hits rock bottom there the meetings, usually held in homes. expressed. who is the losen will be a place to turn for help, as we Many of the wives tried to live by the Dependency is not alcoholism. Ad- The AA Fellowship saved my life. had when we became sick and tired of program themselves and made much diction is not alcoholism. Alcoholism Like many of us, I become scared being sick and tired. progress, but this was in a general is alcoholism. For an alcoholic to when the survival of AA is placed in M. F?, Mt. Clemens, Mich. way only. There was nothing to help

I

that!) my friends at Al-Anon were same respect and joy in each other’s them understand their own reactions as conferences, newsletters, and honest enough to admit that they recovery that AAs and Al-Anons nor to realize how similar these were directories. didn’t know how to get alcoholics have come to know. to the feelings of other AA wives.” At the group level, at least in my sober, but they had seen a miracle A. L., Sherman Oaks. Calif. Family Groups began to spring up area, nonalcoholic Al-Anons don’t called “Alcoholics Anonymous” spontaneously; by 1951 AA General attend closed AA meetings. They work for others. Access to open AA The Illness Is Inside Service knew of at least eighty-seven share at open meetings on rare occa- meetings allowed me to tap into that The debate has gone on recently individuals and groups. Even with the sions (a spouse’s anniversary might miracle for myself. about whether drug addicts should be Twelve Traditions still in their infan- prompt a two-second “thank you” Both programs are a necessary part allowed to attend AA meetings. It cy, both Fellowships recognized the while the candles are being blown of my life today. Sometimes they seems the greatest fear is that in order course to take: Al-Anon should be a out). On the other side of the fence, overlap – I don’t know how to do a to accept such people, AA will be separate society. It could be neither a AAs who launch into drunkalogs at “one-program” Tenth or Eleventh forced to change in a destructive way. “subsidiary” or “auxiliary,” and Al-Anon meetings are asked to re- Step, for example. But the proper I believe AA has already changed, should not use the AA name, since spect the needs of the nonalcoholics place for any overlap is in my rela- and to attempt to resurrect some nosthis would suggest affiliation or en- at the meeting, and to confine their tionship with my Higher Power, talgic image of “pure” AA will only dorsement. Al-Anon was welcome to comments to an Al-Anon point of rather than in a meeting. I have divide and frustrate us all. use AA’s Steps, since the recovery to view. Nearby AA meetings are sug- learned that I need two separate, Over fourteen years ago, a kindly be found in a spiritual way of life was gested if they need to talk about re- healthy, vital programs in order to brother in the program took me to our Higher Power’s gift to anyone covery from alcoholism. live with any degree of comfort. my first meeting. That hot summer who sought it. My own recovery as an alcoholic is I share R. H.’s “Another Vision night I sat among middle-class alco- Over the years since 1951, the two a result of this mutual respect for for You.” Like him, I can speak only holics with hair to my waist, patched Fellowships have “shared the road,” each other’s Traditions. My wife for myself and not for either of the blue jeans, and a beaded fringe pouch usually guided by the principle of found AA and sobriety a year before Fellowships I have come to cherish. I hanging from my belt. I had injected “cooperation, not affiliation.” Both I did. Al-Anon’s message offered me work and pray for the time when NA amphetamines, barbiturates, and AA General Service and Al-Anon hope as the spouse of an alcoholic. and AA can walk the broad highway heroin, taken LSD and marijuana World Service have developed guide- When I found that booze and Twelve of our Higher Power’s love with the almost daily, and – oh, yes, I drank. lines for cooperation in matters such Steps wouldn’t mix (funny about

I knew that aside from TV shows sobriety, and with love for AA. addicted” or “pure” ones – but I ing is but a symptom of deeper-lying depicting Haight-Ashbury, no one in But now the rumblings come – doubly love B. F., Fountain, Colo. problems. that meeting had ever seen anyone should we ask these people to go else- for the article in the March 1986 After admitting myself quite like me. I sat in that AA meet- where? They’ll dilute the Fellowship! Grapevine, “Should a Window to treatment twice, and finally being ing on my hands, and sat in dozens Things will change! Washer Design a Skyscraper?” sent by the law, over a period of . after’ that in the same frightened, It’s too late! lkenty years ago if Our name is self-explanatory – about ten years, I finally realized that confused, and nearly brainless state. AA members were eating Valium or Alcoholics Anonymous. It is that alcohol was not a problem. Alcohol After one year of recovery, the group popping speed, few would challenge simple! Compassion I certainly have for me was a “s0luti0n.” had to assign me a sobriety date be- them. Today I think we’d question for people with problems other than Each time I got ready to do a cause I honestly couldn’t remember their sobriety date! Bill W. experi- alcohol (even us “pure” alcoholics Fourth Step, I would back off. I when I stopped using. mented with LSD, and though I have them), but I fail to see where an couldn’t or wouldn’t admit that I was Some of those people thought I wouldn’t think it was a slip then, I addiction is an addiction is an addic- a human being a d subject to all sorts shouldn’t be there, but a group of sure would in 1986! Today in AA a re- tion. If I have a toothache and an of character defects. Finally, though, old-timers “ran interference” for covering alcoholic is expected to be ingrown toenail, do I take the tooth- I did take the Fourth Step and realme (which I found out later). They free from all mood-altering chemicals ache to a chiropodist and the toenail iz& that my problems were resentweren’t sure I was an alcoholic, but – right? Because we know that the to a dentist? No! Both are aches and ment, anger, jealousy, self-pity, rethey knew I was sick and they feared I illness is not alcohol, the illness is in are painful, but I get treatment for morse, and several others. When one would die if I left the Fellowship. In the person. Drugs and booze weren’t each pain through the proper chan- or more of these bothered me, my that first year those glorious drunks ultimately my problem – I was! nels. So why doesn’t the same apply solution, although temporary, was to spoonfed me AA in small, palatable I fear for these debates, even for different addictions? Please, let’sdrink. Alcohol was my drug of choice. doses. They walked me through though, being dually addicted, I am keep it simple and help the dually From talking to dually addicted much of that year with a compassion “safe” from the person who might addicted people. friends, I have discoverd that the that certainly wasn’t inspired by my ask me to leave an AA table. I am an If they are alcoholic and have a deeper-lying problems are the same. unkempt, disoriented state. alcoholic today because the Fellow- weight, a gambling, a smoking, or a The drug of choice may be different, After a couple of years they gently ship allowed me to find that out – drug problem, welcome them in AA though. addressed my alcohol use, and I was without hitting the streets again. I will for their alcohol problem. Our pri- should we let the people addicted surprised to find the blackouts, the live my entire life with the abiding mary purpose is to help those who to drugs other than alcohol into a unusual tolerance, the loss of control warmth of those old-timers who gave suffer from alcoholism, and our only closed AA meeting? I think so. As – alcoholism! My God, I was both. me a chance, who weren’t frightened requirement for membership is a de- long as they understand our focus And since then I am an addict and an by the ways in which I was different. sire to stop drinking. But please, you will be on alcob~land its related alcoholic at the tables. I am sober and clean today because fat, gambling, pill head alcoholics, problems. I think we need to offer Those wonderful members in my they asked me if I had “a desire to take those other problems where they our hope that there is a solution first year! I am convinced that their stop drinking,” and I said yes, and belong, and we’ll love you and help through NA or whatever Program aPlove, support, and unjudging direction that was enough. As long as I am re- you with your alcoholism. plies. Give the strength from out of built the foundation which has al- covering I will gladly offer the same L. I., Lexington, Ky. our own experience and relate, if we lowed fourteen years of uninterrupt- opportunity to my brother or sister can, to their feelings. Give them any ed sobriety, and a totally new way of who still struggles. Olrr drlnklng was but a symptom information about times and places life for me. I eventually cut my hair, .IB., . YNIanti, Mich. As I understand it, the NA pro- of meetings in other fellowships got a job, got married, and have a gram, as well as others, uses basically which they can attend, and if anyone wonderful family of my own. My Let’s keep It simple the same recovery program as AA. in the group attends those meetings, days are charged with gratitude for I love all alcoholics – “dually We are told through AA that drink- offer a ride.

–

For that I am responsible, and also alcohol. Our Third Tradition makes If there is no one to help the nonal- Though I didn’t agree with all the thankful that I can help. AA an inclusive, not exclusive, or- coholic newcomer, we permit him to opinions expressed, why should I ex- H. B., WhitePigeon, Mich. ganization. Our founders really knew attend the meeting, but not share. We pect “our meeting in print” to be difwhat they were doing. Don’t be quick give him love and information about ferent from any other meeting? Take Honerty Is our ally to change anything in AA. It works! other Twelve Step programs that suit what you need and leave the rest. The opinions stated in the six arti- Remember that despite an increase of his needs, or tell him how to start a The comments in my district, .cles on the subject “AA and Other people with non-alcohol-related meeting for his particular problem – though, have been favorable; those Addictions” are as diverse as the problems, there are still many who in the same way AA got started. articles opened the door of communimembership of AA. And that’s not come to AA with only one problem: AA cannot be all things to all peo- cation. People are talking about the bad – in fact it is a good indication alcohol. ple. But I must be of maximum help Traditions, especially Three and Five, that the lifeblood of AA is alive and I have weathered many storms in to anyone I can. Being secretive helps and gratitude for a program without healthy. An indifferent attitude is the AA during my twelve years of sobri- I no one. stringent membership rules is being attitude which is most damaging to ety, and we in southern California Our future is best served by loving expressed. Thank God AA welcomes the individual or the organization, no have fought this battle longer perhaps care and not by intolerant judgment us with open arms and tolerance until matter what its purpose. than other parts of the country. Our which hurts people. “What would the we come to believe this is where we Those alcohol addicts, drug addicts, experiences may help others. Master do?” belong. I personally need to rememor dually addicted persons who, for The manner in which this problem D. H., Torrance, Calif. ber that closing our doors to someone whatever reason, do not have the ca- is handled at some meetings in our out of fear that his or her addiction is pacity to be honest about themselves area may not be a perfect answer, but Openlng the door the wrong kind might be condemning will drop out of AA eventually, and it is practical and it works. A I applaud the editors of the Grape- that person to his death. Comultimately I will have benefited from statement is read before the meeting vine for having the courage to print municating in the language of the knowing and sharing recovery experi- starts: “This is an open meeting of the issue with the articles on “AA and heart and applying the Twelve Steps ences with them. Alcoholics Anonymous. All are wel- Other Addictions.” This is still a and Twelve Traditions to ourselves My desire is for everyone to experi- come, but we request that only alco- “touchy” subject and it would have has kept AA alive and growing for ence the power of the AA program, holics share.” The dually addicted been the “easier, softer way” just to more than fifty years. May we never but I have learned from painful ex- person can talk about his alcohol avoid it. But, as in my own program, stifle that. perience that I don’t have control problem only. I know I can’t grow in areas I avoid. V. F., Eureka, Kans. over the selection process. I have lis- Should a new person come to the tened to, heard, and accepted the meeting with a problem that is not alwords of wisdom from AA members cohol related, he is directed to those who have achieved sobriety through of us who are dually addicted. We the Twelve Steps, and that wisdom is: can talk his language, and take or di- 1) I should carry the message of re- rect him to another Twelve Step procovery; and 2) I can’t give away what gram where he will find warm accep I ain’t got. tance. Should no other meeting exist D. H., Augusta, Ga. in a particular locale, one can be started then and there. California Stop the war1 leads the world, I think, in the abun- There is a simple answer to the dance of anonymous programs: problem of people who are dually Gamblers, Narcotics, Cocaine, Nicoaddicted or have problems other than tine, and more!

October 1986

any of my own. There was old

What Is Good Will Last I We stood at the door of our home “George,” still going to meetings group welcoming people, we went to every night because, as he put it, “I parties and anniversary meetings, we still have the same disease I had when visited each other’s homes, and our I came here thirty years ago.” wives became friends (his wife be- When I moved after five and one came my wife’s Al-Anon sponsor). 0 n the Saturday night in 1977 when I attended my first AA meeting, I knew I was home. Someyourself.” “Get into the Steps if you want to change.” “Start looking for what you can give, instead of what half years of sobriety and was afraid to leave my “roots,” I found other old-timers in the new city, waiting And John always taught me – not by words, but by his quiet actions. When I was four years sober and a thing in that room told me I was fi- you can take.” On and on and on there to help me, to listen patiently, it went. woman from the non-AA meeting nally where I belonged after thirty-six to guide, to encourage, to straighten next door to our home group asked years of searching for the “some- Everywhere I went there were men me out when I get off the track, when and women who had been sober fif- where she could get some coffee, bething” that was missing in my life. I need assurance, or when I need a pin fore I could give her directions to the After all the years of agony, fear, teen years, twenty-five years, thirty in my inflated ego. They’ve always years and were willing to share their coffee shop, John said, “Come in loneliness, lying (you know the rest), been there. and have some of ours.” And I saw I was finally where I fit. That feeling, experience with me – if I wanted it. One of the most important men in There was “old Albert,” disliked by the difference between four years and and the desperate need to somehow my sobriety has been my best friend, twenty-four years of sobriety. While I stop hurting myself the way I had many but always actively trying to “John.” John had been sober more carry the message to the suffering al- was running around frantically trying been for so long, made me willing to than twenty years when I came to “fix” people, though nobody d o anything I was told to do by the coholic, and willing to let me help by around. We were members of the driving him around. He got me active seemed to want to get fued in the way old-timers. “Ninety meetings in nine- 1 same group, and John decided to be I thought they should, I saw John 1 ,

1 I I I I 1 ty days,” said one. “Go early and and involved. There was my sponsor my friend. He always had a smile for “Bob,” always trying to give of sitting there quietly with people comstick out your hand – say, ‘I’m new me, a friendly handshake, and a way ing to him to ask for advice. Even and I need help,'” said another. “Get himself and help someone, with the of making me feel as if he was really smile on his face and the twinkle in after we had both moved to different a sponsor and use that sponsor,” said glad to see me. I didn’t understand areas, I always knew I could count on a third. “Study the Big Book. Get his eyes that showed the rewards it why a man like John would want to John for help when I needed it. honest – with yourself and with gave him. There was his sponsor, be a friend to a weak, stumbling mess But now John has started backing others.” “Find a home group and get who with more than thirty years of like me, but I grabbed on to his sobriety still went to the prison meet- away from AA. Instead of four or active in it. Make coffee, set up friendship like the drowning man that five meetings a week, he is going to chairs, stand at the door and greet.” ing every Tuesday night. There was I was. We started to run around to- “Jerry,” the beautiful, peaceful man maybe one or two. He isn’t speaking; “Get out of yourself. Find another gether. We went to AA meetings, he isn’t active in a group. He says he alcoholic and try to help him when who always seemed to let me use speaking commitments, to diners and some of his faith when I didn’t have isn’t needed anymore. He says the you’re down and feeling sorry for coffee shops, to intergroup meetings. new people coming into meetings in

his area from treatment centers want alcoholic drug addicts at closed AA to talk about drugs instead of alco- meetings, violation of the Traditions hol, and he doesn’t know anything by some members or groups affdiatabout drugs. He says they want to ing with or endorsing outside entertalk about psychology instead of how prises and treatment centers, breaks to get sober in the old-style AA way of anonymity, etc.). These problems, of one drunk talking to another. He in one form or another, have been says they don’t want to hear what he part of AA’s history from the beginhas to say, or what worked for him, ning, and the principle that “what is and since AA taught him to stop good will last” has always prevailed. fighting the world, he doesn’t want to When I came to AA, forty-two years fight anymore. He’s tired; he feels after it had started, it was still there useless. We talked a lot about it dur- – in its original, unretouched form ing our time together at the Interna- – waiting to help me. I believe that tional Convention in Montreal, and the only real threat to AA (and to me) while we were there I met a lady, is from you old-timers. If you back sober twenty-one years, who felt just away, if you quit being active, if like John. She has started backing you’re not there to show us by your away from the program too. I’ve example, who will preserve the Tradiheard of many others. I’ve also heard tions of AA? Then, most certainly, it of some old-timers who have started will get tangled up in professionalism

private meetings so that they can have and non-AA pursuits. It will lose its the kind of “traditional” .AA they direction; it will die, the way the grew up with and have come to love. Washingtonians died almost a cen- To John, to the lady in Montreal, tury ago. And then I’ll die too. I’ll die to all of you other old-timers, I am drunk because without AA I’m lost. making an urgent plea: Please don’t You owe me better, John. And you leave me. I need you, and many others owe it to the people who were there like me need you, too. We want what for you when you came in, who said you have. We need you here to be an to you when you tried to thank them, example, to share your experience. I “Just be there to pass it along to the don’t believe that the real threat to next guy.” AA comes from outside forces (non- L. P., Westerville, Ohio

q . I

JANUARY 1987 In our Big Book, as well as in AA rules or regulations that discriminate Comes of Age, and in the AA Ser- against anyone, either minorities or vice Manual, the wisdom of the ages majorities. We have no reason to fear teaches us to live in the eternal now. for our future if we truly trust a The spiritual principles these books loving God. As Bill puts it, “We are contain transcend time and are time- democratic in thought and action and less. They are indeed ever old, ever are not obliged to maintain a governnew. Our entire AA program rests ment that enforces conformity by insquarely upon principles of mutual flicting punishment.” We inflict our trust, trust in God and trust in each own punishment by a rejection of our other. I must always remember that AA principles, and sow the seeds of each one of us has the “right of de- our own destruction. cision” to follow the dictates of our “The greatest force for AA unity is own conscience. I must recognize the compelling love upon which our that “there is a power we cannot do principles are founded! ” The nature without, a spiritual power which of love is that it must diffuse itself, it flows from activities and attitudes of must go out to others in order to be truly humble, unselfish and dedicated sustained. Such is AA in action. AAs. This is the real power that Therefore, as Bill again puts it, causes our Fellowship to function.” “We believe that we see in our Fel- The depth of understanding shared lowship a ‘spiritualized’ society charin these books has always amazed me acterized by enough enlightenment, – understanding, not only of the enough responsibility, and enough spiritual principles in the Twelve love of man and God to insure that Steps, the Twelve Traditions, and the our democracy of world service will

A – loha from the Fellowship of Hawaii. The word aloha stands for love so I bring you love. The program of attraction, sharing our experience, strength, and hope, testifying to the goodness and love of our Twelve Concepts, but the understanding of religion, politics, government, psychology, theology, and work under all conditions.” To a man, we of AA believe that our freedom to serve is truly the bottom line of our AA program is the Higher Power. medicine. There is no area of human freedom by which we live, the freegiving and receiving of love, so I have When I was a young boy, my mother activity which is not dealt with in un- dom in which we have our being. been doubly blessed. gave me a copy of a quotation that derstanding the “whole” of the AA Vision is an indispensable ingredi- Courage is required in our recovery has always had deep meaning for me program. We have learned from the ent in our Fellowship and is the “esprogram. I remember reading a para- and which reflects the spiritual values failures of past societies, govern- sence of prudence.” The foresight of graph from The Confessions of St. of the AA program: “Adversity is the ments, and religions. We have been a few brought AA into existence and Augustine in which it was stated, mother of greatness, a foster mother forced to adopt a program which re- solidified its growth. Now it is up to “there shines forth a man of courage who rocks her children roughly to jects those values which the world us, for AA’s future is indeed our rewho will tell of his weakness, if in the athletic proportions. But, greatness outside of these rooms .endorses – sponsibility. We should always be telling, he will reveal to others that lies not in being strong but in the right goals of money, power, and prestige, aware, that like our founders, “Only ancient beauty ever old, ever new, the use of strength, and he is the greatest and a compromising of spiritual values. those who see the invisible, can aclove of God for us and his infinite who lifts up the most hearts by the Love and tolerance of others is our complish the impossible.” mercy.” That is the AA program, a attraction of his own.” code. Hence we have no need for P. W., Honolulu, Hi.

AA GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1987

presiding, someone who is entitled to opinion? Or is some eager beaver try- Wh5tt’s a Group Conscience? give orders, to pass out directives, ing to push through a quick vote beand to speak for the entire organiza- fore the group becomes too well tion. This is not the case with AA. informed? In AA we should be very, Recently one of our members, upon very slow in making ;changes. Except learning that he had been elected in rare cases, there should be no rush. “F or our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority a loving God as He may- exmess * understand him. In the beginning, when I was first sobering up, 1 didn’t like to hear about God. But a strange trustee-at-large for the United States, Third, has the vote been a substanremarked, “I have finally worked tial majority? If we have thirty-one my way to the bottom.” Our lead- members present, and the vote is sixhimself in our group conscience. Our thing was happening; for the first ers are but trusted servants; they do teen to fifteen, then fifteen resentleaders are but trusted servants; they time in my life I was among people not govern. ments walk out the door from that do not govern.” with whom I felt at ease. Never had I Whenever we ask for a vote on a meeting. One of the Warranties of One of the most appealing state- been with a peer group before. I al- controversial issue in our group, our Twelfth Concept states: “All ments to me in all of the AA literature ways felt better than the rest or be- should this be called a group con- decisions should be reached by disis the twelve words in the middle of neath them – usually the latter. science vote? It can if it meets certain cussion, vote, and wherever possible, the Second Tradition: “a loving God Here, then, was a group of close criteria. Some of the things to con- substantial unanimity.” as He may express himself in our friends before whom I could tell my sider before calling it a group con- If these three conditions have been group conscience.” This told me that most personal problems; things I science vote are as follows: met, then we can truly say we have God was speaking to me through my once felt would go to the grave with First, is the group well informed? listened to a loving God expressing group, through Alcoholics Anony- me were now laid out on the table and Have both sides been heard and himself in our group conscience. I mous. As long as I listened to this discussed. A feeling of confidence thoroughly discussed? Are we giving For me, AA is not a big corporamessage, I couldn’t go wrong. My came to me, and I knew everything respectful attention to the minority’s tion with offices in New York City. whole attitude and outlook upon life was going to be alright. point of view? Many of us feel that It’s principally just my little home would change. I would know a new Alcoholics Anonymous is a very AA should not engage in any contro- group. If one of our members befreedom and a new happiness. I unusual association. Not because of versy, but our Tenth Tradition only comes a big shot and starts passing would not regret the past nor wish to our Steps or the principles by which talks about “public controversy.” out orders, we’re going to have big shut the door on it. These were the our members try to live, but because The AA program was built on a great problems. Our group could even things I was hearing around the tables. of the Twelve Traditions that hold us deal of controversy. break up because of it. And without Through the Second Tradition I together. None is more unusual than Second, if it is an important deci- that group, it would surely be back to have also learned to turn my will and this Second Tradition. sion, has there been ample time for the gutter for me. my life over to the care of God as I All organizations have someone members not present to voice their J. M. and M. M., Indiana, Pa.

March 1987

“E veryone on the job knew you were a drunk, so isn’t it better they know you’re sober now?” stocks, bonds, and other negotiable investments. They depend on an aura of confidence, incorruptibility, and they don’t know not hurt them? other men, chair and participate in The dilemma for an alcoholic in closed meetings, make Twelfth Step This is the response I have received AA is whether to be fully open and calls, and give my f d name and dependability to create a public image several times when I have raised the that will enhance profits. Although honest with an employer or to remain phone number to any other alcoholic matter of personal anonymity when the industry may be rife with those “in the closet.” In my case my em- who needs the information. Also, I chairing discussion meetings, or talk- who don’t meet these criteria, it is ployer does nor know of my disease have revealed my disease to nonalcoing privately with members who have rare for a company to knowingly hire and everyone did not know I had a holic~when to do so would help reach drinking problem when I was at my a friend or family member whom I

Be Anonymous? 1 worst. Thanks to my alcoholic cun- might be able to help. ning, conning, and a sympathetic On the other hand I d o not speak at family physician, only my immediate open meetings, locally, since my family and one or two friends real- picture appears regularly in area ized I was in trouble. Some deeply newspapers, and I d o not tell my rooted instinct kept me under control employer or fellow employees I am in in situations where my drinking could AA – unless in a specific instance be discovered. where I could be of help to a fellow So now, with a little over five years alcoholic. of sobriety, 1 am known at work as a My personal anonymity is imporresponsible, clean-living executive tant to me. I do not get up at an open with no known bad habits. 1 can pass meeting and announce who I am and any physical with flying colors. I look where I work. We are called Alcoholwell and clear eyed – not scarred by ics Anonymous. What does the my affair with alcohol. I can hold an second word mean? If it had not been excellent job, donate blood, take out part of our name five years ago, I life insurance, get a private pilot’s doubt I would have come to these license – in other words do anything doors. And 1 do not like to think of a “normal” person can do as long as the alternative. But now I can say: If I have personal anonymity (and, of you need someone to share his experi- I I course. don’t drink). – ~ ence, strength, and hope with you, I considerably more years of sobriety people or promote them to positions his does not mkan I do not give will be there. anything back to AA. I sponsor two K. E., Falmouth, M a s . than 1. of high responsibility if it is aware of In my opinion though, there are skeletons in the closet that may be certain occupational groups that are damaging to the company “image.” not yet enlightened enough to accept Thus we come to the recovering alalcoholism as a disease free of moral coholic. Would they make him or her taint. Since I am not personally quali- a bank president, a stock brokerage fied to comment on all occupations, I firm branch manager, or an insurwill stick to a field I know: financial ance company senior vice president services. This would include those for investment knowing he has a businesses which deal with cash, history as a boozer? Or does what

May 1987 detailed his membership in AA – But what about the celebrity on along with his repeated relapses. At “60 Minutes”? She didn’t say the end, he was living with a bunch of she attends AA; the interviewer pronuns and limping through a pretty vided that superfluous detail in a

1 Anonymity ragged life. In the second the author referred voice-over. Either some journalists are ignor-

7outdated? only to “a fellowship of recovered alcoholics,” but set forth a gritty, painful history written several years into hard-won sobriety. Is there a connection here? ing the ground rules, or the people they’re interviewing aren’t making the ground rules clear. Whatever the case, it’s our responsibility to let people know- members of the press and Of course there is. Abiding by a fellow AAs alike – that this is one tradition that advises against break- part of what makes AA work, one ing anonymity at the level of radio, reason why there are success stories to TV, press, or film – even when one report in the first place.

I used to rail against the Eleventh Tradition, used to insist it no longer made sense; 1 railed, and people ing forward to that one, and listened with pleasure as it began. 1went at the dishes with energy and cunning part wants to swagger, and clamors to rebel – is another way of affirming that sobriety means more Maybe we need to be like the Amish, flashing mirrors at tourists who want to take their pictures: Maylistened. Then one night someone turned frequently to watch as the to us than the deceptive “comfort” be we need to rail a little. told me something I hadn’t thought show went on; my regard for CBS, of sliding back into a well-worn habit. B. N., Charloffesville,Va. about, and I stopped railing: What if for presenting such an unsparing a person who’s gone public about account of alcoholism, increased altendance at AA has a slip? What steadily. They talked about the happens then? mother who’d broken free of her dis- 1 know now that there are other ease, and showed footage of the two reasons underlying this Tradition. together, and spoke of denial and hit- But this is the one that makes most ting bottom. It was great stuff. sense to me, and every time I see ano- But then it came out. No matter nymity broken at the public level, I what city she’s in, she goes to Alcowince. holics Anonymous. And after that it %o weeks ago I was doing the went further. Yes, she admitted, there dishes and listening to “60 Minutes.” have been slips, and she feels awful The first segment was on adolescent every time. addiction, specifically teenagers in- So what’s the viewer’s opinion of troduced to drugs and alcohol by AA, based on watching that show? their own parents; in my mind I com- That this is a normal run of events, plimented CBS for work well done. slips followed by abject telephone The last segment was a profile of a calls? celebrity who had emerged from a It makes me think about two books well-known treatment center and put I read several years ago. In the first, her life back in order. I’d been look- the author (using his full name) freely

J u l y 1987

we seem to hold, AAs have always terms of the problems I was having.

YOUR MOVE h reached out to one another. When I I hope more people realize that this was drowning in my sea of alcohol- program of AA is for each and every ism, I didn’t care whose hand I one of us, and we can use or not use grasped. I’m just glad one was there any part of it. It’s up to us to stay and that I am now safely aboard this sober. R.S. life-saving vessel. Are special interest groups going to break it apart? They Sobriety is a choice seem innocent enough. A practical From Eureka, Calif.: way to process our growing numbers. Gay, men’s, Christian, nonsmok- Reader responses to the December 1986 PO Box 1980 But efficiency and mass produc- ing meeting for ages 34-41. Are we letter “Open-doorpolicy” tion are typical methods of the world really afraid all AA will come to this? around us and by-products of that It is true that a special meeting keeps efficiency are huge masses of waste. some folks out, but I don’t think this Though space does not permit the publication of every letter, the pages that follow include the thoughts of eight readers, whose Let’s not forget the individual, the is what they’re really designed for. oplnlons represent as fully as possible the range of responses to the importance of his growth and his Weekly, I attend a women’s nonletter on special Interest groups. value as part of the whole. smoking meeting – the women’s This Is your magazine, and only with your help can the Grapevine In my opinion, breaking off into aspect was there for me from the truly be the Fellowship’s “meeting in prlnt” and “forum for debate.” If special interest groups will lead to our beginning; nonsmoking is a new adyou have experiences and thoughts to share with fellow AAs, write demise. M. V.dition with less than a year’s trial. them out and send them to: Editorlal Department,PO Box 1980, Grand The real idea behind specialty meet- Central Station, New York, NY 10163-1980. Stay or go ings is growth, support, and health From Provincetown, Mass.: for those who attend. 1 have been in AA for three years, When I came into AA, I was a Beware of tragmentation I’ve participated in special interest and have been to meetings all over. I timid, mousy person who never said From Elk Rapids, Mich.: meetings where I’ve received and, 1 am bothered by some people who what she was thinking in front of Thanks for asking for opinions, believe, given help. But 1 am uncom- have the view that specialty meetings men lest they somehow disapprove. I pro and con, on the question of spe- fortable about them. They are too (gay, men’s, women’s, etc.) should was also afraid of meeting a man I cial interest groups. I’ve thought a lot narrow. I get the feeling I’m becom- not be held or called AA meetings. had known in my drinking days. He . about it. It has seemed okay to meet ing dependent upon a group of spon- I have never been in a specialty wasn’t an AA member, but that with one’s peers in order to discuss sors and that there is selfishness in- meeting in which a drunk, sober or didn’t matter. At the time I felt his problems we have in common and in volved. drinking, was asked to leave because presence would be a threat to my that environment 1 found it easy to My goal is to be able to return to he wasn’t gay, straight, a man, or a sobriety, and the women’s group was be open and honest. There are meet- the society from which I withdrew, as woman. Sometimes they are told that a place I could go in perfect safety. ings for beginners, men, women, a productive, caring, communicative it is a specialty meeting, and they have The women heard what was inside me gays, young people, professionals, individual. Special interest meetings the right to stay or go, as they wish. trying to come out, and my sponsor ethnic groups, and more. But I don’t encourage that. They are con- I myself, even though I am a gay always knew. (They told me to find wonder where it will all end? The fining. My growth and development man, don’t go to a gay or men’s meet- someone I couldn’t con, and I did.) danger, of course, is fragmentation depend upon my becoming a part of ing very often. But when I first got It isn’t “feelings” in general that of the Fellowship as a whole. AA the whole. sober I needed them because I could get us drunk so much as specific feeltradition warns us against that. Regardless of what station in life identify with what they were saying in ings we are ashamed of; and it is

hearing that those, too, are shared by Sobriety is a choice. AA is there opportunities to visit special interest spot to take special problems. They other people that helps restore us to to teach us how to live and how to groups. It has been my experience do not and should not become the sanity. Sometimes we don’t know handle other choices – one of them that most of these groups, while shar- only AA contacts one enjoys. It is my what sanity is. Lying, stealing, sex is a choice of meetings, if we are ing an involvement in addition to opinion that association with special problems – yes, those are hard to fortunate. alcohol, also remain true to the pri- interest groups alone will lead to an share. But am I crazy because 1 talk Primarily I choose a place where mary purpose. I have never been unbalanced program, which could be to my teddy bear? Am I crazy the talk is what I need to hear. While I denied the fellowship of the AA pro- risky. The pamphlet, “Do You Think because I have a teddy bear? am learning to be a worker among gram in these groups even if I was not You’re Different?” (available from Were 1 to start a meeting in a town workers and a family member I also actually part of the special interest. I GSO) covers a lot of experience in the where there are no other meetings, or have to learn how to be a woman have attended “Spanish-speaking” area and I recommend it to those who only a few, there would certainly be among women. Many of us come in meetings, “black” meetings, “gay” are interested in gaining more inforno specialization. But I am a member afraid of that. I might be sober and meetings, and “institutional” meet- mation on this topic-and on uniqueof a group with eight meetings a happy today without my special meet- ings. These are all in my opinion good ness in general. week, each of them offering a differ- ing. Then again, I might not. M. S. solid AA meetings. I suppose my feelings on this matent facet of AA: Steps, Traditions, I am gay but do not attend just ter could be summed up by the state- Big Book, Grapevine, open, closed, Risky business “gay” AA meetings, as learning and ment, “As long as the group has as its . beginners, once-a-month birthday, From Beltsville, Md.: sharing with all people is a major primary purpose the carrying of the and women’s. When a man shows up This letter is to address the issue of portion of the program as I see it. I AA message, who am I to judge its at the women’s meeting on Tuesday, special interest groups, and represents would not refuse help to anyone (in- secondary purpose?” H. D. we refer him to another meeting. If my opinions and experiences only. cluding nonalcoholics) if I feel I can we were the only meeting available we I have been a member of the world- help and it is asked for. There is one No boundaries, please would let him in – what else could wide Fellowship of Alcoholics Anon- member at one of the “straight” From Patchogue, N.Y.: we do? But we are not all there is, and ymous for almost twelve years. In meetings I attend who has a clear When I first came to AA, I already we are lucky to have this loving, safe this period of continuous sobriety, animosity toward gays. And yet, felt like an outcast. All my life I had hour for female old-timers and new- thanks to the AA program and my when 1 needed advice concerning the heard jokes about or had glimpsed comers to grow together. Higher Power, there have been many program this gentleman was the first fingers pointed at me for being homoto offer his experience, strength, and sexual. You know, “one of those “Let’s Be Friendly with Our Friends” – Bill W. hope in spite of his personal feelings. To my own discredit (or early culpeople. ” Now I was told, stop drinking, join As non-AAs become increasingly aware of Alcoholics Anonymous as tural environment), I have a dislike of a group, and get a sponsor. Wow, a resource, our co-founder’s admonition can be both easier and more blacks (translated as fear). This, how- that was some tall order to fill. I mandifficult to follow. In a future issue, the Grapevine hopes to publish a ever, does not stop me from helping aged to stop drinking and I joined a special section of articles on the opportunities and problems inherent in the blacks I meet. In fact forcing my- group, but get a sponsor? Who AA’s Tradition of cooperation without affiliation. self to face my problems (including among my newfound friends would We need your help – group and individual – to put together a section my prejudices) has, I feel, made me a want me around? of solid, practical experiences that can be picked up by other AAs. I f you better human being. Recognizing and Finally, with my back to the wall, I have encountered problems, and worked out solutions, in relationships dealing with my character defects is got a sponsor. Oh, I tested her and with treatment centers, court programs, other Fellowships, or non-AA part of the growing that is still going tested her, once more fearing rejecentities, share them with others. Write Editorial Department, PO Box on in my life. tion, before I finally said, “I’m gay.” 1980, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163-1980. Special interest groups do serve a She kept right on sharing with me function for the newcomer and are a before I blurted it out again.

“So what?” she responded. She “gay group” and people started to and closed with the Lord’s Prayer. has helped me grow as a person and didn’t throw me out of her home, nor pull away. The group was severely We sent out group announcements work ever harder toward the day in did she run to meetings and say, damaged. People with time and with and attended general service and AA when there will be no boundaries, “Guess what, here’s another of those good sobriety now shunned us like we intergroup functions. Yet, we were please. K. K. people. ” were moral lepers. Our incoming left alone. Naturally, each member I was accepted for exactly who I speakers stopped showing up and the attended other meetings, but when Sobriety is our special interest was. An alcoholic trying to get sober. group’s old-timers suddenly had other groups were asked to support From Wheaton, Ill.: My sexual preference had nothing to other commitments. By now, theonly us with their strength, hope, and After putting it off for a decade, I do with my sobriety. At least, I ones coming to the meetings were a experience by leading a meeting, sud- arrived at my first AA meeting late. It thought not. handful of “those people” trying to denly it was “I’m busy.” was in the basement of a large, un- I Some years later I moved. Five get sober, stay sober, and grow in this All of our lives we’ve been “those familiar hospital and I was none too hundred miles to be exact, and once program. Oh don’t worry, we used all people.” Pointed fingers, hushed eager to ask directions. more I got a sponsor and joined a the slogans, “let go and let God,” whispers. All we asked for in AA was I missed most of the lead but heard rather large group. After a while 1 felt “easy does it,” and of course “this a chance to get sober and grow in the what I needed during the comments. the need to be more active and I ven- too shall pass.” We fulfilled our out- program. From where I thought I was What I remember from that meeting tured out to join a smaller group. side speaking commitments, but then finally accepted, a drunken bigot has is one woman to whom I never spoke Meeting only once a week, the group we noticed a decline in those also. helped slam the door in my face. and would not recognize should I decided on a second meeting. I helped Once more no one wanted us. As a Strange, isn’t it, how we AA mem- meet her today. She was three or six to set it up, and the first few meetings group, all eight remaining members bers are SO quick to put restrictions months sober and had just spent her were a success. We had varied sobri- took a group inventory. Nowhere for on our sobriety. I guess like every- Sunday at her daughter’s wedding. ety, and a warm comfortable feeling the life of us could we see that our one else I have my times when I for- She spoke of not wanting to join AA in the room. meetings were any different from any get where 1 came from and the extent because of the upcoming wedding. It Suddenly, gossip reared its ugly other groups around us. We read the 1 was willing to go in order to get might spoil the celebration. Having head. The new meeting was labeled a Preamble, said the Serenity Prayer, sober. If anything, this experience joined AA, she was afraid that the

oh so slowly and patiently getting me out of my head and in contact with some unpleasant truths about myself. If I stick with them I might make it. One of the priests also put me in contact with another priest, Episcopal variety, who taught me how to give hospital talks. Great stuff. He has a son, a priest, R.C. variety. Exclusive? No way! Not only do we “pass it on,” we “pass it around.” J. H.

wedding would jeopardize her sobriety. She had just spent her day at the wedding, at the reception, and now at I’m a priest, the R.C. variety. I an AA meeting. She was sober, h a p came upon a group, mostly young, py, and grateful. mixed and open. Good group. I stick I had nothing in common with this with them. One of them invited me to woman. 1 was certainly not sober, a weekly closed stag meeting. Great. happy, or grateful. I was also not Became my home group. A guy there middle-aged, a woman, a parent. But told me about a young alkie just she spoke of things 1 thought to be ordained a priest, R.C. variety. He my own unique hell. invited me to a priests’ meeting. Since then, I have been able to Liked it. Once they got to know me identify with the feelings of many in they told me, from experience, what AA. Just like my drinking, fear, to look for in a sponsor. “Don’t get a guilt, and self-pity seem independent Catholic. He might respect you too of circumstance. They don’t seem to much to do you any good. Look for be specific to any color, profession, someone from another background or sexual persuasion. or no religion at all. Don’t get Today, if I look for them, I can see someone with degrees. You might that our similarities are greater than take head trips together. Get someour differences. If I choose to focus one with a grade school or at the most on those things that make me special, a high school diploma. He’ll get you I will find myself where 1 once was, away from your head and in contact unique and alone. But I still want with reality.” what that woman had. And I want to Good advice. Someone like they share it as she did with me that night. described was kind enough to take me To be sober, happy, and grateful is of in. Tough love or tender, whatever it special interest to us all. J. K. takes, he and his “Friend” (H.P.) are

August . – —

0 n May 4, 1983 I received a letter from the Grapevine editor containing the bad news that my manu- As stated in the promises in the Big Book, we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it, and the my wants. I am so grateful that 1 could accept this fact for had I believed otherwise I know that I would that in some respects, although it is not a puzzle. Today I don’t want to rush along script had stayed with one of the past we refer to is prior to our en- not be sober today. as my time winds down. I want to editorial readers for more than three trance into AA. However, I now look The AA program is so simple and enjoy every minute of every day and I weeks and the good news was that all back on almost a quarter of a cen- yet we are often blinded by intellect. urge anyone who is discouraged, of the editorial readers liked what I tury of sobriety in AA – what about At times we struggle and grope in de- lonely and in despair – much as I had to say. However, there was no these years that have contributed so spair and yet the answer lies before was many years ago – to just hang in way to tell at that time just when it much to the wonderful life that I en- our eyes. Much like my wife in her there one more day and as you prowould appear in print. To my knowl- joy today? efforts to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. gress through the Steps I know you edge it has yet to be published. When I came to AA I was penniless She reaches a point of frustration will find the missing piece in your life 1 d o not write this to deter the ef- and friendless and the hand of re- when she can’t find the piece she is and when you get yourself together forts of those with a desire to contrib- sponsibility that Dr. Bob referred to seeking and she walks away only to then your world will be alright, too. ute to the Grapevine as it is essential was extended to me. return later and right before her eyes Today I also realize that what I to our publication that we make this I was told to hang on for one more lies the piece she was seeking. It fits read in print is not half as important effort for it is a fact that all of us in day. I would get better and then easily into place and a beautiful pic- as what it took to get it there. AA are a part of the Grapevine. things would get better. I was told ture comes into view. AA is much like D. O., Sumter. S. C.

Practice These Principles. . . Tradition Eight: Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers. I . Is my own behavior accurately described by the Traditions? If not, what needs changing? 2. When I chafe about any particular Tradition, do I realize how it affects others? 3. Do 1sometimes try to get some reward -even if not money – for my personal AA efforts? Initially I felt pleased that my that this program was a cinch by the inch but hard by the yard; in essence I 4. Do I try to sound in AA like an expert on alcoholism? On recovery? manuscript had been selected On medicine? On sociology? On AA itself? On psychology? On spiritual for publicationand I looked forward was reminded that we just stay away from that first drink one day at a time matters? Or, heaven help me, even on humility? to seeing it in print, but as the time passed it no longer occupied my mind. and not a year nor a lifetime at a time. 5. Do I make an effort to understand what AA employees do? What I recently came across that letter I was told to be patient – that the workers in other alcoholism agencies do? Can I distinguish clearly from the Grapevine editor and the days would go into weeks and the among them? thought came to me that many of the weeks into months and the months 6. In my own AA life, have 1any experiences which illustrate the wisdom good feelings I enjoyed in my earlier into years, and so they have. of this Tradition? years in AA were no longer that; to- As 1 grew spiritually my material 7. .Have I paid enough attention to the book Twelve Steps and Twelve day they are more or less taken for desires lessened and I came to believe Traditions? To the pamphlet A A Tradition – How It Developed? granted and therefore I am now deny- that God would and still does provide all of my needs and not necessarily TradHIons Checltbt reprinted ttom Ihe December 1970 Grapevine. ing myself some pleasant memories.

August 1987

-. in work clothes? Are we aware that if our Fellowship can also suffer just as

Love inwork Clothes we are to avail ourselves of the whole program of Alcoholics Anonymous we need to include being part of the the individual can if we fail to become responsible for the determination of our own future. Unity means more whole, each doing our part for the than belonging to a group. It also I n July of 1985, we celebrated the ples, spiritual in their nature, which, 50th anniversary of our Fellow- if practiced as a way of life, can expel ship. For all of us who were there, it the obsession to drink and enable the unity of all; that “freely giving” goes beyond our traditional Twelfth Step work and sharing at meetings? I hope means being responsible for the perpetuation of that group and, of course, the Fellowship as a whole. was truly a milestone in the history of sufferer to become happily and use- so. The future of AA may depend This must necessarily mean financial AA. The happy, joyous throngs of fully whole.” It also states in the fol- upon our encompassing, as individ- support as well as moral support. sober men and women served as an lowing paragraph, “AA’s Twelve uals, all three sides of our triangle. How else would we guarantee the inspiration to the entire world. It was Traditions apply to the life of the fel- Certainly, there is no question as to integrity of our literature, our experia message of truth: that alcoholics lowship itself. They outline the means ence, and our Traditions? Would we can recover and do so in mass num- by which AA maintains its unity and whether groups of AA will continue to survive; but will they be AA as we ever want an outside entity, by virtue bers and on a permanent basis. relates itself to the world about it, the of its financial clout, to determine have come to know it? Do we dare, Now, in 1987; we are faced with a way it lives and grows.” through lack of concern, allow the “what is best for AA”? I think not. serious challenge to our Seventh Tra- This second paragraph, I believe, is day to come when the direction that Since we are a Fellowship of “trustdition. The plain fact is that we, as a where our learning experience lies. our Fellowship takes is determined by ed servants,” it is therefore under- Fellowship, have simply not been All of us are well aware of the signifi- stood that we do our own legwork. entities outside of AA by virtue of the self-supporting. What is even worse is cance of our Legacy of Recovery. fact that they control our purse- Who else could carry the AA message that if present trends continue, we AAs speak endlessly on the subject of better than us? will be even less self-supporting as recovery. We go to Step meetings, strings? These are questions that we, as the contemporary AA Fellowship, I feel that this requires becoming time goes on. Step classes, listen to speakers and must face today if we are to continue informed, as a Fellowship, as to the In December of 1985, I attended a tapes sharing personal experience to be responsible to those who will real and actual needs of the Fellow- Regional Forum in the southeastern with recovery through the Steps. Yet, continue to reach out for help. ship today. Let us carry this message United States, during which a consid- the very logo of the Fellowship is a I suppose that my personal feeling to our respective groups, districts, erable amount of time was dedicated circle and a triangle. Our Fellowship, and area assemblies. God has given to this subject. plans were discussed and therefore our program, is based toward recovery from the seemingly hopeless condition of body, mind, us the responsibility to perpetuate our and presented. Ways by which we can upon all three sides of this triangle. program for countless thousands to avert this threat were listed and, in- and spirit which constitutes alco- Perhaps, part of our “coming of holism is that in order to become come. Perhaps, when we next share deed, our General Service Office and age” so far as this challenge to the our experience, strength, and hope, our Conference have begun to deal Seventh Tradition is concerned lies “happily and usefully whole.” 1need to become a part of the entire we may wish to include all three Legawith the concern of Alcoholics Anon- within the Legacies of Unity and Ser- cies. We may wish to truly become ymous becoming completely self-sup- vice. We understand that “personal program of Alcoholics Anonymous, i.e., all oft he three Legacies. I believe personally responsible for the future porting by its own contributions recovery depends upon AA unity.” of AA as well as our own. If we do, within a five-year period. Yet, I won- We know that we ought to be “fully that if I search within my spirit, and I have, 1 will find AA has given me we can, together, meet this challenge der if this is truly the lesson that we, self-supporting, declining outside to our Seventh Tradition and guaranmuch more than I have ever given it, as a Fellowship, need to learn. contributions” and that “Love and regardless of how active within the tee that we will become fully self- The Foreword of Twelve Steps and Service” symbolize the sharing of Fellowship I have been. supporting through our own group 7ivelve Traditions states that “AA’s “our experience, strength and hope.” contributions. Twelve Steps are a group of princi- But, do we know that Service is love The message I feel needs to be carried to the Fellowship today is that C. C., West Palm Beach, Fla.

August 1987

Walking the Walk

W- hen I was new to AA, I was told that this program was or should be regarded by me as the most has risen astronomically. It has for AA services, too. The price of supplies, of postage, of rent, and even the valuable possession I had. I accepted meager salaries drawn by dedicated that – at least intellectually – and AA office workers has increased to a after a few years of sobriety I finally point where many offices have diffirealized fully that indeed it was true. culty making ends meet. So I have I t was in fact more valuable than even pledged myself and am urging others my wife and my family and my work who can afford it to do likewise because. . .because without sobriety onceagain to “walk like I talk.” I am it was wholly possible that these trea- doubling my contribution – not that sured possessions would either be any contribution can ever truly reflect wiped out or exist in such a disturbing the gratitude I feel toward this miracand sick context they would be all but ulous program that has saved so meaningless to me. many thousands of lives. So 1 accepted that fact, and was At the risk of being pushy – a risk grateful for it. But I came to another I have frequently taken in the past realization. When I arrived many, but never without so much cause – I many years ago, I dutifully put my suggest the Seventh Tradition be dollar in the collection plate and have read at AA meetings. And that those done so ever since. Until very recently meetings – and there are unfortu- I was continuing to do just that. Then nately quite a few – which are not something occurred to me. regularly contributing to the support I f this program is truly the most of their AA services and central ofvaluable thing I own, why am I not fices give this serious and grateful reflecting that in my contributions? consideration. We all know the price of everything B. I., Studio City, Calif.

AA GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1987

a district meeting once a month, and a necessary evil. I need to strive to two assemblies a year. You are the live the Traditions, not just to talk link between this group and the Gen- about them. eral Service Office in New York.” Am I a trusted servant, as our Sec- This description hardly makes the ond Tradition suggests I should be, or job seem attractive, desirable, or do I try to be the boss? Our Ninth challenging, does it? Concept reprints a Grapevine article Let’s look at my more recent de- by Bill W., describing an AA leader, scription. It goes like this: which I like to look at occasionally to “The GSR is the best job you can see where I stand in relation to this get in AA. Not only do you get to idea. Am I a leader, as,I strive to be, meet other GSRs, and share your or do I lean more toward the power- I

: 0 ur Seventh Tradition seems to be in center stage recently – a phenomenon easily understood in standing committee. I’m also involved in our local intergroup, and find it easy to say to myself “I’m group’s conscience and experience at our monthly district meetings, you also get to attend two assemblies a driver or meek follower? The latter two choices are extremes, equally undesirable, that I try to steer clear of. light of the huge shortfall in group doing my part.” Unfortunately, this year at locations around the state. Where Tradition Four is concerned, contributions to the General Service Office. I’ve found myself looking at our self-support Tradition from a dif- . feeling comes from looking at only half the facts. When I start to become upset over Here you can attend service workshops, share your group experience do I let each group manage its own affairs as it sees fit, or do I try to tell with GSRs from all over the state, them how they are “supposed” to ferent angle, though. the lack of members willing to active- and help to inform our area’s dele- operate? I’ve been wondering whether self- ly serve our Fellowship, I need to gate of our collective group con- The point of balance here seems to

I More Than Just Money science. You also receive all the be to inform the group’s steering group’s correspondence from GSO, committee of the pertinent Tradiand are the communications link tions, whatever they may be, and between your group and AA as then trust that the informed group a whole.” conscience is truly the voice of God. This presents a much more flatter- I could expand this line of thinking support means more than just money. start looking at my p h t in this. Am I ing description of the job, doesn’t it? almost indefinitely, but you get the Does it also mean donation of my presenting a positive picture of what It also attracts many more active idea. Increased member involvement time and talents? Does my local inter- service work can d o for my sobriety, GSRs than the old approach. is necessary to make our Fellowship group have enough money to carry or do I make it sound boring and In the end it all boils down to me. It truly self-supporting, and I need to the message, but not enough man- unchallenging? is useless for me to study the prob- do my part to see that more people power to put these funds to use? How My old method of approaching a lem if I’m not willing to live in the become involved. This is best accomabout the district and the area? Do I group without a GSR (general service solution. plished by power of example, not by owe AA a debt of gratitude worth representative) was to explain that the I need to make sure that I stress ser- guilt-tripping people. much more than the dollar or two group had no GSR, and needed one. vice work to my prospects. I need to In the final analysis, while money I put in the basket when it comes Nothing wrong so far, but let’s look try not to go to service meetings is essential in carrying our message, around? at my way of describing the GSR’s alone. It’s better to bring someone it is useless if I’m not.willing to give I see myself involved in the area job. It went something like this: who is new to service, but an old- of myself to put that money to efcommittee as a DCM (district com- “The GSR’s job is really pretty timer will do in a pinch. I need to pre- fective use. mittee member) and chairman of a simple. All you have to do is come to sent service as fun, not as a chore, or K. K.. Manassas, Va.

September 1987

servants of AA changed a punctua- while I really could have used the tion mark or questioned a phrasing. money at that time, I was able to They pointed out two instances where gladly turn it down and, incidentally, I might have been overstating some gain a long-standing friend of the Felthings that the non-AA public mighf lowship. By using have trouble believing or view as Tradition Nine: There was no one the being unreasonably prejudiced. Even telling me what to do and what not to Traditions if true, these items might have thrown a question over the entire story, as do in writing the story, but service people were quick to help me when I we can well as AA as a whole. had a question. lead So in preparing that story I was Tradition Ten: There are a lot of fuller lives able to experience the benefits of several Traditions: opinions 1 could have expressed in that story, and those same trusted Tradition One: Our common wel- servants helped me to see how such

S ay what you may about the Traditions, I believe they are almost as important to my sobriety as the paper stories, there was a limited following of readers who hung on my every word – quite a dangerous ego fare was paramount in the project, as I wanted nothing I wrote to damage AA. statements could bring all of AA into controversy. Tradition Elevm: A byline with my Steps – icing on the cake, so to trip for me. I began helping my Tradition Two: I had the chance to real name could have proved to be speak. group’s public information chairman work with AA’s trusted servants, a big ego trip for me, and also This was brought to me through in getting some AA news and infor- who set an example of not dictating might have kept that woman who the death of an AA friend who lived mation in the weekly newspapers of to me, but giving objective opinions came in two years later from ever longer than his doctors thought he the area. When one of the publishers and suggestions. contacting AA. would and attributed this in part to invited me to tell my story in his Tradition Four: In telling my story Tradition Twelve: The entire exworking the Twelve Steps and Twelve newspaper, I became anxious. With in the press, I naturally had to tell perience from start to finish went Traditions in his own life. about six months of sobriety, my some of my experiences at group very smoothly. I was able to keep I have long felt that applying many writing skills seemed to be returning meetings, and thanks to the advice of principles not only before my perof the Traditions to my personal life and I greatly wanted to do this; but in more experienced service workers, I sonality, but also before the perenables me to interact with people my Fourth Step I discovered a great was able to avoid appearing to criticize sonalities of others, both inside and with a great deal less conflict and a lot deal of damage I had done with my certain groups or implying that all outside of AA. more serenity, as it helps to keep my writing, and I was worried that I groups do everything the same way. Subsequently, I believe it reinexpectations in perspective. might also hurt the Fellowship that Tradition Five: Reaching out to the forced my own sobriety when 1began I didn’t plan to use the Traditions had given me back my life. still-suffering alcoholic was the main to take the Traditions that worked so like this. Rather, I fell into them I explained my dilemma to a past reason behind the entire project. I well in my relationship to and on bewhile learning how to do service delegate in my home group, who told saw a result a couple of years later – half of AA and adapt them, in varywork. me to go ahead and write the story, a woman who read the story said that ing degrees, to my relationships with The first Tradition I began to apply then let him or the current delegate or reading it in the newspaper helped her employers, institutions, and family. was that of maintaining my anonym- the DCM look it over before I sub- find the courage to contact AA when The Traditions proved to be a pracity at the level of press, radio, and mitted it to the publisher. While I saw she decided she needed help for her tical method of preventing my “Big films. Having worked for several the wisdom of this, I did not like the drinking problem. 1” from getting out of control when years during my drinking career with idea of having my work “criticized.” Tradition Six: The publisher dealing with bills and bill collectors my byline appearing over many news- But I did it. None of these trusted offered to pay me for my story, and – Traditions One, Two, Seven and .

Ten particularly. In interacting with involved in service work, he was hit my family, employer, and friends, with the diagnosis and progression of I Tradition Twelve is handy when con- his disease, along with dire and flicts arise, as it enables me to look at mounting financial difficulties. The the problem rather than the people day before he died, we talked about involved. Tradition Four is useful what made the difference in sobriety. when others may unjustifiably try to Naturally, Bob ‘credited the Steps inflict their will on me. with enabling him to face his prob- In using the Traditions along with lems one day at a time. But he emtheiSteps in my personal life, I find I phatically added that his involvement don’t have as many things to deal in service work during the last two with in Step Ten; I don’t grit my teeth years of his life (after almost 20 years as much; my relationship with my in and out of the program with little family is more solid; and, with a re- long-term sobriety) got him into a duced level of tension, my overall working acquaintance with the Tradihealth seems to have improved tions. This, he felt, enabled him to (though that may just be coincidental live an even fuller and more serene with now having a body free of alco- life in the midst of crisis – solving the hol and its effects). problems before they happened, he The life and death of my AA friend said – and a longer life than he might seems to bear this last benefit out. At have had otherwise. about the time “Bob” began to get Alan L., Gentry, Ark.

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September 1987 ature and rehabilitation homes, what lem, and for living in the solution. Lendingthe AA Name? impression do we give to the person who has not been exposed to our Fellowship long enough to know that First I can make sure that the folks I sponsor know the difference between AA and non-AA material and they are not AA? We invariably give service organizations. the impression that these are AA-sup- Next, as a member of a group, I Tradition Six keeps us in touch with our primary purpose ported entities. can voice my concern about the viola- This, in turn, raises a whole new tion of our Traditions within the 2FhHPhE–w-m-m ~roblem.If these things are viewed as group. The important thing for me to

I s it AA? Many people feel they Our Sixth Tradition states: “An need not ask. The distinction be- AA group ought never endorse, fitween what is AA and what is not is nance, or lend the AA name to any AA by uninformed-outsiders and members, then their actions are naturally seen as AA actions. do here is to prepare myself by studying the principles contained in our literature. I need to voice principles, not obvious, isn’t it? related facility or outside enterprise, If a book supports a certain concept personal opinions and prejudices. Not necessarily so. Let’s study a lest problems of money, property, of God, that must be AA’s concept. Nothing will so surely close an alcocouple of short examples drawn from and prestige divert us from our pri- If a book supports a certain philoso- holic’s mind as an attitude of intolermy own experience. mary purpose.” phy, that must be AA’s philosophy. ance or condemnation on my part. 1 was sober almost a year before I Yet don’t we endorse the literature If a rehabilitation program kicks out I need to stress, above all, that while realized that certain books were not we sell at our meetings? Certainly we ‘ a client, for whatever reasons, AA is AA cooperates, we don’t affiliate. AA literature, and that a local home do, if only by association. We surely seen as throwing him out. AA members, acting as private citifor low-bottom cases was not an AA lend the AA name to anything we Viewed in this light, it is dangerous zens, may support anything they like, facility. quote often enough in our meetings, for us to encourage the idea that AA but an AA group supports AA alone. The reason? 1 saw outside litera- and we certainly finance any organiz- supports anything that is not AA. No This is important, for so long as we ture displayed beside our AA litera- ation we contribute to. matter how worthy or helpful it may resist the urge to affiliate ourselves ture at several groups 1 attended. I Our Big Book tells me that there seem. with outside interests, we shall never heard such literature quoted at nu- are many helpful books on prayer Naturally, this brings me to the encounter serious problems of outside merous meetings and used as the and meditation, yet it endorses none. question, “What can I do to preserve interference in our AA affairs. Our basis for group discussions on occa- It leaves the search to me. Meditation Tradition Six?” In the end, I am program will continue to be our own. sion. 1 also saw many groups sending being essentially an individual exer- responsible for identifying the prob- K. K., Manasas, Va. regular contributions to the rehabili- cise, we in AA have no business tation center – money collected standing behind any book as a source during AA meetings, money out of of meditation material. our hat, not a separate collection. We found long ago that an AA The obvious conclusion? If we are group can’t effectively manage a dryselling and supporting these things, ing-out home. The financing and adthey must be AA. ministration of such a haven is best I already hear the outraged cries of left to interested citizens. some of our members as they read I think these issues are important, this. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not because the only impression many judging these outside books and or- people receive of Alcoholics Anonyganizations as bad or good. It’s just mous comes from our open meetings. that they are not AA. If we are seen pushing outside liter-

October

has bothered a lot of people. Maybe to live without it, or admitting to mythat statement isn’t quite as simple as self that 1 did. If the group had told it looks. You wonder if we are living me to get out, and come back when I up to our own principles. Daniel, tell had a desire to stop drinking, I’d have Josh about your first AA meeting.” been long dead. Elinor, you’re the “At the time,” Daniel began, “I longest-sober one here. Have you was a patient in a mental hospital that ever known of a group that ‘threw had never given the time of day to out’ newcomers who wouldn’t say AA. This was over twenty years ago; they wanted sobriety?” things are different now. As a daring experiment a few of us diagnosed alcoholics were taken to an AA meet- ‘Tradition Three ing. I skimmed some of the AA literature, listened to what was said, and doem’t say we had after the meeting closed I got into a conversation with the man who be- 10 stop drinking, but came my sponsor. He asked what my impression was. only have a desire to. “‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I’ve already flunked out.’ Otherwise I wouldn’t ” ‘What do you mean?’ be here tonbht. ” ‘It says the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drink- I’d be. . .anzoqg ing. 1 have no desire to stop drinking.’ ” ‘Then tell me this,’ he said. ‘Do the low dead’ you ever have a desire to be a differ- – – – – – –

ent person?’ ‘ Y Oof~ my personal knowledge,” “‘Now you’ve got my attention!’ I Elinor answered, “though it probane thing puzzles me,” re- standing smile was like a friendly told him. ‘What do I do and how i i r j has happened sometime in the hismarked Josh, our group’s six- hand on his shoulder. Josh grinned soon can I start?’ I’ve had twenty- tory of AA. Just about everything weeks-sober member, responding to back at her, secure in the warmth and three sober years starting with that else has. In my experience very few of the leader’s request for a discussion love of his group. night, so I’m glad AA makes allow- us came to AA with any conscious detopic. “Well, a lot of things puzzle me, “Exactly like I did! My first two or ances for people in no shape to know sire to stop drinking. 1 certainly but right now it’s what you just read three meetings I was afraid to admit I what they want.” didn’t. Like Daniel and Susan, we urfrom the Preamble, and it’s in the didn’t really want to stop drinking, Susan held up her hand, “1 didn.1 ~ e n t l ydesired other things, and knew Traditions: ‘The only requirement for for fear you might throw me out. But think I wanted to stop drinking when there was no chance of getting them AA membership is a desire to stop now that I’m sure you won’t – you I got here, either. I wanted desper- unless we stopped drinking. That was drinking.’ What if someone comes won’t, will you?” ately to stop being so scared and enough for a start, and we developed, into AA who doesn’t desire to stop “Not a chance! You’re doing just miserable, but I had loved alcohol or recognized, the desire to stay drinking?” great and the whole group is thrilled and it was several years before I sober later.” “Like you did?” Sara’s under- about it. You’ve raised a point that reached the point of actually desiring “Wouldn’t it be more honest,”

Josh asked, “to say ‘a desire to re- enough of a one to bring me back to cover from alcoholism’ instead of ‘a AA. And I was entitled to come back, desire to stop drinking’? I’m begin- and to keep trying. Tradition Three ning to see that there is a lot more to doesn’t say we had to stop drinking, recovery than just stopping drinking, but only have a desire to. Otherwise I but the Tradition doesn’t hint at that.” wouldn’t be here tonight. I’d be with “You answered your own question, Susan, among the long dead. And at least in part, Josh, when you said Sara, I think Marjorie is going to exthat after six weeks you are just begin- plode if you don’t let her say what’s ning to see the difference between re- on her mind!” covery and not drinking.” It was Lo- “I’d noticed!” Sara laughed. gan speaking, eight years sober and “Well, Marjorie?” Josh’s sponsor. “That we come into “What impresses me most about AA to stop drinking is about all most the Third Tradition,” Marjorie told of us can comprehend at first. Why us, “is the force of what it doesn’t confuse new people further with ideas say. It tells us who is eligible for AA they aren’t ready for? Also, as stated, membership: anyone with a desire to the Tradition puts the emphasis where stop drinking. And that’s (111. There is it belongs, on getting the drinking no other requirement. Not a word stopped. Nothing is more important about being rich, or a high school to the new member than getting the graduate, or white, or male, or a drinking stopped. For a lot of us it church member. It doesn’t say AA is makes the difference between staying closed to convicts, prostitutes, athealive and dying.” ists, the unemployed, or those under “Then why,” Josh demanded, twenty-one or over seventy-five. We “don’t we say: ‘The only requirement can’t keep anyone out who wants to for membership is to stop drinking’? stop drinking.” That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” “You’ve got me convinced,” Josh “And what time limit would you admitted. “Changing the Third Traset, Josh?” Patrick asked amiably. dition wouldn’t improve it. Now if “Must the new person stop drinking we only had a way to tell whether from his first AA meeting? Within a people truly want to stop drinking.” month? Six months? A year? That “We do have a way,” Elinor aswouldn’t have stopped my drinking. sured him confidently. “An abso- We celebrated my fourteen years of lutely certain way. Only, like so many sobriety last month, if you recall, things in AA, it requires patience. We Josh, but 1 first came to AA nearly know a person desires to stop drinkeighteen years ago. For the first three ing when he does stop drinking and a half years I kept drinking again and desires sobriety when he stays every few months. Then I’d get the sober, day after day.” desire to stop drinking again, or Elizabeth E., Tulsa, Okla.

AA Grapevine, October 1988

end, our founding members recognized the AnonvmitY: We Backed follows giving without expecting anything – need for anonymity because they had to live Into – re We Backing Out? Have you thought about anonymity lately? even recognition – in return.” The committee is working, too, on fresh ways of comthrough the painful consequences of following their natural desire to promote AA. Really thought about it? Or is it simply a municating the principle of anonymity to the We backed into our foundational spiritual word; part of the phrase we routinely use to principle because of fear and pain. And we identify ourselves as a Fellowship? even backed into including that principle in In view of a recent rash of anonymity breaks the name of our Fellowship. When the early at the public level, the General Service Board of AAs were discussing the title of the Big Book, AA has been focusing attention on anonymity they voted initially to call it The Way Out. But in a number of ways. One of those is a special almost as an afterthought, someone checked subcommittee of the trustees’ Public Infor- with the Library of Congress and found mation Committee, which has been formed to twelve other books of that title. So the second raise the consciousness of the Fellowship as a choice, Alcoholics Anonymous, became the whole in regard to anonymity. Recognizing name of our book, and of our Society. that maintaining AA’s Traditions is the re- Having backed into anonymity, are we now sponsibility of AA members, not of the media backing out? The anonymity subcommittee or any outside entity, the subcommittee hopes observes that at the group level – where it to find “a way to remind all AA members really matters – there seems to be little or no everywhere of something most of us already discussion of anonymity and its importance to know (but seldom talk about) – that the prac- the Fellowship and to individuals. Are there tice of anonymity is just as fulfilling and excit- more anonymity breaks in relation to our total ing to the sober alcoholic as sobriety itself.” membership than there used to be? Are ano- The commitee began in the traditional AA nymity breaks today related to the success of way – by looking at the experiences and atti- media, for example, by using a little humor AA and the lessening stigma on alcoholism? tudes of its own members, who put in writing mixed with the serious message. Are we backing out of “the foundation of all their own anonymity experiences. Then, an Anonymity was also the topic of a general our Traditions” without thinking through the article in the August-September issue of Box sharing session at the quarterly meeting of the implications for personal sobriety? for the 4-5-9, a newsletter sent to all groups from the AA General Service Board, and in a back- AA Fellowship as a whole? General Service Office, invited all AA mem- ground presentation, GSO archivist Frank M. In its search for answers to these and other bers to join in this examination o f attitudes traced some of the roots of anonymity. Ano- questions, the Public Information subcomand experience, to be shared with the rest of nymity, he pointed out, was the child of our mittee has set as an initial goal “to find ways the membership. Among other things, the early fears – although ex-drinkers, we still to create a little renewed excitement” about committee hopes to receive stories from mem- thought we had to hide from public distrust anonymity. One focal point for that excitebers “who have discovered the benefits of and contempt. It was the child, too, of our ment will be the 1989 General Service Conferanonymity, the true joy that comes from pass- initial desire to promote AA, to shout from ence, which will meet next April with the ing the message on in a quiet and private way the rooftops that here was a program of recov- theme “Anonymity: Living the Traditions.” and the great glow of satisfaction that always ery from alcoholism that really worked. In the Articles in the Grapevine and in Box4-5-9 will focus attention on the subject. But the real issue is what is happening at the group level. Does your group understand anonymity? Do members talk about it and more important – live it?

AA GRAPEVINE, MARCH 1988

‘ S ome months ago I sat helplessly watching as a young and very famous actress, with wide-eyed sinit’s detrimental to our recovery. Like it or not, we know that ego deflation is necessary to sound and lasting rethought our worst enemy was the big head – who was I to contradict them? After all, they had learned to since my every public appearance was followed by a few celebratory cocktails. I was becoming infected with cerity, confided to God knows how covery from alcoholism. And when arrest alcoholism when nobody else vanity, smugness, and a lurking conmany thousands (or millions) of face- we gossip about the failures of others had ever been able to. viction that since people took to me less television viewers that she be- our own egos begin imperceptibly to Our forebears in AA manifested so warmly I must be a bit above the longed to Alcoholics Anonymous. swell. We didn’t “go out;” she did. either genius or extraordinary com- common run of humanity. Yesterday I finished reading a book Therefore we are one up on. the un- mon sense when they recognized that Because, you see, they all knew which accurately and absorbingly re- fortunate person who tripped. anonymity was necessary in order to who I was; but I didn’t know who protect one another not only from they were. I could not give back, on letting the outside world know how an individual basis, the recognition ashamed we were of not having been and sense of personal worth given me able to control our drinking, but also by this anonymous bunch of bodies. from the risks of developing rampant As a consequence of not being able to egotism through an overdose of pub- recognize who and what each person lic recognition. was, I could not be on an equal foot- I speak from experience. Before ing with each. sobriety, for more than ten years I en- Something like this also happens if joyed fame on a small scale, getting one talks or speaks frequently at our letters from people I had never met, meetings; but in. this case the nonbeing mentioned favorably in nation- humility-causing influences are temal journals, speaking – sometimes to pered by the fact that it all stops promote my work, sometimes to pro- there, and that same evening I may vide “entertainment” for various have to listen to eight or ten more professional clubs. “stars” carry on, while next time I poqed a successful author’s sojourn at Some might protest, “What’s I loved it! I made them laugh. I may not be called on at all. I might a treatment center and his subsequent wrong with feeling important? May- made them think. I made them like add that speaker’s meetings can be joining of AA. Naturally the by-line be one is. Why all this emphasis on me. This gratification over having especially dangerous to the orator. was his real and famous name. He also ‘ego deflation at depth?”‘ I can’t made others happy for at least a few At the level of “press, radio, and referred by name to the above-men- give you a full answer – at least in minutes was a legitimate and possibly films” the ego-pronioting factors realtioned actress, divulging that the word the amount of space the Grapevine growth-promoting feeling, as was the ly zoom in. Tradition Eleven says among his fellow patients was that she provides. All I know is that when I sense of being liked and appreciated nothing about being anonymous in the had “gone out” (drinking, of course) read in the Big Book about our over- that the audience gave to me. flesh before live audiences. It is up to but had “come back” (to AA). blown egos and the danger they were There’s nothing wrong with such you if you want to say your name as Among ourselves, one-to-one or in to us I had a chilling suspicion that exhibitionism when it’s used to give an AA member to anyone you encounsmall groups, this sort of gossip is the author was right. What he said others a good time or to educate ter face-to-face. There is a good reatolerated. Not that it is desirable, but applied to me, and if both he and I them. But it has a malignant partner son for this distinction between media we are human and we discuss and tended to be vulnerable to deleterious waiting in the wings. Being able to anonymity and a personal appearance identify each other. But not in books, effects from self-centeredness, and if control the response of a group of occasion not equipped with cameras, or on television, or in the daily the original hundred or so AAs who strangers was fostering in me some un- microphones, and printing presses inpapers! The reason we don’t is that editorially okayed the Big Book also attractive personality traits. Especially tending to carry your name and AA

, membership beyond the confines of the risks that accompany being idolliteral physical proximity between ized, to wit: the idolized may start bespeaker and hearer. lieving they are made of better stuff The members of a live audience are than those common people who not helpless. They can, individually haven’t the talent or the energy to disand collectively, let you know in- tinguish themselves. stantly what their reactions are. They Public adulation can make one forcan clap, or boo, or laugh. They can get the simple fact of our common corner you at the conclusion of your humanity so fast that one is likely to remarks and praise, challenge, or feel more entitled to a comforting criticize. Their ability to get back at libation perhaps than one of those inyou immediately diminishes your sensitive clods made of baser clay. sense of power over them. You are Prolonged membership in AA, forced to consider yourself more like however, teaches us – at least it has I a part of the whole group. me – that what makes a human However – in printed matter, on being worthwhile has nothing to do sound waves, in satellite-distributed with his intellectual or physical prowpictures, you are physically removed ess. Every human being has value. As and thus protected from hearers and Kipling said, “The colonel’s lady and viewers. Time and distance protect Judy O’Grady are sisters under the you from their goodwill or their skin.” wrath. You can run away and hide Us nobodies have less difficulty next to an unlisted phone and throw with the problem of anonymity at the away their letters without ever having level of the media. Nobody wants to to confront anybody who has been take our picture or print our opinaffected by your presentation. The ions. It is for the rich and famous communicator is in no danger of im- among us that the last two of our Tramediate feedback that might unsettle ditions are an especially great protechim/her. tion. We ought to try to take the edge Their line of work inevitably ex- off the threats to sobriety which celeposes such persons as politicians, en- brities face daily by, on our part, restertainers, writers, and athletes to olutely trying to forget who they are. media fame. A great talent or even a I have touched only upon the psychomediocre ability that other people logically detrimental side-effects of want you to share with them ought to flouting anonymity. There are, in give its owner the benefits and plea- addition, organizational, humanitarsures that come from being loved for ian, and purely practical reasons for the contribution his skills make to our our continuing to be Alcoholics happiness. However, those who want Anonymous. Read our literature for to be honest with themselves and “re- further elucidation. stored to sanity” must be aware of Bernice M., Los Garos, Calif.

*. r AA GRAPEVINE, MAY 1 9 8 8 feelines. I hear other people express- There are slogans we have around ing thYe same fears I feel. -The fear of here. They, too, are a source of comrejection, of failure, of pain, of grow- fort to me. Live and let live. This ing up. The fear of being responsible. means I don’t have to judge anyone, I hear them talking about their impa- or interfere in anyone else’s life. Easy tience, anger, and hate. I hear them does it. Take it slowly and don’t be sharing how they deal with these feel- too hard on yourself. Keep it simple. ings, without acting on them. The Don’t overcomplicate or analyze situfeelings here are real. No cover-ups, ations. Probably the most popular is no lies. I lean back in my chair and re- one day at a time. I can do for one lax a little more. I need to be here and day what I can’t do for a lifetime. All I enjoy the sense of belonging and re- I have to live in is today. lating, the feelings of realness and God is in this room, too. He is the honesty. real force that is felt around here. Peo- The joy in the room wraps around ple talk about him all the time, so 1am me. I find myself laughing along with becoming comfortable with him too. everyone else. The laughter, like That took a long time. He can do for everyone’s, comes from deep within, us what we cannot do for ourselves. and it comes with love. A man is shar- Many of us have tried to do it on our ing a story about his. horrible day, own, but until we found each other and he is laughing at himself. We all and our Higher Power we could not. laugh along with him, because he I call on him all the time. I have doesn’t take himself too seriously learned with his help I can do things today. We try not to either. It’s im- I never thought I could do. When portant here to have a sense of humor. I have faith in him, and ask his help, It’s important to have the freedom my life does work out and I do belong. of all emotions. When there’s sadness I sit up in my chair. It’s my turn to we all share that too. For we have all share now. I ask my Higher Power for

I walk into the room, a nondescript room in a church basement, but it could be a room anywhere. I feel the floors, or even kicked my dog. It doesn’t matter what I have done, or how 1 feel. It doesn’t matter that I’ve known pain. The pain of letting go of the only way we knew how to live life. The pain of beginning to grow up and help, because it’s not easy for me to share. I take a deep breath and go for it. “Hi, I’m Da*n, and I’m an alcosense of belonging and comfort as felt hate or prejudice. It doesn’t even look at ourselves honestly at 20, 35, holic, grateful to be here and sober soon as I enter the room. “Hi, Dawn, matter if I don’t like them (though I or 60 years old. The pain of realizing today.” how you doing tonight?” The greet- do now), or if I don’t want to be our best friend was really our enemy. D. M.,Oak Lawn, Ill. ings are coming from all directions. there. I am totally accepted. There is It’s the people in this room that no judging done here. makh it comfortable for me; I know There is a lot of sharing done here. that I am accepted. Nothing about We share our life stories, our experimy past matters to anybody here. It ences, strengths, and hopes. Honesty doesn’t matter that I’ve been arrested and truth abound here. I know I bemany times, fought on barroom long because of this honest sharing of

AA GRAPEVINE, J U N E 1988 I’ll get my side, and then we will vote. what God’s will might be. I intuitively it takes all of us in a group wnsciena Principles won’t be the consideration know how to handle situations in meeting to understand God’s will for here, but rather personalities. The such a manner. “What would God us at the time. The informed group best personality will win and then we choose for me in this situation?” is a conscience means to me that we try will go along until there is an uprising question that I can get answers for in and profit from those who have gone from another camp or until there is my life. before us in a particular area, espa waning enthusiasm in the. winner’s Those answers come from inven- cially if we want what they have. It camp and the losers will try again. I tory. For me, that must mean the means that we listen to the members had known this way of reaching deci- complete inventory format. I must who have experience, strength, and sions since grade school and class share with another human being what hope to share on a particular issue, elections. I think I have learned from a situa- whether these experiences are major- Later, I saw group conscience as a tion in order to get the clarity I need ity or minority experiences. And then consensus of opinion. At one point in to go on. Left to my own devices, I we each turn within to contribute to a my life, I had been exposed to some can still cleverly mask self-will as collective understanding of God’s creative problem-solving course work God’s will to get my wants met. way of doing business. And with this and had heard it explained that con- Others I trust in the Fellowship can insight, we will trudge the road of our sensus of opinion was not just a vote help me to get back on the path with group’s happy destiny -that of staybecause no one person really had to my thinking. ing sober and helping other alcoholics lose the vote. Everyone kept their This need for others to help me to achieve sobriety. own opinion but simply agreed to go think things through is why I believe R. S., Fayetteville, Ark. down one path at the present time for the greater good of the group: Consensus meant to me that you really didn’t give in at all but acted like you did for the time being. Seems like I , read something when I was new about compliance versus surrender. Now, my concept of group conscience has grown as I begin to under- I

A s a new general service represen- stand all the words in the Second Tratative (GSR) for my home dition. It continues to amaze me how group, I started thinking even more I see only parts of the literature at about the ‘Ikaditions of our Fellow- certain times. My reading and hearship and how I could be a guardian of ing of Tradition Two had been this ‘ those Traditions in my group. way. I am now able to look within to I “Group conscience” wasn’t a new see a loving God in my life. Because I t a m for me, but I have certainly had have been given the grace of this gift, ! some growing pains with my under- I can begin to feel rather than know standing of it. an expression of this love. I have an At first, group conscience simply understanding today, which is conwas “a vote.” You get your side and tingent on my spiritual condition, of

AA Grapevine, October 1988

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end, our founding members recognized the Anonymity: We Backed follows giving without expecting anything – need for anonymity because they had to live Into It – Are We Backing Out? even recognition – in return.” The commit- through the painful consequences of follow- Have you thought about anonymity lately? tee is working, too, on fresh ways of com- ing their natural desire to promote AA. Really thought about it? Or is it simply a municating the principle of anonymity to the We backed into our foundational spiritual word, part of the phrase we routinely use to principle because of fear and pain. And we identify ourselves as a Fellowship? even backed into including that principle in In view of a recent rash of anonymity breaks the name of our Fellowship. When the early at the public level, the General Service Board of AAs were discussing the title of the Big Book, AA has been focusing attention on anonymity they voted initially to call it The Way Out. But in a number of ways. One of those is a special almost as an afterthought, someone checked subcommittee of the trustees’ Public Infor- with the Library of Congress and found mation Committee, which has been formed to twelve other books of that title. So the second raise the consciousness of the Fellowship as a choice, Alcoholics Anonymous, became the whole in regard to anonymity. Recognizing name of our book, and of our Society. that maintaining AA’s Traditions is the re- Having backed into anonymity, are we now sponsibility of AA members, not of the media backing out? The anonymity subcommittee or any outside entity, the subcommittee hopes observes that at the group level – where it to find “a way to remind all AA members really matters – there seems to be little or no everywhere of something most of us already discussion of anonymity and its importance to know (but seldom talk about) – that the prac- the Fellowship and to individuals. Are there tice of anonymity is just as fulfilling and excit- more anonymity breaks in relation to our total ing to the sober alcoholic as sobriety itself.” membership than there used to be? Are ano- The commitee began in the traditional AA nymity breaks today related to the success of way – by looking at the experiences and atti- media, for example, by using a little humor AA and the lessening stigma on alcoholism? tudes of its own members, who put in writing mixed with the serious message. Are we backing out of “the foundation of all their own anonymity experiences. Then, an Anonymity was also the topic of a general our Traditions” without thinking through the article in the August-September issue of Box sharing session at the quarterly meeting of the implications for personal sobriety? for the 4-5-9, a newsletter sent to all groups from the AA General Service Board, and in a back- AA Fellowship as a whole? General Service Office, invited all AA mem- ground presentation, GSO archivist Frank M. In its search for answers to these and other bers to join in this examination of attitudes traced some of the roots of anonymity. Ano- questions, the Public Information subcomand experience, to be shared with the rest of nymity, he pointed out, was the child of our mittee has set as an initial goal “to find ways the membership. Among other things, the early fears – although ex-drinkers, we still to create a little renewed excitement” about committee hopes to receive stories from mem- thought we had to hide from public distrust anonymity. One focal point for that excitebers “who have discovered the benefits of and contempt. It was the child, too, of our ment will be the 1989 General Service Conferanonymity, the true joy that comes from pass- initial desire to promote AA, to shout from ence, which will meet next April with the ing the message on in a quiet and private way the rooftops that here was a program of recov- theme “Anonymity: Living the Traditions.” and the great glow of satisfaction that always ery from alcoholism that really worked. In the Articles in the Grapevine and in Box 4-5-9will focus attention on the subject. But the real issue is what is happening at the group level. Does your group understand anonymity? Do members talk about it and more important – live it?

complacent and talk about how it was come. What about him or her? when our cat was last ill. Juice instead I, for one, long for the old days of coffee; carrots and cauliflower when alcoholics were social pariahs. instead of Oreos; no smoking, no caf- At least I was with other alcoholics feine, no sugar; no, no, no! for whom drinking was a life or death Has an outside issue taken prece- issue. Drinking and not drinking were dence over helping our fellow suffer- the only subjects for discussion. No ing alcoholic? Remember that sign: one started a qualification by saying: “I am responsible. When anyone, “I don’t want to give you another anywhere reaches out for help, I want drunkalog.” AA GRAPEVINE, APRIL 1989 the hand of AA always to be there.” Are these outside issues – smok- There aren’t many of those signs left. ing, caffeine, sugar and others – Alcoholism and AA have received simply aiding the denial of some by a lot of press in recent years and our taking our minds off alcoholism?

What’s numbers have grown, probably with many who still have a drunk left in them. Perhaps they can afford to de- Come on, you remember alcoholism, don’t you? Don’t you? In closing, let’s reread the last lines bate about how to make their AA a of chapter nine of the Big Book: little more comfortable and clubby. “Though he is now a most effective But will there be room for the still member of Alcoholics Anonymous, suffering alcoholic who arrivesat his he still smokes and drinks coffee, but ecently I’ve seen some real prob- stores, trains – just about every- first meeting with a four-day growth neither his wife nor anyone else lems emerging in the areas that where but bars. I dare say there’s not of beard, filthy clothes, shaking stands in judgment. She sees she was once were the basic strengths of AA. a bar in this country or any other that hands, cuts, bruises, double vision wrong to make a burning issue out of this thought was galvanized recently has one of those discreet little signs: and enough rage to power a small city such a matter when his more serious at one of my favorite meetings. We “We’d prefer that you don’t smoke.” – who arrives to find himself in the ailments were being rapidly cured.” were to vote on whether or not to AA ought to be at least as hospit- pristine private club that AA has be- Anonymous, New York,N.Y. make our meeting nonsmoking. As a able as a bar. Don’t drunks still come three time loser of the American Can- into AA as I did, trembling from cer Society clinics and having head to foot? Just out of a detox, dropped $500 with the Seventh Day much the worse for wear! If I had Adventists in a futile attempt to stop, been asked to refrain from smoking I thought I had better stay and see for an hour and a half, my reaction how it went. would have been – shove it! I know After hearing the first few speak- where they’ll let me smoke! ers, pro and con, I thought each side Which brings me to a larger issue: had some equally valid points. Then Are we becoming too precious to do someone spoke of the many places our job as it was intended? Are we that no longer allowed smoking in carrying the message or are meetings our city. It’s a very long list: munici- becoming comfortable little clubs pal buildings, most workplaces, retail where we who have “got it” can be

AA GRAPEVINE, APRIL 1989

for over thirty years, retiring over I started out in AA taking fifteen eleven years ago. cents every day from the collection

The Gift In the early days of AA in Marin plate so that I would have carfare and County we were very few and we all money for Bull Durham roll-yourtried to handle all the Twelfth Step own cigarettes. This was okay with calls we could get. There were no de- the group at that time. Then as things tox places, no halfway houses, no fid- got better with me I started putting get-farms, no hospital would take money into the collection. First it was

the Giving drunks. There was only jail or your very small, then it was increased to own home. We had drunks that peed fifty cents, a dollar, etc. Now I send a on the floor, vomited, raised hell all check to the office in New York and night, then left the next morning to one to the office in San Francisco on D ecause I am an old-timer with go and get drunk all over again. Some my AA birthday each year. You see, I I3 almost forty-two years of sobriety I was asked to speak the other day did, however, stay sober and those didn’t have one cent to my name who did not stay sober at least kept when I came into this program and on the topic, “What have you done me sober. The ones that did stay God has blessed me richly, so it must for AA?” sober were the ones that really caused all be profit. I thought it over for about five me the trouble. I was run ragged tak- My answer to the question, what minutes and started to outline my ing them to meetings, keeping them have you done for AA? Well, this is talk -and came up with a rather sur- out of jail, getting them back to a selfish program and I don’t think prising answer. If you will bear with work, and getting them back together that I have ever done anything for me, I’d like to tell you about it. This was right up my alley. I weighed with their families. It took a lot of my Alcoholics Anonymous, but Alcoi My first day in AA, I was standing 108 pounds dripping wet, still shook time and effort. But it kept me sober holics Anonymous has sure done a lot at the coffee bar trying to drink half a so badly you could not read my writ- and now I have many wonderful for me! cup of coffee without spilling it. I was ing, and had such a bad reputation friends and memories. Jim W.,Larkspur, Calif. shaking like a leaf in a high wind and that no one in their right mind would bemoaning my fate when one of the employ me. I was a half-assed bookmembers suggested that 1 help in keeper but AA needed the work cleaning up the club room. I said, done, so I did it. “What can I do?” He looked at my Many of the AA members learned badly shaking hands and said, what I was doing and asked me to “Empty the ashtrays.” He added, help them with their bookkeeping “On the floor!” Later I graduated to and tax problems (sometimes we’d sweeping the floor and mopping out get a refund and I’d get paid), and the toilets and that made the club my that just sort of grew into a bookplace. I had a job to do every morn- keeping and tax return business. ing and I kept coming back. Eventually I went nights to the Uni- In 1946 some of the AA groups in versity of San Francisco and became San Francisco needed some book- a Certified Public Accountant. I have keeping done and some reports filed managed to make a comfortable livwith various governmental offices. ing from my own accounting practice

April 1989

ing a whole person, by being open, From Lyndeborough, N.H.: kind, and honest everywhere. Open, Special Interest groups? This letter is in response to “The kind, and honest people have integ- From Crescent City, Fla.: Same Treatment” from V. J. in the rity. That’s what life is all about, and I am writing in response to V. J.’s September, 1988 issue. if people don’t like that, then they letter from Minneapolis, Minn. in the I have sucessfully been with the AA have the problem, not us. September ’88 Grapevine. It hurts me program since January, 1975 and will So my friends in AA, don’t be to hear that AA’s unity is being threat- admit that the glory and wonder were turned off by the bigot, but also, ened. No one has the right to ask any slow to come at first but now, my cup don’t forget why you are at the meetmember to leave an AA meeting – overflows and it keeps coming as long ing – to stay sober, one day at a time because they’re gay or for any other as 1 stay out of the way. – and the bigot is there for the same reason. The only requirement for There has been as much gay matemembership is a desire to stop drink- reason. B. J. rial in the Grapevine as has been coning. Maybe we all (myself included) tributed, 1 am sure, but bearing in need to remind ourselves of that. mind that we are in AA to get and Unfortunately, we are also jeopar- stay sober 1 like to see the focus of the dizing our unity with special interest material deal with the disease of alcogroups. We have men’s meetings, holism and not other problems and women’s meetings, gay meetings, addictions. black meetings, and young people’s I am gay. When I go to meetings I meetings, to name a few. Next we will freely talk about how drinking have Catholic meetings, Jewish meet- affected my relationships with my ings, fat meetings, Martian meetings, partner of many years. The other and blue hair meetings. people at the meetings talk about the 1 can learn how to stay sober from same things and they aren’t gay. I beany AA, no matter what that person lieve the problem arises when we try is like on the surface. But I can’t if he to force feed people on the virtues of is at a black, old, overweight, gay homosexuality, forgetting that we are meeting, and I’m at a white, young, whole people. Most of the “straight” straight men’s meeting. S. K. people I know are not really interested in me as a homosexual and wouldn’t be interested in me at all if that were the obsessive image I chose to project. Gay meetings have their place and help a great many people get started in the program, but I strongly recommend breaking the mold, by becom-

AA GRAPEVINE, MAY 1989 7 months, due to a remodeling project But something special happened in the cafeteria. The group would that night. Our newcomer had always “Moved by the spirit of anonymity, we try to give up have to move. My friends and 1 fi- declined sharing in previous meetour natural desires for personal distinction as AA nally found a nearby church where ings, apparently too timid or shy to members both among fellow alcoholicsand before we could temporarily have meetings. say anything. In this tiny meeting the the general public. As we lay aside these very But new schedules from Central threat of large numbers of people was absent, and he was able to share his human aspirations, we believe that each of us. . . Office had just been printed. How would people know of the change? story for the first time. He spoke in I 1 By a vote of the “group conscience,” the language of the heart, with words the group decided to distribute flyers of remorse, guilt, fear, shame feel-

The Principles Work- in Spite of Us and announce the change at other meetings. It worked! The normal attendance ings that must find their way out as

T we begin a sober life. e all cried. I learned some va uable lessons of about twenty people tripled the with this experience: that the Fellowfirst night we met in our new home. I ship of AA with its solid foundation was doing a marvelous job! But as the of Traditions goes on in spite of how next few weeks passed, that sixty well (or poorly) we think we are rundropped to fifty – then to thirty, fif- ning the show. Our Higher Power is teen, ten, and finally one stormy always present, always working in night, only three. A feeling of failure ways beyond any plans we can devise. gripped me once again, just as it had To me this is the essence of the when I was drinking. I was certain Twelfth Tradition: the principles that the success of the meeting rested working in spite of my personality. squarely on my shoulders. Surely I Five years have passed and I’ve was doing something wrong. On that moved to another city to accept a gift rain-swept night, there was one of sobriety – a good job! While visitwoman, a man with just a few weeks ing my old home group on my last in the Fellowship, and me. A meeting vacation, I counted about twenty was held anyway, with the knowledge people – all new faces to me – in the that when two or more alcoholics remodeled cafeteria. The secretary gather we can share our experience, had six months of sobriety. strength, and hope. Bob B., Houston, Tex.

A t the six-month milestone of my -seriously. I dutifully made the coffee, recovery, I was elected secretary set up tables and chairs, and saw to of my Sunday night home group having a leader each week. which met in the hospital cafeteria. Shortly after assuming these du- Since I had shunned most kinds of re- ties, I was notified by the hospital adsponsibility during the later years of ministrator that we would be unable my drinking, I took this new honor to meet there for the next few

AA GRAPEVINE, AUGUST 1989

on’t worry about paying rent; rationalized: “Maybe we should let1 we’re just happy to have an the church support us. After all, it AA group in our church hall.” may be rough getting this group off The two earnest A&, however, have new meaning for me, examined cost overruns when a group forgets to the ground. We may not be able to from both sides. In the past, it turn down thermostats and close winlooking respectable in their business afford the fee.” But they didn’t. suits, immediately declined the clergy- seemed reasonable to offer a “dona- dows; the cost of paper products, It pleases me to know that my tion” to a church in other groups I garbage bags, and collection; and the man’s generous offer. group did not let the church support \ “Thank you, Reverend, but our belong to. A charitable and well in- cost from damage, loss, and theft. To them in the beginning and this im- tended pqstor or institution would a group that feels comfortable in pay- Traditions tell us that our group pressed the church. What many of us ought to be fully self-supporting. We suggest a token “rent” and the group ing a token amount, the burden falls AAs do not realize, including me (un- would readily accept the offer. We on the church members. My AA group are grateful for your kindness, but we til I “married into the church”) is must pay our own way.” And so be- believed that we were observing the was firm in its commitment, thank that many of our AA meeting halls Seventh Tradition. But a token is not God, to be self-supporting. gan a verbal contract with my hus- are the property of poor, small par- I have heard it said at a business band, who was the clergyman, and rent. A token is a partial payment. ishes who struggle to stay open. I have seen more than one group meeting that “we don’t need to raise the founders of what was to become When my church offered free rent to the amount of our donations toward my home group, which met at my who paid token rents be asked to AA, they were offering the tremen- leave a facility; the AA group became the rent (after five years) because the church for many, many years. dous maintenance costs that a small As time went on, I became more a financial liability. Other reasons to church hasn’t asked for more.” Now working-class parish must pay. Like ask a group to leave might have been is that the spirit of Tradition Seven? conscious of the full meaning of Tra- most unendowed churches, we exist dition Seven, which tells us that every superseded if the group had been If we are fully self-supporting from month to month waiting for the fully self-supporting. through our own contributions, as our AA group ought to be fully self-sup pledges to come in. The weekly ten porting, declining outside contribu- There are numerous costs to main- Preamble reinforces, then should we dollar pledge from a church member taining a site that are not usually fac- put the church in the position of begtions. From the beginning, my group is vital for paying the clergyman’s saldeclined outside contributions by in- tored into even a “full” fee: the wear ging money from us? Or should we ary, mortgages, utilities, water, jani- and tear and replacement ‘of chairs spare them that indignity and offer sisting on paying a fee for the use of tor services, paper towels, light bulbs and tables; plumbing, floors and car- rent increases on a regular basis? the hall, despite the tempting offer of . . .well, you get the picture. pets; dirt and smoke damage to ceil- Long ago, Bill W. observed, in the a free ride. The two AAs might have The words “fully self-supporting” ings, walls, and windows; heating groups and in himself, the peculiar

phenomenon of our tight-fisted Well, all of these new perspectives approach when we pass the hat. Way on the meaning of our Twelve Tradiback in the fifties, some groups tions have come from two sources: would say, “Please, if you have it, dig my life as a clergyman’s wife and my in. The group needs the money to pay Twelve Step and Twelve Traditions the rent. We don’t want to ‘hear’ any meetings. My eyes are opening to noise from loose change, so we won’t these inspired and brilliant plans for object to any folding money you living. The Steps ensure the mental choose to drop in!” and spiritual growth of the individ- Thirty-some years and a quadruple ual; the Traditions ensure the growth inflation rate later, we tight-fisted of the group. alcoholics – who squandered thou- I have learned another lesson about sands – still see the one dollar bill as being a good AA tenant from my exthe upper limit of our contribution. perience “on the other side.” I Speaking for myself, I find no learned what a nasty job it is to pick problem with paying a therapist $80 up discarded cigarette butts from an hour once a week for my other lawns and walks, because I am a mental health program. The AA pro- groundskeeper at my church. Guess gram which saved my life and offers who spent many years tossing away me every bit as much help and healing butts as I approached a church, a as my outside program gets the short meeting hall, a movie theater? It end of the financial stick from me – never mattered that someone would a dollar at best. Translated into realis- have to pick up after me. Now that tic terms that means: Am I willing to someone is me. Yes, it’s been a valuspend the equivalent of a cup of cof- able lesson being on the other side. fee to save my life? Anonymous, Oxford, May.

September 1989

had recently been released from an learned to respect our principle of institution and was doing a remark- anonymity. My supervisor and I conable job of recovery. We’ll call him tinue to have a good relationship – 1

YOURMOVE \ Mr. A. feel fortunate that she had an open One day at work, Mr. A. decided h i n d about our program, in view of to talk about the program while our the fact that she knew very little supervisor was within earshot. Mr. about it. As for me? I’m enjoying my A., inadvertently or otherwise, broke seventh year of anonymous sobriety, our anonymity. He mentioned my go- in thankful contemplation. J.M. ‘ Re- responses on the ing to meetings and also started to topic of anonymity: talk about other people we know The anonymlty of others from the program. I asked Mr. A. to From Fatima, Portugal: We received quite a few responses on this topic a n d selecting a n d refrain from this conversation, but There are fifteen pages regarding ,excerpting proved a difficult task. Many readers, It is clear, have strong not before our supervisor had obvi- anonymity in Bill W.3 pamphlet ously overheard us. “AA Tradition – How It Develfeellngs on anonymity. Though s p a c e does not permit the publicatlon of every letter, the 1 remember very well how she gave oped,” and they make for very interp a g e s that follow in this month’s issue include the thoughts of nlne me an embarrassed look, as though esting reading. Bill makes reference readers, whose opinions represent a s fully a s possible the range of she felt she’d heard something inap- to Dr. Bob’s and Anne’s burial stone responses that we received. propriate; not meant for her ears. not having a word about Alcoholics This is your magazine, a n d only with your help c a n the Grapevine Mr. A. was oblivious to all this, but I Anonymous on it. The co-founder of truly be the Fellowship’s “meeting In print” a n d “forum for debate.” If felt humiliated. I didn’t know how our Fellowship upheld the ‘helfth you have experiences a n d thoughts to share with fellow AAs, write my supervisor might react. Tradition to the grave. What an exthem out a n d send them to: Editorial Department, PO Box 1980, Grand As it turned out she made only one ample of humility. Central Station. New York, NY 10163-1980. reference to my recovery from alco- For me, however, personal anoholism, a few months later. She nymity is not important, except on a approached me with her concerns job application or insurance applica- Anonymity on the job to other recovering alcoholics. I can about another employee, whom we tion – in a situation where others do From Vancouver, B.C.: leave my workday identity, and fa- shall call Mr. B. She said she felt Mr. not fully understand the disease of The principle of anonymity carries cades, behind. While the social stig- B. might have a drinking problem, alcoholism. great blessings when applied to an in- ma of being a “known alcoholic” and would 1 consider telling him In most instances where I have disdividual’s life. The Twelfth Tradition may have lessened these past years, it about the program! closed that 1 am an alcoholic and a says this about anonymity: “It re- is still around. This story has a positive ending, member of AA, it has helped me and minds us that we are to place princi- Let me give an example from my thanks to my Higher Power, though hopefully helped another person: ples before personalities; that we are own life. My workplace is a pleasant it could just as easily have been carrying the message. actually to practice a genuine humil- public service area, teeming with peo- negative. To sum up, 1 did acquaint But just like any other AA member, ity. This to the end that our great ple. My supervisor is a seasoned, un- Mr. B. with the program, and while I I don’t have the right to break soma blessings may never spoil us. . . ” derstanding woman, well-liked by do not see him often, it seems his one else’s anonymity and I must re- Here is another consideration. I everyone – a “people person.” One quality of life has been improving. As spect that at all times. find that when I remain anonymous, of my co-workers is, like me, a recov- for Mr. A., he went on to another job At present, I am living in Fatima, I feel more confident in expressing ering alcoholic. We first met some more in his field, and I haven’t seen Portugal. The nearest AA meeting is my innermost feelings and memories time before at an M meeting – he him for a while. I only hope he has two and a half hours away in Lisbon.

It’s not who you know As I sat in my brother’soffice that I make my contacts by putting up anonymity designates the exact level day, something inside of me knew it notes for traveling alcoholics in a few where the line should be held, it must From Columbus, Ohio: local hotels. Before we had a phone, I be obvious to everyone who can read When I asked a man who had what was no coincidence that my sponsor protected their anonymity by word- and understand the English language I wanted if he would be my sponsor, *was my sponsor. I intuitively knew ing my message: “English-speaking that to maintain anonymity at any he said, “Yes, I will, but you need to %hat a power greater than myself had friends of Bill W: contact Jackie W. other level is definitely a violation of know that 1 have done some illegal made the arrangement, and for that 1 by leaving a message at the desk.” this Tradition. things in sobriety.” A month later as am truly grateful. ANONYMOUS Then several times a week I’d check “The AA who hides his identity 1 talked with my brother, trying to the desk for messages, and as a result from his fellow AA by using only a impress upon him how well I was do- No photos, please! I had many beautiful meetings with given name violates the Tradition just ing in my newfound sobriety, I told From Vancouver, B.C. : him who I had asked to be my spon- I have been a grateful member of travelers in our Fellowship. On one as much as the AA who permits his occasion, a messenger from a hotel name to appear in the press in comec- sor. His mouth dropped open and his AA for nine months, and I have so delivered the message to my apart- tion with matters pertaining to AA.” eyes got real big. My brother asked, much to learn. I am an avid reader of ment in a sealed envelope and two Ernie G. (another old-timer in- “Are you aware I’m suing that – the Big Book and the Grapevine. grateful alcoholics were able to meet volved in the beginnings of AA) also of a -?” When I first came to AA, desperate and help each other. commented, “We don’t know any- First I had to go to my sponsor and and frightened, I was working in a The “Twelve Traditions Illustrat- one’s last name. They get so doggone confess how I had breached his ano- business that was frequented by many ed” pamphlet states in reference to carried away with this anonymity that nymity. When I searched myself for members of the community and I did the Twelfth ‘Ifadition: “Let us always it gets to be a joke. I had a book [evi- the reason 1 had broken his anonym- not want it to become public knowlremember that anonymity – not tak- dently a small address books compiled ity in the first place, I found that my edge that I was in the AA program. ing credit for our own or other’s re- by early members or their wives] with self-worth was involved. I had always So I was pleased to hear other memcovery – is humility at work.” It is the first hundred names – first and believed my place in life depended on bers saying that they protected other sacrificing for the common good.. . last – telephone numbers, and where who I knew, and who knew that I people’s anonymity. And yet, on enacknowledging our dependence on a they lived.” knew who 1 knew. That certainly was tering my third or fourth AA meetpower higher than ourselves. J. w. Further, Dr. Bob felt that it was true when I joined a fraternity in ing, I saw that someone was “taking important to let yourself be known in college, and over the years it had a cake” – an anniversary of four or How anonymous to be3 the community as an AA member. So, become more insidious. But in sobri- five years of sobriety. This person From Oakridge, Ore.: evidently the Tradition for anonym- ety, the concept of anonymity de- had a friend with a camera who was On page 264 of the book Dr. Bob ity was designed mainly to protect the stroyed my most valued tool for so- indiscriminately taking photographs and the Good Oldtimers, Dr. Bob is newcomer in his or her newfound so- cial enhancement. All of a sudden I of the speakers and the celebrant all quoted as having said that there were briety, to enable us to get a new start was not allowed to tell people who my through the meeting. None of us was only two ways to break the anonym- in life while becoming established in friends were. I did not even know asked for our consent and most of the ity Tradition: (1) by giving your name the Fellowship. their last names. pictures were taken with the crowd in at the public level of press or radio; In my opinion, we would do better I am so grateful for the principle of the background and the characteristic (2) by being so anonymous that you to worry less about whether we scare anonymity. It was this concept that circle and triangle AA logo showing. can’t be reached by other drunks. off newcomers by using the word broke through my dependence on When I was asked if I wanted to share The book then quoted the Grape- God, or about the dual addiction other people for my self-esteem. The during the meeting, I declined withvine, in an article dated February question, and concentrate on the Twelfth Tradition led me through the out explaining why, not wanting to 1%9, where Dr. Bob allegedly com- bonding of unity in our Fellowship. early days, and introduced me to the spoil someone’s “party.” But was mented on the anonymity ‘Ifadition We need to know who we are, and set of principles that set me free -the this not an AA meetinn? It was listed as follows: “Since our Tradition on how to contact one another. J. A. Twelve steps. in the directory as such. How many

other newcomers were frightened atoverseas and a recovering, cross- desire to drink or use. It has become God provides for me exactly what I the prospect of photographs being addicted alcoholic, the principle of well-known to some stewards that my need, one day at a time. taken and distributed who knows anonymity is of the utmost impor- beverage of choice is invariably club The situation has not occurred in where? tance. In fact, it is so important to soda with a wedge of lime and I am i y three years of sobriety, but if I felt If some members must take over a me, that rather than risk losing it by often served this drink without even that breaking my anonymity would meeting with this show of pride, that attending the weekly meeting held being asked. help a suffering alcoholic or addict is one thing. But if photographic in this African city where I live, I So that I may satisfy the need to toward recovery, I would do it in a memories are so important, why have chosen to forgo attending the “give it away” in order to keep it, I minute. I thank you for your fine p u b can’t they wait until the meeting is meetings. have devoted hundreds of hours in lication. 1 particularly like the letters closed and then draw their consentingThis has not been as difficult as it I fund-raising and volunteer work out- from readers since they all seem to seems since I have designed a very friends aside and snap photos to their side of AA to help the numerous dis- come right from the heart and let me heart’s content? sound personal program based upon advantaged and handicapped indi- “listen” to others as though I were As I grow in this program and the principles I learned in a thirty-day viduals who seem to overpopulate actually in a meeting. ANONYMOUS through my Higher Power, I am stay at an East Coast rehab and the this third world country where I live. more sensitive to the newcomers and more than 200 meetings I attended I practice the AA principles in all my Inner securliy the principles of AA. I now avoid any before moving overseas. Additionally affairs and feel if I can’t be helping From Miller Place, N.Y.: “cake” celebrations if I am fore- I have a very supportive and wise hus- alcoholics, I am at least helping those Some thoughts about anonymity. warned. Am I the only person who band who never hesitates to be my who suffer from other diseases. Anonymity is leading me to a fully feels this way? Have so many people sounding board when I need to talk. This is not a program which I rec- human life. The Twelfth Tradition forgotten what it was like to be newly The diplomatic life I lead exposes ommend for anyone else, but it does (long form) sets forth the end to sober? I pray I never do. me daily to situations where alcohol is work for me in my unique situation. which the Steps are leading me. It ANONYMOUS served not only in drinks but some- When I am in the states on “R & R,” puts me in my place by setting forth a times in desserts. I can firmly refuse I try to visit my home group and keep genuine humility – not a self-hating Alone In AMca all offers of alcohol, thanks to a daily in touch with members by phone and groveling, but rather an honest and From an anonymous location: program of meditation, prayer, and letters. 1 read the Grapevine each loving relationship with a God who As the wife of a U.S.ambassador AA reading, which has removed all month and have complete faith that loves me. Once this is established, I

am free to relate to other people out As I attended a wider range of of the love and inner security that meeting places, I eventually met other The next night I picked up my new cause of the name of the organization, renders my overinflated ego super- members whose children I was pres- friend and went to the open meeting “Alcoholics Anonymous.” Thank fluous. J. T. ently teaching, and it became easier feeling anxious about what would .God, they did not force me to say my happen. I was not in the meeting Mame or “state my disease” the way and easier to approach them, not in more than ten minutes when I heard, they do today. I was so frightened, so Mnclples before penonalltles any professional capacity, but as a From Clearwater, Ont.: “Hello Mr. -.” Turning around I insecure, and so dependent on my fellow AA. faced two of my students. Well, the husband who didn’t want me to go to When I attended my first AA meet- Throughout this time I still carried sky didn’t fall down and they didn’t AA. We thought if people knew, his ing four years ago I was immediately with me one primary fear. Although I ask me what I was doing there. We job might be affected adversely. Conattracted by the principle of anonym- felt at ease talking with parents of my ity. Despite the fact that my life had students within the Fellowship I did talked briefly and then parted as the sequently, for the first five years in meeting was getting started. the program, I remained totally become unmanageable and I was in have a dreaded fear of going to open pain there still remained a vestige of AA meetings because I knew some of What these young students of mine anonymous. I attended every meeting pride that kept me from wanting any- my pupils attended these meetings decided to do with this knowledge of my group. I diligently took the one to know who I was or what I did with their parents. My anonymity about their teacher is beyond my con- Steps as outlined, and I didn’t pick up for a living. You see, I am an elemen- would not be safe should I encounter trol. Perhaps I don’t give them the first drink. I have stayed sober tary school teacher. enough credit for understanding AA ever since, one day at a time. one of these students under such cir- principles even though they have par- Anonymity is the spiritual founda- Alcohol had beaten me down to a cumstances. I feared that my alcoholpoint where I was morally and emo- ism would become a matter of public ents actively involved in the program. tion of the program. It lets us know tionally bankrupt and this did not sit attention if ever I was seen at an open What 1 did learn from this entire what is here. It keeps us from concenwell with what I believed to be soci- meeting. This then has been the moti- episode was something about ano- trating on who is here. Sobriety is nymity as it affects me. here. The newcomer can have it and ety’s accepted ideal of a teacher of vation for me to primarily attend young children. I was acutely con- only closed meetings in AA during In our Twelfth Tradition it states: it’s free. When we are new and we scious of the fact that I was a creature the last few years. “Anonymity is the spiritual founda- look into the eyes of the sober membeneath contempt and, while remain- Last December I was on call for the tion of all our traditions, ever re- bers in the room, we can see it working anonymous, I could keep my AA answering service and I received a minding us to place principles before ing. It’s been called “the thing in the identity a secret. It was not long, Twelfth Step request from a gentle- personalities.” Prior to this open room.” It says that together we can however, before my anonymity was man to take him to an AA meeting meeting, there was little of a spiritual stay sober. It says if I can do it, so can threatened. the following night. Unfortunately nature in my understanding of ano- you. There are three ways to carry the One night a couple of months after for me, the meeting the next night nymity and certainly my personality message of sobriety: by example, by I had been introduced to AA, a mem- was an open meeting and I was faced had priority over the principle of ser- example, and by example. Talk is ber of my group approached me and with a dilemma. I told this caller 1 vice. It was that night when I began to cheap. Forcing newcomers to talk declared, “I finally figured out who would have to get back to him, and so see how anonymity as the spiritual sometimes puts their sick egos into you are.” I had taught her son a few I pondered what I would do. My foundation of my AA program is full bloom, and minimizes their years previously and she had just now valued principle of anonymity was there not to protect me from you, but chances of sobriety. to protect me from myself. B. T. I got sober in Tulsa, Oklahoma recognized me. being threatened and 1 was scared. when they didn’t make you talk. That Initially, I was disturbed by this Dare I take this man to an open meet- was a godsend for me, because it per- ‘The thlng In the room’ discovery, but after talking with her I ing and risk seeing some student? mitted me to listen. I am so grateful relaxed and soon forgot that I was her Should I refer the newcomer to some- From Santa Barbara, Calif.: son’s teacher and felt the friendship one else for help? Reflecting upon About anonymity. When I came for anonymity. Thank God the founof one AA member for another. these alternatives, I made a decision. into AA twenty-five years ago, I ex- ders had the foresight to call it “Alcopected members to be anonymous, be- holics Anonymous. ” E. D.

4′ ‘ AA G R A P E V I ~ E ,OCTOBER 1989 that second. moment of silence, I either. Making coffee for my group picked some topic at random and seems harmless. After all, it is a fairly called on someone. After that person anonymous task. Yet if I make coffee spoke, I made a brief comment and week after week, I am not allowing called on someone else. I continued others the opportunity to serve and

Then ateppin~ Aside , , ,% p*+zfE..yL* S,P.” chairing the meeting in this manner. After the meeting my sponsor took me aside and spoke to me at length about responsibility. He explained thereby to grow. Instead I have estab lished a territory that is mine. Moving from secretary to chairman to treasurer of a committee or group is not &:gi!l@**?,#$ , . % ‘ . that my job as chairperson was to moving. It is just changing titles. prepare a topic; to briefly introduce it There comes a time to tell myself A fter I put some days together in AA, my sponsor brought up the subject of service work. This term there were lessons to be learned and I was just to show up. I learned a lot during my month on in general terms; and then to turn it over to the group for discussion. By that the best person for the job is not me. I must learn to move aside even was familiar to me from listening to ashtrays and, in fact, began to enjoy speaking after each person I was wav- when the group asks me to continue others and from attending the busi- the job. I learned about becoming a ing my flag and being important -at in a position just one more time., ness meetings he suggested. I was ex- part of the group and felt that I did least in my own mind. I wanted to be There is a time to tell myself that the cited that my sponsor thought I had belong. Then my sponsor told me it someone important and did that by person for the job is someone else. grown and was ready to be of service was time to move from ashtrays to presiding over the meeting. My job becomes helping another peras our group’s GSR (general service mop. I was a little hurt, but I agreed My sponsor was correct. I can do son become a trusted servant. representative). After all, “we must to do both. My sponsor vetoed that the right thing for the wrong reason. To make spiritual progress it is give it away in order to keep it.” I was idea. “Another member needs that Although I may look good, 1may not clear that I must learn to give without about to find a whole new meaning to job and you need to mop.” be practicing the principles of the demanding payment. I must show that phrase. Mopping was not nearly as enjoy- program. I can actually be practicing others by my actions not my disserta- My sponsor had a different form of able as ashtrays. I did not feel as personalities while being in service tions or my title or the number of poservice work in mind for me. He was much a part of the group with mops work. “Certainly I will represent my sitions I hold. Even if my group sugthinking along the lines of ashtrays, as I had with ashtrays. I learned that group at that. Just give me a minute gests I continue in a position, I must mops, chairs, tables, and trash clean my ego had suffered. The jobs that to dust off my flashing neon name tag show how to move aside gracefully. up rather than holding an elected po- people saw me doing were far more and I will be right there.” Just as I want to be the best example sition. My feelings were hurt. I knew enjoyable than those I did when no The purpose of service work, as I of the Big Book that I can be, I must I was qualified for much greater one was there to see me. This same understand it, is to get out of self. But also be the best example of a trusted things. Cleaning ashtrays was. ..de- lesson came out in a different way I can turn that around in a millisec- servant that I can be. I must live the meaning. I did not say that out loud, when my sponsor suggested I chair ond. It is clear that I must learn how program by my actions. I practice the but the thought must have been clear. my first nieeting. to give without demand for attention principles of this program because My sponsor informed me that I must I was excited. Now here was a sure or payment. I must learn to be of ser- that is what I want to be, not because learn to crawl before I could learn to sign of growth. I arrived early and vice without announcing my reign. I I will have some title or special name walk. He was always making cryptic chatted with everyone. I shared how must learn that others can be right – tag to stroke my ego. statements like that to confuse me. nervous I was. The jeering response and that I may be wrong. I must also I am fortunate to have a sponsor What could I possibly learn from took away much of my fear. Sitting at give them room to be wrong. At other who showed me by his example. I b picking up and cleaning ashtrays? the head of the table I opened the times I must learn to compromise. lieve that I have a responsibility to What did that have to do with service meeting in the usual manner and then Learning to step aside and let oth- pass that on. It starts pith me. . . work? My sponsor let me know that asked if anyone had a topic. After ers serve is not an easy thing to do B. L., Little Rock, Ark.

AA Grapevine, October 1989

from the way they do it in New York. result of practical experience: Twelve One day in particular, I was lament- Steps for personal recovery, Twelve ing the local customs, when a new Traditions for group unity, and Omaha friend suggested that I might Twelve Concepts for world service.$ value Nebraska AA more after living The Three Legacies of AA – Recovwith it for as long as I’d lived with ery, Unity, and Service. While new- New York AA. Therefore, I should comers are the lifeblood of the prostay sober a while longer, so I could gram, the Three Legacies are the make a fair comparison (a cunning, operative heritage of Alcoholics baffling, and powerful approach!). Anonymous. Well, five years later I am glad to Surrender, faith, confession, restireport that over time I have found tution, ego-deflation, and other princonsiderable happiness in Omaha. As ciples that strengthened personal refor a comparison between Omaha covery among early AAs, are handed and New York AA, there is no com- down through the Twelve Steps of parison. The local customs differ to Recovery. suit the local alcoholics. Self-sacrifice, humility, tolerance, During my early days, I often re- and singleness of purpose are among his year has been the tenth year This tenth AA birthday is espe- ferred to life in recovery as “Twelfth the measures that proved to foster of my sobriety, one day at a cially distinguished by marking my Step Living.” Several years passed be- unity within AA groups; they are time. I am not hesitant to share this fifth year in Omaha, Nebraska. I fore I realized that a fulfilling sobriety handed down to other groups through news, because I have learned that not moved here from New York City involves more than Twelfth Step liv- the Twelve Traditions of Unity. And one of these miraculous days is to my when I was five years sober and won- ing. Actually, there are thirty-six prin- practices that contribute to smooth credit: ad maiorem dei gloriem – dered how the heck people could stay ciples to be practiced, all of which service operations – participation, “the greater glory to God.” sober here, because it was so different were hammered out over time as the rights of decision and appeal, discus-

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I

sion and vote are passed on through ety). The longest side would have rep- thing of the Second Legacy, because ting to know and practice the Twelve the Twelve Concepts of Service. resented, “Recovery.” Service required that I try to get along Traditions. One day during the past year, I In those days, God gave me the with others – the beginning and the Therefore, I am delighted to have looked carefully at the symbol of Al- grace to embark upon physical, men- essence of Unity. gotten sober in New York City and am coholics Anonymous: There was a tri- tal, and spiritual recovery by not No more the lopsided scalene poly- equally delighted to be living sober angle, symbolizing the Fellowship of drinking a day at a time, going t o AA gon of the past, my personal triangle today in Omaha, Nebraska. Alcoholics Anonymous, inside of a meetings, and learning to eat and was looking pretty good: a sleek isos- If any dogged newcomer has actucircle, which stands for the world at sleep. I got heavily into the Steps, be- celes with two tall and sturdy sides. ally read to this point, I applaud you. large. The three sides of the triangle cause I was desperate to be changed. The remaining side was admittedly This article may seem bewildering, represent the Three Legacies – Re- The next-longest side of my per- short, but at least it was solid and but please do not fret over it. Stay covery, Unity, and Service. sonal, scalene triangle would have well-formed. away from the first drink, just for The symbol was old and familiar represented, “Service.” Although I I was happy, too – easily happier today, and go to lots of AA meetings; – I’d seen it pictured on the back of had never heard of the Twelve Con- than I’d ever been befor$ in my life – you may find a reason to join us, and AA Conference-approved literature cepts until I was seven years sober, I but some aspects of happiness were someday give freely of what you find. for ten years, and on sobriety medal- gave service from day one – led by missing. (It stands to reason, looking For you longer-timers, I wish to lions since moving to Omaha in 1983. the example of many devoted AA back. After all, the Traditions of close with a story shared by Marie S., The triangle in the circle was not new members in New York City. Unity include principles such as hu- which gave me hope about “double to me, but during my tenth year of so- Then the shortest side of my sca- mility, tolerance, and singleness of digit” sobriety. It concerns an exbriety, I suddenly saw new meaning lene triangle would surely have been, purpose. How happy could my sobri- change she had with her sponsor, in it by recognizing what variety of “Unity.” It meant nothing to me, ety be without these?) Alabam C., who got sober during the triangle had been picked to represent and I was not openminded or willing Between seven and ten years of so- early 1950s. Alcoholics Anonymous and the Three to learn about it or its Twelve Tra- briety, my personal triangle has gone When she was twelve years sober, Legacies – an equilateral triangle. ditions. from a sleek isosceles to a gestating Marie was rambling on to her spon- Equilateral triangle: one having Between about four and seven equilateral – somewhat misshapen sor about trudging the road of happy three equal sides. ‘ years of sobriety, my personal tri- as yet, but vital in-transformation. destiny. Alabam suddenly cut in to It struck me that AA’s Three Lega- angle shaped up into the isosceles va- You see, among the many gifts that say, “You know, baby, I listen to cies are symbolized by equal sides, to riety, with two equal sides of “Recov- I’ve received in Alcoholics Anony- you, and you talk like the best has alexpress the equal importance of ery” and “Service.” mous during the past few years, the ready happened. I’ve been your Recovery, Unity, and Service in a During those years, I grew much greatest has been learning to better length of sobriety, and I’m here to tell sober life. stronger in Alcoholics Anonymous. cherish AA’s Second Legacy of you the best is yet to come.” With the help of a dictionary and a The crying jags tapered off, and the Unity. It happened in Omaha by get- Anonymous, Omaha, Nebr. high school math text, I read up on God of my understanding consoled triangles and considered the Three me during daily quiet times. Working Legacies throughout my sobriety. with others taught me how to trust, During the first three years of my and working the Steps put distance sobriety, my personal relationship to between me and who I had been as a those legacies would have been sym- newcomer to the Fellowship. bolized best by a scalene triangle: one The shortest side of my personal with three unequal sides, which looks triangle was still “Unity,” though it awkward and lopsided (a fair descrip- was more developed by that time. tion of how I felt during early sobri- Through Service, I had learned some-

turbances. People were ignorant, but such I was truly thirsty for another of it was not their fault. They had no the same and returned to the bartender chance to learn better and simply who, before I spoke a word said, shared age-old misconceptions. “Sir, I’ve been thinking. If before When I was a very small boy I re- you come to something like this you member hearing grown folks talk take a tablespoon of olive oil -” about someone who’d died. When I interrupted with an inspired stateone asked the cause of death the other ment, “Look, I’m a retired pro.” said in hushed tones, “The family “Yes, sir, I understand, sir.” isn’t saying, but I think it was con- I had told him everything without sumption.” That was the common really saying anything. Today at a name for tuberculosis which was ig- party if someone says, “Can I get you norantly considered a bit disgraceful. a drink?” it’s easy to answer, Even into the 1950s lots of people “Thanks, but I’m not thirsty.” Of thought and spoke of alcoholics in course, that’s not in the script, but it’s the same way. What a long way these polite and it’s the truth. two diseases have come since in get- As time went by I slowly realized ting them on top of the table! Our that the anonymity of concealment nonalcoholic friends, drinkers and no longer existed for me, In its place abstainers, have now had a chance to was a comfortable understanding, learn and regard the alcoholic with seldom mentioned, by friends and understanding. even casual acquaintances that I am a here are two kinds of anonymity. but “everybody” didn’t know. I was In those early days when I went to nondrinking alcoholic. The word had I believe in both of them. First concerned because my fully support- an open meeting in a larger AA hall, leaked. Concealment was gone. No comes concealment. It’s a guard ive wife was embarrassed. I feared it lest I be observed I parked on the longer did I need it for I had found reagainst ego feeding by the new person would damage me in my profession. back side of the block and walked as covery but with the ever present who may have a relapse and give bad At that time alcoholism was a very casually as possible to the meeting knowledge that although recovered I impressions of AA. It’s also a protec- dirty word and to be branded as an place. I tried to time my progress to was not cured and could suffer a retion of the new member who fears AA member and therefore an alco- the door until the heavy automobile lapse. Comparably in later years I republicity. holic was something lots of people traffic had stopped, and then I made covered from open heart surgery but Not boastfully but just factually in associated with skid row. Few viewed a dash for it. Looking back I think of my heart problem was not cured and comparing the past to now, my AA it as an illness. Most thought alcohol- it as a form of bigheaded belief that I daily take prescribed medication membership started the day I had my ics were weak-willed people, which some drivers might be paying atten- just as I continue active in AA. last drink, nearly forty years ago. The they thought was pretty obvious since tion to me and maybe recognize me I strongly believe in the Eleventh time is important in reaching back to the AA member was a weak-willed and then tell it a ~ o u n dtown. and Twelfth Traditions. Even though the public attitudes then as compared person. By some we were secretly Four or five years into the program when the occasion calls for it I freely with today. scorned. Hospitals did not want to at a small home reception celebrating discuss alcoholism, AA, and my own Some members told me, “Every- accept alcoholics as patients for fear the wedding anniversary of some experiences on a person-to-person body knows you’re a drunk,” but I they might disturb other patients. neighbors, I headed for the bartender basis, I would refuse to take the platlater discovered this was just not so. Doctors had to get them in under the to put in my bid for something nonal- form in a public gathering. Never I’d not fooled so many as I thought, truthful guise of gastronomic dis- coholic. After peanuts, popcorn and (and “never” is a very big word) have

I known a drinking alcoholic, includ- I said, “Yes.” longs to AA. If you do I will simply it would have broken the man’s anoing me, who was not bigheaded – Persistently, “Did you join AA?” have to refuse to answer whether that nymity. When I pointed out that Bill and maybe pigheaded. We strive for Unhesitatingly, “Yes.” person is or is not an AA member. It W. had indicated that we can’t very humility but in going public an alco- Then to my utmost astonishment is contrary to our principles to reveal well be anonymous from each other holic can feed and nurture that old he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll respect the membership of any other person. she said, “Well, Bill was wrong about and lingering ego. That spells trou- your anonymity,” which by his per- I do have the right to disclose my own it.” That settled that in a hurry! ble. It’s a way of saying, “Look me sonal probing he had just failed to re- membership so I could not do other- However, I did get the needed contact over. See what I did.” spect by forcing me to break it rather wise when you asked. Let’s not dis- from someone else. Those who preceded me in the pro- than lie about it. Had I remained si- cuss who else is and who else isn’t.” We must indeed protect each gram told me at the very start that I lent or failed to answer my reason for I have then undertaken to explain other’s anonymity from those outside could recover as they had done and as doing so would have been apparent. that anonymity is truly the spiritual the Fellowship unless we have the those had done whose stories were And honesty was important. foundation of our program, which I other person’s approval to break it. told in the Big Book, but they empha- Fortunately, it made no difference strongly believe. I’m glad that it’s common knowledge sized that there was no cure for alco- to me, for concealment has long since These encounters are bound to that I don’t drink because I’m a reholism and that a slip (as relapses ceased to exist for me, since I find no occur. I think it’s well to think ahead covered alcoholic. I’m glad that it’s were then called) could happen to any shame in having recovered from this and view them as opportunities and, not a matter for shame. I’m glad that of us. They told me the importance of illness. To have let it disturb or offend with tolerance, to accept them with a those who have come to me for help maintaining anonymity, which imme- me would have been bad for me. smile. Many years ago to help an- knew to come because I had lost condiately had great appeal for me. I was At other times and under different other lawyer I needed to know the cealment. whipped down and ready to listen. circumstances through the years I’ve name of some lawyer who belonged To me to strive for spiritual ano- Two or three years ago I had barely been asked if I joined AA. My answer to AA in another city. I wrote to an nymity is to strive for humility, met a clergyman who was also a for- has been, “Yes, and I’m glad you AA friend. He did not answer. His always with hope and a continuing mer physican when he suggested that asked because it gives me an’ oppor- wife knew of this and when 1 saw her desire never fully attained. And yet we have a drink. 1 said that I don’t tunity to explain that anonymous at a conference on alcoholism unre- seeking the goal is in itself for each of drink. Bluntly he asked, “Are you an means just that, so don’t name some- lated to AA I asked about it. She re- us a measure of success. alcoholic?” one else and ask me if that person be- plied that he couldn’t do that because Jim B., Kansas City, Mu.

January 1990

on my arms, and the feeling of the came through the doors of AA, I presence of a higher power at work in didn’t think I had anything anyone the group. It took some courage for else could use or needed. What a mirme to speak up in a group that I knew acle the Fellowship has wrought! I, was going to let me have it with both who felt like a worthless, useless soul barrels, but I try hard today not to until I found the program, now have hide my thoughts and feelings. something that someone else may The discussion started on my right want. By the grace of God, I am one with “Joan.” My feelings on the sub- of those people talked about in the ject were nothing new to her as she Big Book who are “uniquely useful had already thought what I thought to their fellow man.” and tried it. She had had five years’ And the last person, the one who sobriety, quit going to meetings, and brought the tears to my eyes, was the relapsed. It took inpatient treatment newcomer at his first meeting. He for her to get sober again and, she trembled and shook, this big giant assured me, she doesn’t want to test fellow. His voice quivered as he told Two months after 1 the warnings of fellow alcoholics that statistics again. about running from himself and his picked up my four- I would get drunk if I didn’t come to Next was one of my favorite alco- alcoholic demons so hard and so fast year chip, I decid- meetings. holics, “Edward.” With eighteen for so long. He had come to a standed I was tired of I heard the comment several times years’ sobriety, he doesn’t mince still only two nights ago and couldn’t meetings and re- in meetings, “I come to meetings be- words. I had really looked up to him face life anymore. With tears in his sentful that I had a cause I’m afraid if I don’t, I’ll get when I came in with nothing much but eyes, he said he couldn’t go on disease that required meetings. I ra- drunk.” When 1 heard that comment, a big mouth and chip on my shoul- anymore. He had tried everything he tionalized that I could stay sober my automatic reaction was rebellion. der. He was a big dose of hope for me knew to stay sober, even church, and without Alcoholics Anonymous; I didn’t want t o come to meetings out when I had two weeks dry because I he was looking for someone he could after all, weren’t there many alcohol- of fear of getting drunk, I wanted to thought, “If this man still comes to talk to who would understand that he ics who were sober without AA? come, not to avoid a painful conse- meetings after all these years, then was “just a drunk.” He said he felt I attempted to examine my reasons quence, but to gain something posi- maybe it will work for me.” He be- something in this room, he didn’t for wanting to quit meetings. I still tive, such as release from fear and re- lieves in keeping it simple. He looked know what it was, but he knew that liked AA, although I had lost some of bellion and a better way to live. at me and said, “I can’t believe you we were there for him and that my original thrill for it. My basic rea- One thing I had learned in my four would think of something so stupid!” somehow we understood. son related to the resentment I had years of meetings was that talking Next, a “slipper.” In and out of With goose bumps on my arms, I against religion. I felt that as a child, I about what bothers me helps it lose its the program and never able to stay thanked my Higher Power for my anhad been sold a bill of goods based on power over me. I chaired the discus- sober over three months. I bet he swers once again and for the privilege fear; I was told if I didn’t come to sion meeting of my home group and could stack his start-over chips to the of being a part of the Fellowship of church every Sunday morning, I confessed that I had been debating in ceiling. He explained to me that Alcoholics Anonymous. I realized that wouldn’t be a good person and some- my mind whether I could stay sober someone might come through the sitting there in that meeting had noththing bad would happen to me. As an without Alcoholics Anonymous. I be- doors of AA who needs me to be ing to do with fear, but was about alcoholic I was full of the rebellious lieve that God speaks through people, there. Now this might not mean much love and the sharing of experience, nature that Bill W: frequently talks and by the time the meeting was over, to someone else, but to me, it touches strength, and hope with one another. about and so, similarly, I didn’t like I had tears in my eyes, goose bumps my heart. Because you see, when I S. R,, Martinsville, Va.

dialect. I left the police station more Group, and the Wheaton Group. dejected than before, and I had the Just reading the names led me to feeling that those birds back at the thinking of the individual members, station were going to keep their eyes the friends that I was so accustomed on me until I left town. to seeing on a regular basis. Back in my hotel room, the only After spending quite some time go- AA paraphernalia I had was the ing through the list I felt that I had Serenity Prayer card, my chip, and had a very close, if one-way, comsome AA meeting lists from home. munication with each of my friends (We call these lists a “Where and back home: a closed AA meeting with When” in our area.) These I had each one. This little session with the brought along, just for the fun of it, list perked me up and I repeated it to exchange at the intergroup offices several times later on. in some of the major cities. It had reminded me just how im- As I was getting ready for bed I saw portant these AA friends are and how one of the “Where and When” parn- they have become a part of my life. phlets in my duffle bag. I picked it up With them and my Higher Power I and looked at the names of the don’t have to be lonely again. I also groups. There was the Glenmont saw that “gimmicks” can sometimes Group, my home group. There was work in a pinch. the Garrett Park Group, the Way Out H.S., Wheaton, Md. Recently, while on hundred miles. I desperately wanted an extended tour to talk to another alcoholic. But there of South America, was nocentral-officethat I could call. I had an experience I was contemplating a call to my with extreme lone- sponsor or anyone else back home. liness. A simple lit- Down the street from our hotel was tle gimmick brought me out of it. I a police station. If anyone knew what pass it on to show that, sometimes, went on in this town, they would. So I simple little gimmicks work. walked in. I asked the officer at the The touring group I was with was a desk if there was an Alcoholics Anonheterogeneous mixture of drinkers ymous group anywhere in town. He and nondrinkers with only one recov- asked, “And what is an Alcoholics ering alcoholic-myself. I had not Anonymous group?” I began trying Being self-centered with very different backgrounds, ochad an AA contact in over two weeks. to explain about AA and that I was a in the extreme, I cupations, abilities, and handicaps. One night in a very small town in recovering alcoholic and wanted to noticed that “our “Our” really does include all of us. southern Argentina, while the rest of talk to another alcoholic. The conver- common welfare” One of the first things I noticed the group was socializing at bars or sation became increasingly confused. in the First ‘kadi- when I came into AA was that noelsewhere, I went for a walk, seeking He didn’t know what I was talking tion includes me. body seemed to be trying to get anya way out of the uneasy feeling that I about and his Argentine Spanish My welfare is a part of our welfare. thing from anybody. People spoke was the only AA within four or five didn’t mesh with my weak Castilian The phrase also includes alcoholics kindly to and about one another. .

someone I could become, instead of people seemed like an impossible about things other than AA. the person that I was. task, but from learning how to get The past year has been a time of When I sponsor someone, one of “Beiqq a part the first things we do is go through the along with people in my group I growth and increasing honesty. Not ofsomething is Big Book together. It is impossible for anyone to pass on the AA message found that practicing the same princi- in the sense of truthfully relaying ples outside AA brought the same re- facts, but being honest with friends in sults. Most things in society happen AA about how I am really feeling. more impom& than . to others without first knowing what it is. Also, it’s important to know in groups. As a result of Tradition These are the things which are of One, I have reached a point where be- most difficulty for me – my emobeing the center what AA literature is available and ing a part of something is more im- tional reactions to life. Although may be helpful to the newcomer. of attentionyy Before I came into AA, I had tried portant than being the center of talking doesn’t change a situation or attention. an event, it does help to change my every means of dealing with my ill- When I first moved here from an- reaction to it. Being able to accept the ness – psychiatry, religion, exercise, other city, I missed my AA family. I help of the Fellowship, as well as There weren’t the usual putdowns and a geographic cure – and AA fi- compared the group I was attending offer it, has been a big factor in my and gossip about one another which nally worked when all else failed. My here to my previous group, the peo- recovery. seemed normal in most circles, and I solution has been the program, and ple I was meeting to my old friends, Although the amount of time in didn’t worry’ about what people said my favorite word in AA has also be- the conferences here to former ones AA does not mean that I will be about me after the meeting finished. come “unity,” because that is what – and I was getting more miserable spared any of life’s difficulties, it People seemed to just want to be will keep the basics of the program as time went on. One night after the does mean that if I stay close to the helpful and make the group a place unchanged. meeting, we went for coffee and the winners in the Fellowship, and practhat other alcoholics would want to When I first came into AA, the members started showing their first- tice the AA principles to the best of come to. people were most important. Then as year medallions. Each had their favor- my ability, I will be able to face life My sponsor’s favorite word in AA I came to see the importance of the ite expression engraved on the back. on life’s terms. Nothing can happen was “unity.” I didn’t understand group, ptinciples became more im- One of them said: “Identify, don’t today that I cannot face with help why at first, but she explained that it portant, because I saw that unless the compare.” That for me was a turning from the God of my understanding, was the unity within the group, unity group survived, I wouldn’t. Relation- point because I realized that I wasn’t the Fellowship, and my sponsor. of members with God, and unity of ships in my group are very important giving the people, the group, or my- AA has given me a way of living. AA groups all over the world that because I know that I cannot stay so- self a fair chance. I was shutting my- that is far better than even my active keeps us together. ber alone. I need the Fellowship to- self off and refusing to allow myself imagination could have dreamed up. ‘ When 1 came into AA, I had to day just as much, if not more than to be a part of the Fellowship here. It I am grateful to the old-timers who learn to get along with other people. when I first came into the program. was like a whole new beginning. passed the message on to others, and Although it is not necessary to like When I had an opportunity to be a A short while ago one of the to the other members who continued everyone who shows up at a meeting, part of our intergroup, I began to see younger members of our group spoke to pass it on. I d o have to treat them with the same how AA fit into the community. at a birthday meeting. His talk was If AA is to continue as it is, then it courtesy, kindness, tolerance, and love Whatever was required to best carry concentrated on the Steps, ideas pre- is up to each member to pass it on. As that people afforded me when I came the message became more important sented in the Big Book, and the slo- the Responsibility Declaration states: in. As long as I do that, it is pretty rare than personalities. It was more im- gans. One of the things I was grateful “I am responsible. When anyone, to meet someone I don’t like. I was portant to elect the people who would for that night was that those were the anywhere, reaches out for help, I certainly not a bundle of joy when 1 d o the best job – whether or not they things that were passed on to him. want the hand of AA always to be arrived in AA, but people were able were my favorites: How different it would have been if there. And for that: I am responsible.” to see past that and treat me more like For a long time, getting along with the meetings he had attended spoke Sandy M., Ottawa. Ont.

JANUARY 1990 that you’re there for the same reason “I am an alcoholic.” But I don’t be- Is AA Changing? that I’m there – recovery from the lieve that has proved true. In my area disease of alcoholism. This may seem we see people with three, four, five, like a moot point. After all, we know and more years in AA still clinging to what they mean. But they-leave out the jargon they were taught. They

What’s the most important word, the one word which connects us to each other. It’s probably just a way to shorten have not made the transition. Four years ago I heard a delegate talk about this issue of dual or even

in a Name.9 their introduction so they can get on with their thoughts regarding the topic at hand. That’s probably all there is to it. But my suggestion, to those I have sponsored, is to drop the multiple identification. He suggested that instead of trying to group our issues together, it would be better if we learned how to separate them and take them to the programs which y hame is Ro~emaryand I am I did not stop drinking until Novem- adjectives such as cross-addicted and were designed to address them. That chemically dependent and get to the is, to address alcoholism in a meeting an alcoholic. Now, that’s a ber of that year. But I kept coming to heart of why we are there. My name of Alcoholics Anonymous, to advery simple introduction, isn’t it? It meetings, almost on a daily basis. I is. . .and I’m an alcoholic! dress drug addiction in a meeting of tells you who and what I am, instantly, believe the reason I continued to There is another point I wish to Narcotics Anonymous, to address without any other descriptive addi- come was because I knew I was in the make concerning the way we identify food addiction in a meeting of Overtives. It immediately connects me to right place. Those people certainly ourselves in an AA meeting. A point eaters Anonymous, and so forth. you, if you also are an alcoholic. knew what the drinking game was all which, I believe, puts a serious strain When in those meetings, we should Where did this custom of identify- about. And I identified very strongly on our unity and on our singleness of identify ourselves accordingly. He ing ourselves come from? You must with their introduction, because I, purpose. When I say, “I’m a drug ad- also suggested that we could appeal admit it’s a rather different approach too, admitted that I was an alcoholic. dict and alcoholic” or “I’m a cross- to the rehabs and other professional when introducing oneself at a gather- I also identified when they spoke of addicted alcoholic,” I am telling you services who might instruct their ing. Did it start with the little band of their drinking history, because that’s that I’m different from you. I’m a patients on how to separate their ad- ‘ drunks who first got sober, or did it exactly where I was at. special kind of alky. My case of alco- dictions rather than group them todevelop over a period of time like Over the past few years we have some of our other customs in AA? seen this custom of how we introduce holism is different! I add an extra dimension to my disease which, begether under the heading of “addic- \ tive personalities” using the phrase No one knows for sure. It is thought ourselves change so much so that the cause of our singleness of purpose, we hear so often that a drug is a drug that it probably started in the Oxford word alcoholic, the very essence of should not be addressed in a meeting is a drug! Groups. At their large meetings not our common bond, is very often of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have everyone knew each other so before omitted entirely. Some of the more Is the solution to approach the treatjust cut our common bond in half ment centers? Perhaps it would help people would “witness,” they would popular forms of introduction are: introduce themselves to the group. “I’m cross-addicted,” “I’m chemiand, more importantly, diluted my – if it were done in the spirit of c o o p own purpose for being there. eration and concern for the newcomer. So, probably, at one time someone cally dependent,” “I’m powerless,” A few years ago when the subject of said, “I am an alcoholic” as a matter or, one I heard recently and my favor- I wonder, however, if the answer how one identified himself in an AA doesn’t lie right within our own Felof introduction. But this is only a ite, “I’m a recovering person.” I’m meeting was discussed, it was thought guess. Wherever it started, it obvious- always tempted to say, “You’re a lowship! Isn’t it the responsibility cross-addicted what? You’re power- that after a person was in AA for a of each one of us to keep our proly grew to be a widespread custom. while all of the other descriptive words I came into Alcoholics Anony- less over what?” I need to know what gram intact and unchanged -to pass mous in March 1980. Unfortunately, we have in comon. I need to know would fall away and we would hear, it on to the newcomer as it was given

to us? But can we do this with patient stroyed it will be destroyed from explanation, tolerance toward dif- within. In my opinion, apathy is one ferences, and more patient expla- of our greatest enemies, often cloaknation? I believe we can through ing itself in the guise of “live and let committed sponsorship, strong home live.” I’m not saying that thedestrucgroups, and active service. Our new tive force lies in those members who members will learn how to be a part introduce themselves as being crossof thisiFellowship rather than a frag- addicted alcoholics. It’s in the attiment of it. tude of those members who sit back Most of us have heard it said that if and say, “So what!” Alcoholics Anonymous is ever de- Rosemary P., Pittsford, N.Y.

February 1990

meeting where businesIS as usual in- standing of “spiritual leadership.” cludes people talking in the kitchen, We fought through three ballots at least one active drunk, and a couple trying to agree on the person who of regulars who can’t or won’t sit still would represent our area at the Genand be quiet? Well, throwing a coffee- eral Service Conference. All of the pot once merited expulsion. Refusing candidates had put in many years of to stop yelling at the speaker did too. service and had their champions. – Of course the very few times one per- Tempers were getting warm. Then the son laid a hand on another he or she secretary announced that it was time got booted, but so did the person who for the Higher Power to decide and launched a verbal attack. the three names went into a hat. Some Lest a reader get the idea that there of us were flabbergasted. This really is a free-for-all going on, I must say was too silly, we said to each other.. that – no matter how out of control However, the name drawn out of the offender – rarely in ten years the treasurer’s fedora was accepted at have I known people to try to stay once. And the huge hall hushed for a ‘ During the first we were reneging on a responsibility after the group conscience decided long moment before hundreds of us year I was sober in to be self-supporting, that we were they must leave. Most leave with no more than a parting word or two. bbomed out the Serenity Prayer. We modern folks were not even embar- 1 AA, about a half enabling a member t o continue nond o z e n regular sober behavior. And some of them And it was at my home group that I rassed to be moved by that process. members aban- took their resentments and left the learned to trust the experiences of the Angela D., New York, N.Y. 1 doned my home group. I was reassured by the fact early groups with meetings. We have group over a dispute about the group that the gambler stayed sober, AA a Traditions meeting once a month conscience. The process was frighten- proved big enough to welcome the and when I was new and heard the Traing; the outcome reassuring. wanderers into other rooms, and the ditions read out loud, the experiences At issue was the fate of one of our group survived. of the early AA meetings gave me the members who had lost a considerable Ours is a rambunctious group, not first notion that real people- drunks chunk of the group treasury on a slow for everyone. We’re one of our city’s like me – started this program. pony. The group decided that he must “intake” meetings and newcomers In fact, it was easier at first to pay the money back, but – as the are encouraged to share there. We accept a higher power for my per- weeks went by he didn’t. have a two-part plan to deal with dis- sonal recovery in the form of a Then followed a business meeting. ruptions – both parts depend on a “Group of Drunks.” Until very Tempers flared, friends fought, order vote by the group. First, the group much later, turning over my indibarely prevailed. Finally the group conscience decides whether or not to vidual will to a caring God was difficonscience followed the wisdom of warn the person causing the disturb- cult (and often still is). But I knew those who said that it was not a re- ance. Then, if the disruption contin- that our coming together t o stay quirement that our members stop ues, the group conscience is called sober was a spiritual act. When I rogambling and pay their debts: We again t o vote on temporary expul- tated into service beyond the group voted not to expel the liable one. sion, usually for the length of the and became a district committee However, there were those who felt meeting. member I was once present at a large the group unity was threatened, that And what is a disruption in a large meeting that expanded my under-

February 1990

Adventures in anonymity From an anonymous location: I would like to get some feedback on something I have noticed lately at meetings and on car bumpers. There are bumper stickers that say “AA – It Works.” Now this is troubling me. According to our Traditions, AA members are to remain anonymous in the public eye. Well, having one of these stickers on your car doesn’t seem to me to be too anonymous. I can just hear the people at the scene of an accident when maybe a car with bne of those stickers kills someone, whether drunk or sober. ;

Do we in AA really need this? You tell me. T.M. ‘

March 1990

watch wrong? Had the group moved? laugh. During the discussion meeting 1 Third Tradition Was there some reason for no meet- that followed, several people good- 1 . _ . .. .. .. . -. ing today? Maybe the church needed the room? Why hadn’t they annaturedly expressed the hope that being locked out hadn’t given me a The only requirement for A4 membership is a desire to stop drinking nounced it? Why hadn’t somebody at resentment. “.. % . i .* . . :. , !,% least put a notice on the door? As I said, however, I’ve been think- Then I realized there was, indeed, ing about it since. something on the door: the familiar What if the doors to AA could real- AA sign proclaiming that there was a ly be locked against me? What if it meeting today. Reason returned. was possible to take away my mem- Obviously the door had somehow bership? Maybe because I hadn’t been accidentally locked behlnd the paid my dues, or because 1 didn’t last person to enter. meet some ethical or ethnic standards, or maybe because I “broke the rules” 1 guess all alcohol- have to worry about my breath. by going out and getting drunk, as I ics are familiar The other day, however, something have a few times during my long assowith it: that sud- out of the ordinary happened and ciation with the Fellowship? den sinking feeling that old sinking feeling momentarily But then I recall the Preamble, and in the pit of the came back. I’ve been thinking about the Third Tradition, those words I so stomach. a sense it ever since. often hear without really listening, of apprehension, an inner voice of I had arrived for one of my regular like the Lord’s Prayer or the Pledge impending doom. meetings, a noontime one, and after of Allegiance. A lot of things can trigger it. parking my car I walked briskly to the “The only requirement for AA A phone ringing in the middle of side of the church where it is held. 1 membership,” it says, “is a desire to the night. was feeling better already because stop drinking.” A letter from the IRS. just the anticipation of a cup of Since I meet that requirement, the The flashing red lights of a police coffee with AA friends followed by doors of AA will always be opened to car appearing suddenly in your rear- an hour of sharing is enough to me. I need never be on the outside view mirror. brighten up the rest of my day. looking in through a basement win- But since I put the cork back in the I put my hand on the door knob dow at the happy faces within. bottle, a moment of rational thought and pulled. The door didn’t give. And thank God – and Bob and generally replaces the unreasoning I was sure it opened out but since I And so I went around to one of the Bill and everyone who makes the eoffear. The phone calls turns out to probably haven’t cleared up com- basement windows. I could see peo- fee and opens the meeting rooms and be a wrong number, the letter from pletely, I tried pushing. ple inside, drinking their coffee, talk- hangs the AA signs on the door – for the IRS is a routine notice, and the Nothing. So I pulled again. ing, and laughing. I rapped on the that. Because without AA I know the police car speeds by on some other It was locked. glass and someone looked up and only other antidote for those fears, errand. Besides, I have little to fear I rattled it, banged on it, but no- waved, wondering why I was peering imagined and real, would be the anesthese days. My financial affairs are in body came and I started to act with in like a peeping Tom. Once they thesia that comes in a bottle. And honest, if not good, shape. Were I to the old emotional knee-jerk reac- understood my plight they went that’s what brought me to AA on my get pulled over for exceeding thespeed tions of panic. limit by a mile or two, 1 wouldn’t Did I have the wrong day? Was my around and opened the door. Everybody, of course, had a good knees in the first place. Ed E , Park Ridge, N.J . I

March 1990

I was doubtful. How could anyone to twenty-five men and women. like me? I didn’t like me. I wasn’t There are several dually addicted sure you would accept this woman. people. There are people who have The mother of four children and pilfered from the till. There is a man stepmother to two who broke up who gets the Steps mixed up since he two families and two homes surely had a stroke. There is a woman whose wouldn’t be judged appropriate to husband has been unable to speak or come into this group, if these women function for over ten years.

Sobrietv were any example. Also, I was not a “pure alcoholic” – I was dually addicted, although at that time I couldn’t see how prescription drugs We range in age from twenty-three to about sixty-seven. We have a new member with six days of sobriety (at this writing) and an “old-timer” of were also causing me monumental de- fourteen years. We are prcdominant- One woman’s jour- At one time I was ashamed to ad- pression and anxiety. Although I had ly white, but often have a few black ney to Alcoholics mit I was that apparition. Today 1 never heard of or read the “Twelve men or women attend. We are single, Anonymous be- know – after countless tear-jerking, and Twelve,” I was sure I could be married, divorced, widow and widgan like this: The belly-laughing experiences myself – classified as a “fallen woman.” ower. We are doctors, lawyers, homet e l e p h o n e call this experience can be used to save Two nights later, minus orange makers, computer operators, stable was made to the another life. juice cans and slippery heels, I was hands, sales people, and retirees. We AA phone number and two lovely, How those two women kept straight taken to a meeting. Still sure you have slippers and staunch members clean, sane, sober women were sent faces as they began to share their ex- would judge my outsides I wore a who didn’t touch another drop from to a middle-class suburb on a Satur- perience, strength, and hope, I’ll brand-new white wintcr coat, fabu- the day they walked through the doors day night. I’m sure they wondered never know. One talked about how lous straw hat, white gloves – the of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are ‘ what they would encounter. They her drinking had led her to AA. The works. After the meeting was over, I believers, doubters, and atheists. We rang the bell. other talked about how her drink- looked for my white coat and couldn’t all have problems other than alcohol. The door was opened by an appari- ing affected her family life. Both find it. Someone needed it more than But we are all there for one reason tion in a wine-stained robe, wearing said they were finding hope and re- I did. (They left me the hat.) I was too and one reason alone – we each have orange juice cans for hair rollers, walk- covery in meetings of Alcoholics frightened to show my outrage at a desire to stop drinking. No one who ing on tiptoes because her heels were Anonymous. such an act. 1 was still afraid you comes through the doors of our little greased with petroleum jelly and she’d Of course 1 cried – a lot – as I lis- wouldn’t accept me. But not one brick meeting house leaves without fall if she walked flat-footed. The ex- tened to them. My shame and re- single person ever told me I didn’t knowing that, and knowing that we planation this apparition gave for her morse and guilt were weighing me qualify or that I wasn’t acceptable. not only want them to come back, we charming appearance was that the next down (to say nothing of the orange Three weeks later 1 heard a talk need them back. day was Sunday and she had to look juice cans). We talked about drink- that broke my dammed-up tears. In my home group we come togethgood for her Sunday school class. ing. I tried to tell them about me – A man had done what 1 had done, er to share our experience, strength The visitors could tell from the what a terrible person I was. And walked out on a family and home for and hope with every suffering alcowine stains on the robe and the carpet then the rhost beautiful words that 1 the only lover that was important – holic that comes our way – or is althat this greased apparition had a hope 1 never forget were said to me: booze. He was sober six years and I ready there. And we never ask quesproblem keeping the alcohol on the “YOU don’t have to tell us anything heard him say everything will be tions – so no one has to tell us anyinside. They could also tell she had a about yourself that feels bad. We only ‘ okay, if you don’t drink. thing they don’t want to. few other problems! want to help you stop drinking.” In my home group there are fifteen Corinne H., Raleigh, N.C.

March 1990

sympathy, and moral help. I thought drunks and recovering alcoholics Is AA Changing? it was AA operating at its very best. live it. We would never recover if ‘

This woman didn’t drink because of we couldn’t share in each other’s her problem. Instead, she found the strength, hope, and experience. I

What DoW e strength in an AA meeting to carry need to hear that 1 am not alone, that on, to cope for another day. I am not the only one to face these Many of us are burdened by other feelings of fear or pride or lust or compulsions or obsessions. Some of greed. I need to know that somebody

I Talk About.9 1 us, while drinking, became thieves or inveterate hedonists or wife beaters or any number of other misfits. Alcohol robbed us of the ability to deal else has gone before me and made the Seventh Step work, sought God’s help and found it. If all of this means that I have to really appreciate this series on sober that dav. That strikes me as a sensibly with life. Many of these listen to a druggie tell about his strug- . AA’s development in recent years. good rule for a beginner’s meeting, problems get carried over into sobri- gle to stay away from a crack pipe, I These articles have helped me to over- but not for all other meetings. ety and must be dealt with. guess I’m willing to try to understand. come some deepset prejudices and This is a program of recovery, and Do we tell our members that these I don’t want that person to go back to accept changes for which I had not recovering means learning how to live subjects are taboo, not to be dis- either the bottle or the drug. I need been ready. in the world, with other people who cussed in the sanctified rooms of you all, and it hurts when I see you I sympathize with the AA old-tim- are good and bad, reasonable and in- AA? Do we tell our members that leave. I know that some of you will ers who want to keep our Fellowship sane. It means coping with our other they can only talk to their sponsors or not make it back to safety. I need to on track. It may well be true that drug addictions, our egos, our weaknesses, to a few friends? hear that the program works, that it addiction to heroin or cocaine or our anger, our character defects. To my mind, these topics are per- works for us all, longtimers as well as speed is the same thing as addiction to At a recent meeting, an AA mem- fect for AA, especially in a Step meet- new people, the cross-addicted as well alcohol. They are all drugs, I am told. ber complained when the discussion ing. I love to hear how others have as the plain old alcoholic. The trouble is that I never took those turned to deal with another member’s coped with a similar situation, or how I pray that God will grant me tolerother drugs. I don’t know anything distress about living with her drinking they overcame an obsessive fear. ance and acceptance for the many about them. And my problem is one husband and stepson. The complain- AA works because it deals with things I don’t understand. of identification. ing AA said that this kind of discus- truth, with reality, with life as both Leon A., Newton, Pa. When somebody shares that he sion better belonged in Al-Anon. Percould not say no to another martini, haps it does. ~ n d some of our memthat she vomited on her shoes, that he bers recommended Al-Anon to the wet his pants uncontrollably, that distraught woman. just one more drink was worth fight- But the important point to me is ing for, then something clicks in my that this woman had a place to come head and I understand. 1don’t get the and share her distress. She had a same click when people share about problem that has led countless others marijuana. to drink or drug or jump off a tall By the same token, I am confused building. At our meeting, with the by some AAs who are so rigid that exception of the one narrowly fothey don’t want anything discussed in cused on “AA 6nly,” she found a a meeting except ideas on how to stay warm reception, kind understanding,

March 1990

ensuing trouble, a big “Ah-ha” went that survived and got told my first off in my mind. It was such a relief years in the program – with the emto hear that it was not the amount phasis on the “missing trousers” you drank, but how it affected your and my perplexed discovery of the life – illustrated in a manner I could tomato soup on my face the follow- I understand. ing morning. As I grew in sobriety and became But one evening, right in the midgradually braver about speaking at dle of telling, once again, this triedmeetings, I found myself telling one and-true laugh-getter, I was struck particular story over and over. It was numb. After all those years, the suda funny story, and since I enjoyed den realization finally hit me – that I getting a good laugh, I told it fre- one night in a drunken and drugquently. The story involved the night induced state, I had nearly killed my I fell asleep with my face in a bowl of entire family. Somehow I got through tomato soup, after having dropped a the rest of the story, hurriedly left the lighted cigarette on the couch. Sud- meeting, and went home. denly, people were running and shout- The story then became a tragedy. ing, and the air was thick with smoke. Four innocent children, almost killed I was led off to bed. The next day, I by their irresponsible, drunken mothremembered little, but looking at the er. Everything but breast-beating. I empty spot where the couch had had finally seen this page of my past been, I knew instinctively that I was for what it was, and for several years to blame. A neighbor dropped by and I shared this new knowledge with

A t a meeting the other day, a fellow told his story in graphic detail culminating with his living under a The next speaker was a gentleman with many years sobriety. In a deep and authoritative voice just a step filled me in. She laughed uproarious- anyone who would sit still for it. I left ly as she described how my practical out the “humor” and with each rehusband, not taking the time to pull counting, castigated myself anew. bridge and the capturing, killing, and removed from its whiskey-rasp ori- on trousers (he usually slept in only a Then came a period when I realized cooking of small animals to survive. gins, he said, “Yeah, I used to tell a T-shirt), had gathered up our four that to heap self-blame on myself not Pausing for dramatic effect here and lot of war stories at meetings. . .until children and taken them outside. By only added to the problem, but was there during the narrative, he related I figured out it was all just hot air.” the time help arrived – summoned just another indicator of how sick my that his feeling was that this was a Somewhere in between those two by his unabashed yelling -, he had ego was. I’d brag about anything perfectly okay way to live. And for a stances, I’ve mused since, is the heart planaged to pull out the burning even how “bad” 1 was. Slowly, I grand finale, he brought God in at the of the matter. I know that as a new- couch by himself. Someone brought began to forgive myself. last moment (like the miraculous ap- comer, war stories were important to him his trousers; he pulled them on. Today, 1 feel little or no need to pearance of the cavalry, in all those me as one of the means of identifying Clearly, getting dressed had been low tell this story, but I tell it anyway, in cowboy and Indian movies, just myself as a “real” alcoholic (some- on his list of priorities that particular one-to-one situations with other when things looked the bleakest). At thing I had grave doubts about, since middle-of-the-night. Faced with such women. (The humor’s back in, toothe end of his talk, you could have I had never “fit in” anywhere else in a strong dose of reality, I took my cue it makes it more “listenable.”) I use it heard a pin drop. There was no doubt my life). The day a fellow drunk stat- from my friend and simply laughed. to illustrate several things: in anybody’s mind that we’d just ed that it only took $2.50 to get him Better to laugh than cry, right? The prevalence of denial. This heard from a “real” alky. drunk, but $2,500 to get out of the So this is the version of the story story tells me that I’m not apt to see

something until I just about trip over privilege to others?) true, but not the final picture. For demons on our time. Our stories ‘

it. It further tells me that God doesn’t Identifying with others. A new- there comes a time when we no longer evolve to become one of the many bother us with “facts” until he’s given comer can feel that no one else in the need the ego inflation involved in ingredients of the sober life that we us the strength to cope with them. world could possibly have done the giving “impressive” talks at AA share freely at appropriate times in a meetings, nor do we need to criticize caring and humble manner. The process of resolution. My story became different each year as I things he or she has done. That’s why it’s important to share our history fellow members for exorcizing their Anonymous, Bellingham, Wash. I slowly worked my way from fear and both at meetings and with individdenial through horror to acceptance uals. It’s a responsibility of the older

Enormous and integration of this “updated” AA members- to exhibit their old knowledge into the whole of my sober “skeletons” to others to illustrate life. In its final stage, the story be- that today the past has no particular comes a useful tool in attempts to hold on them except as a very useful help other alcoholics “see” their lives. Putting the past in perspective. Bad things happened, bu{ this doesn’t mean we were “bad” people. My first sponsor used to say, “There’s no point of reference. To feel that one should “outgrow” a need to refer to one’s drinking past – as though the telling of this past is mere self-indulgence – is a sadly , I Possibilities way we could have been wrong all the time. We did a lot of right things, too, when we were drinking. We cared limited (and limiting) outlook. In my experience, the benefits of self-disclosure far outweigh any of the minor T hese old guys that get up at meet- humor. Listening to them gives me a ings and tell horrendous drunk- good look at how bad life could have alogs with a lot of jokes for twenty been for me if I’d kept drinking. I about our family and friends.” My risks or embarrassments involved. minutes, then wrap up their story need that. sponsor was right. (And isn’t this What should be remembered is with two minutes about gratitude and But on the other hand, somebody knowledge something I can apply to that both the criticism of war stories the grace of God and how they don’t who claims to have puked up more current relations with other people? or the telling of “Can you top this?” have to drink over their problems booze trying to get down the first one If I can allow myself human mis- stories are positions that miss the anymore – I thank God for their ex- every morning than most of us youngtakes, shouldn’t I extend that same mark. They’re phases in our sobriety. perience, strength, and sense of sters drank in our whole lives – that

the AA program isn’t what it used talking about their feelings or their you’ve done to maintain and secure sense of humor and sits, uncompreto be – that doesn’t help me stay dysfunctional families or their ther- the presence of the AA program for hending, in judgment of how the proaway from a drink today. It doesn’t apists. You know, as if only he and all of us. And that’s all you will know gram is changing. help me grow. It doesn’t give me the good old boy fraternity under- about me. Just another AA guy. I 1 am moved and guided by people strength or hope. stood that this is a life-threatening come and go a lot, smile, don’t say who can speak through their tears Now that I have six years of sobri- disease we’re all dealing with, not just much, keep my hands in my pockets. and the intensity of their feelings ety under my belt, I’m asking myself some feelings left over from an abu- Talk to me at meetings, on the other about the disease underlying our a lot about where I need to go from sive mom or dad. I hear this guy and I hand, about where your strength insane drinking behavior – the same here. Where does the AA program get to wondering. comes from, how you ask for help, disease still present in sobriety and lead after I’ve learned how to stay In the beginning, I heard over and and how you struggle to identify and manifesting itself through other adaway from a drink? I’m looking for over, “Identify. Don’t compare.” It not compare – and you’ve got an dictive behaviors. I am grateful for that emotional sobriety that Bill W. was the fourth rule I took to heart ardent, hungry listener on your learning from therapists and books wrote about in the Big Book and the after the basic first three: Don’t hands. Tell me about your growing and other spiritual practices that “Twelve and Welve.” I want peace drink. Go to meetings. Ask for help. understanding of our disease. Share there are many ways I take my first and presence of mind. I want to share Looking for a deeper sobriety, I with me how you use the knowledge steps back toward a drink when I myself with others without always still begin with these maxims. And that is coming from rehabs and ther- don’t like how I’m feeling – and am worrying about what they’re think- I judge the value of other people’s apists and meditation guides and unwilling to look at it. That goes for ing. I’m looking for the last part of experience, strength, and hope to me books that range everywhere from working, eating, loving, exercising or the message: the hope. by how well they stick to the same prosperity consciousness to nutri- doing anything too much, as well as At six years sobriety, I am no less a standards. Sticking with the winners tional counseling. Show me how for burying the pain and shame of my sick and suffering alcoholic than requires, first of all, deciding who you’ve grown, and you’ve got an past and my character defects in jokwhen I was sweating, shaking, and they are. No pretensions here about eager listener: one who sees and ing and in judging others. This kind dry-mouthed, and sat in the back this being objective or fair. I know I shares with you the enormous possi- of information doesn’t have to be row, fresh off the street. The pro- have something to learn from every- bility of living and growing within the codified into the Steps or Traditions, gram and the fellowship are here for one in the program. I don’t have tenets of the AA program. I’m some- but it belongs in meetings and in the me every bit as much as for the new- time, though, to listen to everyone in body who wants more. Share your pages of the Grapevine. comer – like the teenager in the back the program. powerlessness and acceptance and 1 am an alcoholic. I want to of the room, just out of rehab, sitting There’s some sorting out that’s faith, and I’ll be by after the meeting change. I need help. I remain grateful with his head between his hands, won- needed, and this is how I do it. for your phone number. for the foundation the AA program dering how long he’s got to hang out If you tell me that, compared to If the program was only about provides, protecting me from that with these weird old people who laugh your drinking history or your experi- staying away from a drink for one primary and final disastrous symptoo much. And the program is here ence in AA, all this stuff about drugs day, I’d have moved on years ago. I tom of my disease: picking up the for the thirty-year veteran, too the and food and relationships and work don’t care that my own drinking and first drink. But I want and need old guy making jokes about his jail and messed up families seems to be drugging history lands me somewhere more. Because the AA program is terms, divorces, car wrecks, and hos- off the beam of recovery from alco- around the high end of daily con- alive and growing, and because it is pitalizations, and wearing his two- holism, I’ll be around once in a while sumption and the midpoint of mate- changing with the influx of new memquart-aday habit like a sign of rank. with a handshake and a joke to share rial losses. I care a lot that an eighteen- bers and the tools and information So one of these old guys, at a meet- about the weather or the unpredict- year-old, fresh out of rehab, can they bring, it is providing me with ing or in the pages of the Grapevine, able frailty of human nature. I’ll be articulate his feelings about himself what I need. makes some sarcastic remark about glad to see you at meetings and will better than some wise old deacon who May it ever be so, one day at a time. all the people coming out of rehabs reflect with gratitude on the work has blanketed his resentments with a Anonymous, Maine

March 1990

Traditions say it all From Watsonville, Calif.: I was really touched by the article in the November 1989 Grapevine titled, “Something Kept Me Sober.” We are fortunate to have a Traditions meeting in this area and my service as a GSR several years ago introduced me to theTwelveTraditions. In my first year of sobriety I even proposed eliminating the reading of the Traditions so as to have more time for sharing. How times have changed. I recent- . ly celebrated my twelfth anniversary and with each day the wisdom and foresight that created our Traditions becomes clearer. Alcoholics Anonymous is most certainly “custom fit” for the alcoholic. Without anonymity, without our Traditions, I chance to say most of us would not be sober today. The article said it all. J. M.

April 1990

warns us we must get rid of if we are Fourth Tradition to expect a life of sobriety and serenity. In other words, we often use autonomy to get our way. “Autonomy most o@ Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. I remember a wise old-timer saying to me many years ago that the seems to be used 6 * 2 most important thing that we had as an argztnzazt to remember about our relations with each other in AA is Tradition One: to explain m @end Aut – that everything we do and say should have our common welfare uppermost in our minds and be in support of AA unity. why agroup ovht to do He went so far as to say that when a group sits down to discuss a given what a certain mmbw A political science of any given controversy. I’ve heard controversy and to have an informed wants it to doy’ professor at the the same Tradition used as support group conscience, that everyone University of Mis- for arguments on both sides of the should have the right to know that the souri once said, question. meeting is taking place and to say It just appears sometimes that our “The reason that This is the real beauty in the Tradi- anything they want. But, he said, the Ad habits of trying to concentrate on the Constitution of tions. They have survived intact, even group should not feel that it has to what makes us different still prevail the United States has been so success- more so than the U.S. Constitution, take a vote – usually, the group con- over concentrating on what makes us ful for more than 200 years is that it is in spite of the many ways we as indi- science just emerges. If a group is similar, what will give us unity, and so general and so flexible that people viduals have used and misused them really striving for a group conscience, what will aid in the survival, growth, don’t feel they have to change it every on our AA travels. they won’t even be talking about the and well-being of the Fellowship. time they have an argument.” I have Many other times I have heard an controversy after a few minutes. It seems to me that the biggest part come to believe that there might just argument supported with one part of They’ll be discussing how each of of AA’s growth and success in its albe some of that flexibility in our Tra- a Tradition while the second part is them is so important to the other, and most fifty-five years has been that it ditions, particularly Tradition Four. completely ignored. This phenome- how much they would be willing to has clung firmly to its singleness of Through the years I have learned to non seems to occur quite often in Tra- sacrifice of “their own way” to pre- purpose, and has not tried to be all take arguments about the Traditions, dition Four: “Each group should be serve the unity of the group. things for all people. Because of that, or instances of using a given Tradi- autonomous except in matters affect- And so it is with Tradition Four, I even though groups from different tion to support a personal position, ing other groups or AA as a whole.” believe. It should not be used so much parts of the United States and Canwith a little grain of salt. As Bill W. Autonomy most often see’ms to be to strike home the point that a group ada may have different localcustoms, explains Rule 62 in Twelve Steps and used as an argument to explain or de- can do anything it darned well wants they are still basically carrying the Twelve Traditions, let’s not take our- fend why a group ought to do what a to. It should also remind us to ask same and single message of AA reselves too damn seriously. cer@in member wants it to do. It ourselves, in the context of all the covery to the newcomer. I’ve learned to laugh just a little occurs to me that the framework that Traditions: “Is’this decision good for Through trial and error, we AAs through the years because I have been we build around autonomy is the all the groups around us? Will we have found two very important facts around long enough now to hear same framework that we build hurt someone? Are we helping the about ourselves and about Tradition some pretty good cases on both sides around self, which the Big Book AA Fellowship as a whole?” Four. First. we have discovered that

we must take responsibility for our- and its members are to survive. selves if we are to recover and have I believe any document, whether complete freedom, or autonomy it’s the Constitution or the Traditions within our groups. So we cannot use of our Fellowship, which has surautonomy for selfish means. vived all trials and remained for the Second, we must depend on each common good of many people, is other or die alone. No heritage from spiritual in its nature and its origins. our AA predecessors is so precious Tradition Four exemplifies in its true and so clear. We cannot look inward meaning this spiritual foundation of when we talk about autonomy. We our Society. must look always to the greater good. Taken in this context, all that we do There is no one else who will care for and say should be for the good of the the survival of the Fellowship if we do greatest number. The future of the not. We know our own lives depend Fellowship and our own futures deon the well-being of all the groups pend on it. and all the members if the Fellowship Richard B., Iselin, N.J.

May 1990 —

Fifth Tradition , “3- %%:-* . -. , “,-., *X+ *

Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers

meetings that it would be easier for sion was Alcoholics Anonymous. Re- I drank for a long distracted when I noticed the abun- me to stay sober if I had a job (and a covery, unity, service, and the Twelve time and couldn’t dance of single men at every meet- husband and some friends). They Steps seemed to intrude into everystop. I tried every- ing. “This must be the answer,” I told me that my job was to stay sober. thing we did together! I ended up thing. One day, in thought. “I’ll find a man to take care God would take care of the other learning many valuable social skills the midst of plan- of me.” So I pursued that avenue of things when 1 was ready. by hanging around with these people, ning to take a trip, “recovery” for a time until I became I found a home group because but social growth was never our pur- I called AA. I told the woman who convinced that it wasn’t working, somebody told me I should. I was pose in getting together. answered the phone that I was an Again I returned to AA, this time to there at the once-a-week meeting. When my home group elected me alcoholic going on a trip and I needed listen to the real message of recovery. Soon I discovered that the members to represent them at the local central a ride. 1 was afraid to drive to the bus And I heard it. met other days at each other’s homes committee, 1 learned about another station because I was too drunk, and Without exception, everyone who and sometimes went places together. part of our Fellowship. This commit- I couldn’t call my parents because had anything I wanted talked about I thought this might be the social life tee, in addition to providing a twentythey were mad at me about my drink- having developed a relationship with that had long eluded me. What a sur- four-hour answering service, meeting ing. The woman told me politely that a power greater than himself as the prise to find out that these gatherings directories, public information, and a AA wasn’t a taxi service and to call result of taking the Twelve Steps. The in their homes were group business forum for discussion of group probback when I wanted to stop drinking. Big Book quotes Dr. Silkworth as meetings and studies of the Tradi- lems, had a social committee with its I did call back and two wonderful saying, “The message which can in- tions. Their excursions were visits to own bank account and fun-filled calwomen came to my house. They said terest and hold these alcoholic people small AA groups in outlying commu- endar. But to my surprise, as social as and did all the right things and I must have depth and weight.” That’s nities where they shared their experi- their activities were, they always feafound myself at my first meeting. what recovery through the Twelve ence, strength, and hope. When they tured AA meetings and speakers, and At meetings, I began to hear the Steps had for me. went out for coffee or meals after whether decorating a hall, mopping a message of recovery. But I became I needed a job. I told people at meetings, the primary topic of discus- floor, or carving a turkey, they al-

ways talked about recovery through primary purpose of an AA group is to the Twelve Steps and carrying the AA carry the AA message of recovery to message to the alcoholic who suffered the alcoholic who still suffers. The among us or who hadn’t found us yet. only help we have to offer is the AA The man who encouraged my par- program of recovery. We don’t offer ticipation in general service tried to taxi service, housekeeping, assertiveattract me by describing the wonder- ness training, marriage counseling, ful assemblies I’d attend out of town jobs, money, mates, or any of the and all the new friends I’d make. He dozens of other services and solutions was right, but once again I found that that each of us thought would solve what held us together at those assem- our problems. blies was our focus on service to Alco- If Alcoholics Anonymous had proholics Anonymous and how to better vided me with a social life, a job, carry the AA message to the still suf- and a husband, I’d have had no reafering alcoholic. son to place my reliance upon God. If One day while taking calls for our they had done anything other than local AA answering service, I got a carry the message of recovery, I call from a woman who wanted some- might have missed it. Thank God one from AA to come see her drunken that’s all AA does. neighbor who hadn’t cleaned her Each of us, having had a spiritual house in ages. “You’ve got to get awakening as the result of the lkelve someone out here to clean up her Steps, tries to carry this message to house. Don’t you people try to help the alcoholic who wants it. This is drunks?” I was reminded of my first how I stay sober. And if you keep call to AA looking for a taxi service. coming back, you don’t have to drink Now I know through experience that again either, if you don’t want to. we’re not simply here to “help. ” The B. M.,Eureka, Calif.

May l”990

Adventures in anonymity From Okmulgee, Okla. : From Fillmore, Utah: In the February 1990 Grapevine, In the letter from T. M. in the Feb- standing Anonymity,” explain how T. M. asks for feedback on anonym- ruary issue, some feedback was we are to maintain our anonymity ity and bumper stickers. Okay, T. M., asked for. as well as the anonymity of our felyou got it. I personally like a clean As I read the letter I realized that low members. bumper. I won’t even advertise a car some of my past thinking was reflect- We are a small group in a small dealer. I guess bumper stickers are ed. As time has passed and I have town with many practicing alcoholics okay for you if that’s what you want, been able to open my mind to other who need help. As people see the but when they specifically mention views my outlook on anonymity has changes in our lives we are gaining AA I see that as a very definite viola- changed considerably. members and acceptance in the comtion of our policy of anonymity. In 1985, while living in Texas, I was munity, but we have to let them know “We now fully realize that 100 per- involved in a head-on collision with who and where we are. So if a bumper cent personal anonymity before the another car. The things I remember sticker helps, I’m all for it. M.H. public is just as vital to the life of AA most are that it was the first time I as 100 percent sobriety is to the life of had been involved in an accident each and every member. This is not when I was not drinking (I had just the counsel of fear; it is the prudent left an AA meeting a few minutes voice of long experience.” (AA prior), I was not at fault, and the first Comes of Age, p. 293) person I called from the hospital was If displaying AA on an automobile an AA friend. No one even noticed bumper isn’t breaking anonymity the three AA related bumper stickers before the public, then I need psy- on my truck. chiatric help badly. J. H. I believe that at the scene of an accident the last thing people are going From Hastings, Neb.: to be doing is reading bumper stickers. I travel the highways of the central Some years ago I drove a wrecker United States, back and forth to in California and was called out to many job sites. When a car passes many accident scenes. Not once do I me with an AA bumper sticker proud- remember reading a bumper sticker ly displayed, the feeling of loneli- on someone’s car. ness dissipates, for I realize I’m part Sometimes I believe we carry this of a unity that can be found every- anonymity thing too far. The Twelve where. These stickers spread the Steps and Twelve Traditions, along word and also permit a friendly smile with the AA pamphlet “Underand wave. J. H.

June 1990

A need for the Traditions From Hamilton, Ohio: Recently a girl came in our doors One of my close AA friends told this who couldn’t say she was an alco- woman, “If you can’t say you’re an holic. She had not had a drink in two alcoholic, you don’t belong here!” years. Admittedly she had help from Where d o we get off? When d o we God in her control during this period. decide we are God? She attended four However, she was told she had no meetings before the rejection took right to be in a closed meeting. This her back out. woman stated she was on the verge of It broke my heart that the people going back out. Our Third Tradition closest to mc haven’t learned enough states, “The only requirement for to know we don’t all get here the A A membership is a desire t o stop same way. drinking.” She had a desire not to Sometimes I think we all need to drink today. Did she belong here? understand the Traditions a lot more. We dive into the Steps so quickly in early sobriety, but we need the other half of the “Twelve and Twelve,” too. It takes time t o realize what they are truly there for. L. W.

June 1990

schools and junior high schools, side My experience has been that since Sixth Tradition by side with NA members. I intro- we took great pains to stress cooperaduced myself to the vice-principal, tion not affiliation in this and many for example, in this way: “Hi; I’m a other similar projects, not even’the n AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA nam member of AA, visiting the schools gruffest, gnarled old-timer snarled at today. Here’s some of our literature US about so much “cooperation.” that could help a kid with a drinking I’ve helped organize AA workshops I I problem, if you’d care to have it. Here’s our phone number for more with as many as six other fellowships at a time participating as “guests”; information.” My young friend said, registrations for each fellowship were “Hi. I’m Eddie, from Narcotics separate and Seventh Tradition bas- Anonymous, visiting the schools to- kets (“self-supporting, through our

Frie day too. Here are some of our pamphlets that could help a kid who has a problem with drugs other than alcohol. Our number for more informaown contributions”) went to whichever fellowship conducted the particular meeting. Attention to details, such as separate rooms and different How can we help always talking about his “drinking- , tion is here.” We didn’t plan it, but I typefaces on flyers, has also been alcoholics stay so- and-drugging” allowed him, I believe, wore a business suit while Eddie wore very helpful. ber in the age of to cling to what our Big Book calls a “mod threads” and an earring. We Ninety-nine percent of the newcommulti-addiction? lurking reservation: “I can’t drink- presented a visual image of being ers in the year 2000 may be “double- I’ve come to be- and-drug, but maybe :can drink.” friendly with each other, yet differ- winners” (alcoholic-addicts). They’ll lieve that coor>era- About the same time that Pete got ent, separate. have to face the same basic question, tion but not affiliation between AA drunk, a young lady came from anand such organizations as Cocaine other state where she had been active Anonymous or Narcotics Anony- in Alateen and Narcotics Anonymous can help alcoholics stay away mous. Sue came to a closed AA meetfrom that first drink – and live. ing. Her position was: “I’m not an al- AA’s policy of cooperation but not coholic, I’m a drug addict. But I have affiliation with churches, prisons, a desire to stop drinking, because if I other fellowships, medical societies, drink it will reactivate my addiction to treatment centers, hospitals, and so other drugs.” Based on what Sue said forth may be found in the long form about herself, and my understanding of our Sixth Tradition (the long forms of how the short and long forms of the of the Traditions are given at the Third Tradition fit together, I asked end of the Big Book or the “Twelve her to please leave and come back to and Twelve”). an open AA meeting. She did and she A few years ago, a “pigeon,” whom didn’t “shoot up” or “get high.” 1’11 call Pete, got drunk. I don’t know Later on, I worked on projects with what happened to him: he may be Sue and other NAs in the spirit of coalive and sober; he may be alive; he operation but not affiliation. may have died drunk. Pete’s habit of It was a real privilege to usit

as sct forth in the Big Book, that every thanks to thc growth of CA, NA, and newcomer faces: Can 1 handle my other programs, it’s easier for them drinking problem myself (the hard to focus on their experiences (posdrinker) or do I need help beyond hu- sibly very few) with alcohol by itself. man power (the real alcoholic)? Focusing on booze can help newcom- As a newcomer, hearing other alco- ers decide whether they have the physholics talk about booze helped me . ical craving for alcohol described in decide that I needed help from “a “The Doctor’s Opinion” and the power greater than myself” with my mental obsession for alcohol dekind of drinking problem. I’ve come scribed in the first three chapters of to believe that talk about compulsive our Big Book. Many like Pete now gambling, compulsive overeating, belong to two fellowships and try to other drugs, alcoholic parents, what change their focus depending on happened in the last therapy session whether they are attending an AA doesn’t help newcomers sort out the meeting or a CA or NA meeting. Cobasic question: “Am I a hard drinker operation but not affiliation between or an alcoholic?” AA and CA and NA helps newcom- Some people like Pete can still deny ers to Alcoholics Anonymous stay their alcoholism by dwelling on their sober – and live. “drinking-and-drugging.” But Anonymous, Denver, Cola

July 1990

to accomplish: “The AA groups That’s part of the conversion from themselves ought to be fully support- the way we were to the way we are ed by the voluntary contributions of now, and an example of the heartentheir own members. We think that ing contradiction that dependence each group should soon achieve this upon AA bolsters independence. ideal; that any public solicitation of Sobriety can’t be bought; there are funds using the name of Alcoholics no strings attached; no one is required Anonymous is highly dangerous, to contribute money in AA. Yet, it whether by groups, clubs, hospitals, is clear that self-support enhances or other outside agencies; that accep- self-respect. tance of large gifts from any source, Here are some other ‘Tradition or of contributions carrying any obli- Seven observations: gation whatever, is unwise. Then, The conversion from irresponsible too, we view with much concern spender while drinking to fiscal watchthose AA treasuries which continue, dog in sobriety seems to afflict some Over the years, gued that their length might lead beyond prudent reserves, to accumu- AAs with a dose of avariciousness.,It I’ve been privi- some to think they are to be consid- late funds for no stated AA purpose. didn’t occur to me for some time, for leged to hear a ered more important than the Steps. Experience has often warned us that example, that my dollar-in-the-kitty . number of AAs It was also suggested that some mem- nothing can so surely destroy our spir- habit ignored inflation. So, I changed tell why the Tra- bers were so damaged by boozing itual heritage as futile disputes over my ways in that regard, giving more ditions were draft- that they’d have difficulty compre- property, money, and authority.” to meetings that practiced the 60.30ed and why adherence to them is of hending the long form. The long form leaves little room 10 plan endorsed by this area. continuing importance to the AA So, the very simplified short form for wonder as to what Tradition Too, my AA wife and I became Fellowship. was drafted in 1947, refined over the Seven is all about. Too, it gives added supporting members of our local Early in my AA life, I was told that next year or so, and adopted at the emphasis to some things found else- central office – giving what we could everything in the book Alcoholics first International AA Convention in where in the Traditions. For example, when we could to that lifesaving Anonymous is there for a reason and 1950. But, just so there’d be a ready public solicitation of funds using the operation. could be used in developing and prac- reference to what the Traditions are AA name affects other groups and We’ve been involved with meetings ticing a personal “program.” And really’all about, it, was decided to AA as a whole, and implies affilia- where the job of treasurer is given to that included the Traditions, both the print the long form as well as the tion or endorsement, so it violates newcomers under the pretext, “It’s short form, which is read at many short form in the Big Book. Traditions Four and Six, as well as good for ’em.” Poppycock! That’s meetings, and the long form, which is As far as I can tell, nowhere is the Tradition Seven. usually a means of evading personal read at very few meetings. variance between short and long There are also close ties between all involvement. And as a rule, it is not Consequently, in time I came to forms more pronounced than in Tra- of these and Concept XI and Warran- good for newcomers, who often accept the long form as the way to dition Seven. The short form is noth- ties 1 and 2 of Concept XI1 of the aren’t yet able to balance their own study and apply the Traditions as an ing if not succinct: “Every AA group 1 Twelve Concepts for World Service in checkbooks, to be given responsibilintegral part of my program. ought to be fully self-supporting, de- The AA Service Manual. ity for a meeting’s or a group’s fi- As I understand it, after Bill W. clining outside contributions.” Tradition Seven, like others, can nances. That can create an unnecintroduced the Traditions in the long The long form provides, with in- benefit individual growth as well as essary sink-or-swim situation for form in a 1946 Grapevine article, depth clarity, precise@ what Tradi- group strength, most notably via the someone just learning to tread water. some AAs, including Dr. Bob, ar- tion Seven encompasses and is meant tenet that we pay our own way. Some not-so-new members aren’t

good choices for treasurer, either. volunteer staffers to the proper ex- We’ve known some who’ve fouled up penditures and controls of AA funds. books something awful – and a few In our area, the dangers of “pubwho absconded with funds. Most of lic solicitation of funds using the them were “volunteered” for the job, name of Alcoholics Anonymous” are by the way. lessened by strict’ adherence to and This matter of “futile disputes over consistent mention of the nonen- . . .money” – have you been to a dorsement/nonaffiliation policy eslocal central service or intergroup tablished in Tradition Six. Vigilance meeting lately? They get lively when on this is particularly essential in a money’s the tbpic. It’s been the expe- sector the size of the Los Angeles area rience in our neck of the woods that of AA, wherein the Fellowship has the central office is able t o maintain a become the main “aftercare” resource prudent reserve, and if finances get for an ever-growing number of treatshort, the groups respond with in- ment facilities. creased contributions. By the way, the central office here The key to this usually bright finan- returns all contributions from sources cial picture has been and always will be that do not comply with the guideparticipation, by individuals through lines spelled out in “The AA Group” their groups, by groups through their pamphlet. In other words, not a true central or intergroup representatives, AA meeting. We pay our own way! and by constant attention by paid and Merl M., Los Angeles, Calif.

August 1990

have stopped long enough to remark, air turning blue with resentment as “What an order! I can’t go through they tried to understand that the secwith it.” I simply would’ve run retary, for instance, was not being like hell. paid to stay sober or to do Twelfth Sometimes I complain about the Step work but to answer the phone, way officers conduct the business of write letters, keep records of business my home group and set myself up as transactions, and so forth. an expert on the AA group. Heaven Newcomers still ask, as I did, why help me, but there were times when. I we have paid AA workers (profeswas so sure I knew everything there sionals). As it was pointed out to me, was to know about AA history that I the staff at our local intergroup ofwould actually hook my thumbs in fice, for example, is not pajd to do my vest like a nineteenth century Twelfth Step work. By opening up politician when speaking from the and helping to keep open the doors to What dismays me I’ve learned enough since my entry podium. institutions and correctional faciliabout my early into AA, in 1960, to stay out of those Another area where I am made ties, by collecting data on local days in Alcoholics arenas, but there is still another that particularly aware of the Eighth Tra- groups and publishing updated meet- Anonymous is the can take me by surprise. True, I no dition is in speaking to non-AA ing directories, along with many extent of intellec- longer play doctor or therapist where groups. 1 have found myself on pan- other fundamental activities, the tual arrogance and medications or relationships are con- els,with experts in the field of alco- intergroup staff is paving the way for, grandiosity that I brought with me – cerned, and I don’t give legal advice, holism and have been introduced as Twelfth Step work. It makes my defects that were quickly enlisted in but I can still catch myself wondering an expert myself. 1 make it a point to Twelfth Step work that much easier. what was to become an ongoing tour- whether the latest newcomer in my remember something I was told by a And carrying the message of hope nament: me vs. the Eighth Tradition. home group is really an alcoholic. On member of our local intergroup pub- and recovery is the real “business” of The word “nonprofessional,” in what basis would I question anyone’s lic information committee: We need AA. But why a paid staff? Why not AA parlance, means that I ought to qualification? What else, except my to maintain our amateur standing. volunteers? To attempt to conduct act in a way that neither affirms nor expertise on AA and on alcoholism There is a practical side to this as well. such an enterprise on a solely volunimplies that I am something other itself. Old habits die hard! Being nonprofessional means I don’t teer basis would be highly impractithan a recovering alkie in a Fellow- I try to be particularly careful when have to worry about giving a letter- cal. As for hiring AAs, who better to ship of recovering alkies. It means introducing newcomers to the Twelve perfect presentation every time. hire than people who know AA best! that if professional help is what I Steps. It seems to me that one of the Tradition Eight also suggests that Just for today, it is a good idea for need, I should go where such help is reasons the Steps were suggested in our service centers may employ spe- me to stick close to simple basic AA as available – outside AA. Seems clear the first place was to avoid profes- cial workers. Some of the experience I encounter it in my home group and enough. Yet before I was ninety days sionalizing them. In my zeal to en- that helped formulate this Tradition at others. Every single recovering sober 1 had become legal advisor to a courage newcomers to get involved was played out in the days of the alkie at every single meeting tells me, fellow’ newcomer who was then in with the Steps I sometimes talk about Forty-first Street Clubhouse when by word or deed, that nonprofession- . I the divorce court; I advised another them as if they were the be-all and members had a hard time distinguish- alism in AA is one of the best ideas we AA to stop taking the medication end-all. Looking back at my own be- ing between Twelfth Step work and ever had. (Incidentally, my friends that a qualified doctor had pre- ginnings, I think that if anyone had office employment. This was in the are quick to remind me of it whenever scribed; and I counseled two AAs in a told me, even by inference, that I had early 1940s. The controversy was still I get too big for my AA britches!) lover’s quarrel. to get on with the Steps, I wouldn’t all very new but I can just imagine the W. H., New York, N.Y.

September 1990

behavior by rationalizing that I was later to those individuals who had felt preserving the integrity of the Tradi- the sting of my verbal whip. Finally, tions of Alcoholics Anonymous. again in prayer, I turned my will and ‘ Today I realize that my behavior was the care of AA over to God, as I unjust another example of my alcoholic derstand him. thinking. I found the essence of the Ninth One day as I was reading the.Ninth Tradition cleverlv concealed on Daae ~raditionin my “Twelve and Twelve,” 174 of the “~weiveand Twelve.’; 6 11 a message was suddenly revealed to wrote, “Great suffering and great me that 1 had never noticed before. love are AA’s disciplinarians; we Even though I had read that particu-

Patron need no others.” lar chapter many times before, I had To me, the Ninth Tradition epito-, never understood its true meaning. I mizes the spirit of anonymity, clarihad always thought that it merely fies the Second Tradition. and Drogave authority foithe formation of a vides us with an avenue through which service structure. The new message our efforts in carrying the message of had an entirely different meaning. AA can have continuity, structure, I suddenly realized that 1 had been and cohesiveness. It is the minci~le trying to impose organization into the that necessitated the foundation’of I wish I could tell 1 tried to dictate moral behavior, told Fellowship. In my own way, I had the Twelve Concepts. It requires that you that a f t e r people what literature they could or been exacting my own brand of puni- I recognize the autonomy of each reading the Big could not read, and even made vio- tive action against those who I judged group, even when I disagree with Book a n d t h e lent threats to one man because he to be less sincere than myself. I had or- some o f ,its policies. It will always book Twelve Steps was saying bad things about the dained myself as a patron saint of AA. stand as a personal reminder to me and Twelve Tradi- group. I would run guilt trips on In prayer, I asked for forgiveness that my service to the Fellowship tions I experienced a spiritual awaken- those who refused to get involved from my Higher Power. At the next must come from a space of love. And. ing and grasped a total understanding with service work while bragging area assembly I was selected to chair a finally, the Ninth Tradition will alof our Traditions. I wish I could tell about my own involvement. meeting with the GSRs and DCMs. ways serve as a tourniquet for this you that as a GSR, DCM, and an ac- After about a year of this self-irn- With all the humility I could muster, I once-bleeding deacon. tive member of several standing com- posed misery, I found it necessary made amends to all those present and CharlesM., Columbia, Tenn. mittees, I have never violated the to get back to the basics of AA. I disprinciples set forth in the Traditions. covered that I had forfeited my own But, typically alcoholic, I gained most serenity. of my knowledge and understanding Being a slow learner, I found myfrom my mistakes and through the self gradually slipping back into my mistakes of others. Sadly, I made old behavior. I was a DCM at the most of those mistakes after several time. Controversy seemed to domiyears of sobriety when I should have nate my AA life. I was constantly known better. engaged in heavy debate with other As a GSR at ,myhome group, I was trusted servants over issues that were extremely adamant about Traditions. none of my business. i justified this

October

committee, have the responsibility of side issue is mentioned. If that were not putting forth their own views as to happen, that bell would soon be though they were those of A.4, as does chiming so much that the meeting the speaker at an open meeting. would sound like midnight in a clock “The opinions you hear expressed factory. here are those of the speakers and do Some of us talk about how our not necessarily represent the opinion weird religious upbringing affectof AA as a whole.” I hear that an- ed our thinking, or how angry we nouncement, or one similar to it, at are about the latest decision of the

imi the beginning of many AA meetings. cityxouncil. We may deride a corpo- I’m embarrassed to admit how long I ration’s stupid hiring practices, or I was a member of AA before, one mothers-in-law in general. night, it finally dawned on me: But if some kind of disclaimer is “That’s the Tenth Tradition!” read at the beginning of the meeting Early in my sobriety I remember when we take off on one of these tanthinking, as I headed to a meeting, “I gents, the visitor or newcomer doesn’t wonder what my newfound friends think we are postulating a theory that will have to say about today’s events.” belongs to AA. , I can’t remember what the events of What a gift the Tenth Tradition is that day were; maybe some political to us in AA. It means that we don’t scandal that had broken or an elec- have to bolt and run when someone Most of us under- Jacksonville. tion that had taken place. I know it – in a discussion meeting or from the stand the impor- Eventually, I’m sure we’d wind up was something of national impor- podium -says something with which tance of Tradition with an AA-Alcoholics Support Inter- tance, and I could hardly wait to hear we don’t agree. It allows us the privi- Ten as it applies to national Nonsense In Nations Every- what my fellow AA members thought lege of “taking what we want and AA as a whole. We where Group, which we could just call about it. leaving the rest” from each member’s have no trouble AA-ASININE for short. The meeting started, a topic was comments. imagining what a fiasco would result if We can laugh about it only because introduced, and the discussion began. Maybe even more important, it our General Service Office in New it isn’t happening, and that’s because No one even mentioned the monu- gives speakers an opportunity to say York began to endorse political candi- we have Tradition Ten. mental event of the day. It might have what they think. When our turn comes dates, support other causes, approve But GSO in New York isn’t the only been discussed over coffee later, but it to speak, we are given the same inor disapprove of decisions made by representation we have. Our regional wasn’t a part of what was going on in credible freedom of expression and religious bodies, or in any other way conferences, area assemblies, conven- that meeting room. it’s understood that we speak as indistray from our main objective. tions, and local central offices must That’s frequently the way AA viduals, not for AA as a whole. It wouldn’t be long before AA also take care not to express them- meetings go, but not always. As much as I appreciate the right groups got into the act. There would selves concerning any outside issues. As individuals, we have lots of to express my opinion, I appreciate be an AA-Alcoholics Back Big Bill for Individual members speaking to a opinions, and we frequently express even more the wisdom of our early President Group in Biloxi, and nurses association meeting, school, or them in meetings. If you doubt this, leaders in deciding that, as far as an AA-Alcoholics Join John Jones business grqup, through an arrange- the next time you’re at your home outside issues go, AA shouldn’t have ‘ Against Juveniles in Jail Group in ment made by a public information group pretend there is someone with an opinion. a bell who rings it every time an out- Fran D., New Orleans. La.

October 1990

Is AA Changing? small portion of what each group meeting of your group and I drink donates. Intergroup also has a dele- coffee, I still have a responsibility to gates’ meeting where you share your your group. I would spend $1.OO at a group problems and how your group diner for coffee; so, if I drink my coffunctions. fee at your group, I will put a buck in New Jersey General Service: Why the basket when it gets passed. In donate to them? What do they do? other words, if I went to seven meet- They have these committees: Cooper- ings a week, it would cost me $1 1.00 ation with the Professional Commu- a week to save my life. It’s that simnity (CPC), Public Information (PI), ple. I used to spend a heck of a lot Treatment Facilities, Correctional Fa- more than $1 1 .OO a week when I was cilities. These committees can go into killing myself! he first time I had to talk about But what is the larger “support sys- outside facilities and carry the message As I said before, we have six memfinances at a district meeting tem”? After we take care of all the of recovery in AA. W- can supply bers of the Forest Hills Group. We when I was my area’s treasurer, a responsibilities of our group and have literature for all these things. When pay $85.00 a month rent. I don’t fellow sitting in the back of the room a prudent reserve to keep the meeting the newly-created film for Treatment know what we spend on goodies; but yelled out: “Why in the world are you open for a month, we take whatever Facilities comes out, we can purchase we send $15.00 a month to interalways talking about money when is left over and contribute to inter- that film and show it to Treatment group; $15.00 a month to New Jersey this is a spiritual program?” The,guy group, General Service in New Jersey, Facilities personnel, patients,’ and General Service; and $15.00 a month threw me and I didn’t know how to and the General Service Office in prospective twelfth-steppers. to GSO in New York. answer him. What 1 am going to try New York. Each group does it what- Contribute to New York? Why? I’ll share a little experience with to do now is to explain how money ever way they wish; breaking it down They are the clearing house of infor- you. When I served as treasurer of the and spirituality do mix in AA. They into thirds, half, or whatever. It is mation for groups all over the United area, I was asked to go to a business have to mix when we keep the right always a good idea to donate to inter- States and Canada; basically, all over meeting of a group that was having a attitude and the proper perspective. group first. I say intergroup first be- the world. So, if your group is having problem paying their rent. It is one of My name is John H. I am an alco- cause that is the answering service. a problem, you can, through the dele- the oldest groups in northern New holic and I belong to the Forest Hills That’s where the alcoholic gets help gate, get information of what is hap- Jersey. They had been meeting in the Group. The Forest Hills Group has first; where he calls for the first time. pening or has happened in other same church since they began, and all . 1 one meeting a week which is a speak- Intergroup has a paid secretary. They groups all over the United States and of a sudden they were having a prober’s meeting that meets on Monday make sure the name is in the tele- Canada; or all over the world. That’s lem meeting the rent. The GSR renights. At that meeting they pass the phone book, in the yellow pages and ‘ what the New York General Serice Of- quested one of the officers from New basket and as a responsible member the white pages, so somebody can get fice is, a clearing house for informa- Jersey General Service to come and of that group, 1 put my donation in the number and can’ call for help if tion. We have staff members and peo- sit in on their business meeting and the basket. As a group member, I they need it. They supply the meeting ple over there that have to be paid. So, see if we could help solve their probhave to be responsible for the rent, books. I don’t know of any group in my responsibility through my group lem. As treasurer of the area, I was literature, coffee, donuts and sup- New Jersey that can spend $20,000 is t o help take care of these functions. elected to go, and I am glad that I did. porting the larger support system of every six months to print up those When the basket is passed at the When I got there, the chairman of AA. We have six members in the For- meeting books; but, I know that if meeting of my home group, I put a the group, who knew me as a membet est Hills Group, and we pay $85.00 a each group sent in contributions to five dollar bill in it. That’s my re- of the Forest Hills Group and not as month in rent to the church because intergroup, these meeting lists would sponsibility to my group – to help an area officer, said, “You don’t that is the amount they requested. get printed, which amounts to just a pay for a 1 these services. If I go to a belong here. You are not a member of

this group, and this is a business I also told him that he was the enabler meeting.” I answered him saying, extra today. ing is that the group down in the Belfor all the people in the room to do “You are right. I don’t belong here if I will share another experience in- mar area had, say, $3.00; they could nothing. I had their attention. I told it’ was just to come into this meeting; volving a group down in Belmar – a not buy a Big Book with $3.00; but if the woman who complained about but the GSR requested for somebody small group again. As area treasurer, you take that $3.00 and put it with the elders in the church that it is enfrom General Service to come.” He I used to get the donation checks. the $500, we could buy a lot of Big tirely their decision what they want said, “You still don’t belong here.” I for rent. They know what they need Every month I would get a check for Books for the PI committee to put in replied, “That’s not your decision. $3.00, or $4.22, or $6.90 from this a lot of libraries all over New Jersey to operate their facility and how particular group. I thought it was to carry the message to the still-suf- That’s your group’s decision because much they need per night for the it was a request from the GSR that I great that they were taking their little fering alcoholic. room. You can’t argue with them, I am responsible within my group be here. Open it up on the floor and if money and sending it to us. I had the That’s getting involved with an the group says they don’t want me opportunity to visit that group. They to make sure all those services are outside entity, the church. Either you here, I will leave.” But, thank God, had six members and a very small taken care of – literature, rent, cofpay the rent or you move. One womthe group said I could stay; and I was meeting; not too many peopleattend- fee, donuts, intergroup, New Jersey an raised her hand and said, “You glad. They got the treasurer’s report. ed. What they did was, after all their General Service, and the General Serknow, the night I walked in sixteen Their rent was $195.00 a month and responsibilities were taken care of for vice Office in New York. I don’t years ago I put $1.00 in the basket, they had five meetings a week. That’s the group meeting – the rent, the know how much of my $5.00 goes to and tonight at the meeting, I put . $10.00 a meeting in round figures. coffee, the literature, the donuts, a all these entities. I really don’t. An- $1.00 in the basket.” Another guy The treasurer had been taking twenty prudent reserve for a month’s opera- other thing that was brought up at raised his hand saying the same thing; tion – they would take the remainder that business meeting of the group and forty dollars out of his pocket for and then somebody else and some- of their money and split it three ways: having a problem paying the rent was the last three or four months to pay body else. They started to talk to each New Jersey General Service, Gen- a complaint about a guy putting a the rent. Discussion started. One other about their problem. Then, era1 Service Office in New York, quarter in the basket. When I was woman was blaming the elders of the there was a young fellow sitting on and intergroup. sharing with them, I commented that church because they were asking for the stage, who raised his hand and too much rent. On the other side of the coin, there you can’t complain about the guy was recognized by the chairman. He is a group around the Piscataway who ate three donuts. That might be From what I understood from the said: “What would happen if we each meeting that night, they had been put $2.00 in the basket?” He got the area. The group’s treasurer kept the only meal that guy had that day. paying the same rent for approxi- building up the money because he did And the guy who put the quarter in message. not know where to send any dona- the basket? It might have been the mately the last four years. So, it We have to do a little more today wasn’t the elders’ fault. Then, there tions. All of a sudden, through shar- only quarter he had. But, it is my than we did yesterday because of all was complaining about a guy who ing, and only through sharing expe- responsibility, not his, not hers, the things that are going up. Churches riences, the message got through mine. I have to be responsible. 1 have came into their meeting and ate three still have to pay insurance. They have to him that you have to spread this to do what I feel is necessary for me donuts. There was blame all over the a lot of extra bills they have to take money out to carry the message to the to carry the message of sobriety to the place. There were 60 members of that care of.’ Years ago, I remember at , still-suffering alcoholic. New Jersey sick alcoholic; just the same as I got group at that meeting. After about 20 the Forest Hills Group, we paid $10.00 General Service got $500; New York it. That’s what it amounts to – spiriminutes of listening to a lot of petty a month for four meetings. Today General Service Office got $500; and tuality and money. nonsense, I raised my hand and asked churches have to pay a janitor, where intergroup got $500. What I am say- John H., Belleville, N. J. if I could share. I commended the years ago somebody volunteered. It is treasurer for what he was doing; that not the same as it was. It has changed. it was nice that he was taking money So, we have to change. We have to be out of his pocket to pay the rent; but, responsible. We have to do a little

November 1990

at a few: bchind the Tradition. 1. Several prominent people have From time to time, members of the. done just that in the past, and have Fellowship will boil up in anger asthen been taken drunk to the detri- serting that some prominent individment of AA’s credibility. ual (who is also in AA) has broken his 2. Many sick alcoholics wouldshun or her anonymity. More often than AA unless they were convinced their not, this is a misperception. What the membership would remain confiden- newsmaker has usually done is to use tial. I can recall that I flatly refused to his or her full name, admit to being an go to my first few AA meetings in the alcoholic, and perhaps has even distown where I lived. I insisted on being cussed AA. But as long as the inditaken to a town ten miles away. I vidual does not divulge his or her 3. Our identity in public would pre- membership in AA, this is not a sent the ideal opportunity for each of “technical” breach of the Anonymus to uncage the old ego. Those lib- ity Tradition (though it certainly erated egos would spawn countless presses the limits of the “spirit” of messiahs, each claiming to represent Tradition Eleven). AA and each proclaiming his or her So far we have been discussing the brand of AA. It is doubtful that the what-not-to-do part – the inaction If anonymity more familiar aspect of the ~raditidn Fellowship we know today could part of the Tradition. The other part is over-used or – the part that tells us where not to withstand such a divisive clamor. says, “Our public relations policy under-used, it kills. use our names, to wit:. . .”we need These are three strong reasons why is based on attraction rather than If it is used as our always tnaintain personal anonymity discarding public anonymity would proniotion. ” founders advised, at the level of press, radio, andfilnts. ” be a risk to each of us and weaken That’s where the Tradition opens it gives life. Some of us often think that AA the Fellowship as a whole. In addi- an action door for us. We all know “Anonymity” and the “Anonym- would attract many more suffering tion, there are two strong reasons AA is not simply a set of prohibitions: ity Tradition” in AA are not one and alcoholics if the prominent members, why maintaining public anonymity there are no “don’ts” in the Twelve the same. Anonymity is described by particularly, were enabled to talk strengthens AA. Steps. AA is a program of action. If Webster as, “Bearing or giving no publicly about their AA experience. 1. Credibility is injected into AA’s we practice AA to learn only how not name.” The Anonymity Tradition on Here’s what Bill said about this: beliefs and practices by the absence to drink, we are missing the spiritual the other hand, as described in Tra- “We alcoholics are the biggest ration- of any public controversy involving wealth that AA has to offer. On the ditions Eleven and Twelve, tells us alizers in the world. Fortified with the AA, and the absence of any personal other hand, if we practice the pronot only where to not use our names, excuse that we are doing great things grandstanding by AA members. gram to learn how to live, we shall but also suggests where we should for AA, we can, through broken ano- 2. Our insistence on public ano- stay sober, but more than that, we use our names. AA is concerned with nymity, resume our old and disas- nymity convinces the media that we can have a joyous life. the “Anonymity Tradition,” not trous pursuit of personal power and have no personal axe to grind. This So it is with the Anonymity Tradiwith anonymity as such. prestige, public honors and money – has often persuaded them to carry the tion. If we practice it only by keeping In the following paragraphs, we the same implacable urges that, when message for us. That is why the Gen- our names secret, we shall miss many shall take a look at the whys and frustrated, once caused us to drink.” eral Service Office expends every ef- of the rewards of AA, not only for wherefores of the two aspects of Tra- What are the reasons for the force- fort to educate the media by writing ourselves but for what we can condition Eleven. We’ll start with the fulness of Bill’s statement? Let’s look periodic letters explaining the reasons tribute to AA as a whole.

Anonymity Tradition? Absolutely as a whole by identifying ourselves on Here are Bill’s comments on this ber of AA. The information also not! In fact, quite the opposite. De- a personal basis? aspect of the Tradition: shows that a large segment of the spite what many of us seem to believe, 1 We can provide the very attrac- “As a rule the average newcomer public says they do not know an AA the AA pamphlet “Understanding tion that the Tradition defines as our wanted his family to know immedi- member. People who say they do not Anonymity” points out: “There has public relations policy: our personal ately what he was trying to do. He know an AA member describe us as never been a single word in the Tradi- example lending credibility to the efalso wanted to tell others who had being weak, unhappy, neurotic. On tions against the use of full names fectiveness of AA. tried to help him – his doctor, his themotherhand, those who say they, either within the Fellowship or on a 1We can reinforce the Fellowship minister and close friends. As he know a member describe us as coura- person-to-person basis outside the Fel- in carrying out the commitment at the gained confidence, he felt it right to geous, trustworthy, conscientious. lowship.” The Tradition does not ad- Toronto Convention: “I am responsiexplain his new way of life to his em- This certainly dramatizes the im- vise blanket anonymity. Rather it tells ble. When anyone, anywhere reaches ployer and business associates. When portance to the suffering alcoholic us when and where to use anonymity. out for help, I want the hand of AA opportunity to be helpful came and to AA as a whole that sober mem- 2. We fear that knowledge of our always to be there. And for that: I am along, he found he could talk easily bers of AA be visible on a personal membership in AA will cost the friend- responsible.:’ We have provided the about AA to almost anyone. Those basis. How can AA attract except ship and respect of friends and per- sick alcoholic another channel to AA. ‘ quiet disclosures helped him to lose through the personal example of its haps even our jobs. In over thirty years 1 We can drive another coffin nail his fear of the alcoholic stigma and members? And how can we attract to of observation, I have never seen the into the so-called “stigma” of alcospread the news of AA’s existence in AA unless people know we are in AA? disclosure have anything but a con- holism by demonstrating that we are his community. Many a new man and However, Bill provided us a cau- structive effect on the relationship proud of our membership in AA. Our woman came to AA because of such tion against urging members willy with people who really mean anything secrecy aids and abets the stigma. conversations. Since it is only at the nilly to divulge their AA membership to us. The same is true as far as reveal- The rewards to each of us for s t e p top public level that anonymity is ex- on a personal level. He wrote: “It ing to bosses is concerned – with one ping out of the shadows are even pected, such communications were should be the privilege of each AA to exception – an instance in which an greater than the rewards to AA as a well within its spirit.” cloak himself with as much anonym- AA member revealed his membership whole. First we gain one more safe- Dr. Bob expressed himself even ity as he desires.” to the president of his company and guard against the possibility of pickmore forcefully on the need for iden- Interesting that Bill uses the word was fired the very next morning. (P.S.: ing up a drink. Second, we finally tity at the personal level: “cloak,” which would seem to con- he got another and better job within a achieve freedom from furtiveness. “There are two ways to break the note furtiveness. week.) Usually employers welcome We were furtive about our drinking. Anonymity Tradition: 1) by giving In the face of all the evidence of the AA membership in their ranks. AAs How exhilarating to be open about your name at the public level of film, good that our disclosure would do, can be counted on. our sobriety! Finally, the identifying press or radio; 2) by being so anony- why do some of us still hang back Last and perhaps the most cunning of ourselves in private is almost like a mous that you can’t be reached by when it comes to letting our AA mem- reason of all – are we unknowingly miracle in the new opportunities it other drunks. The AA who hides his bership be known on a personal basis? preserving an emergency escape route brings us to help others both within identity from his fellow AA by using There are probably many reasons. if we should decide to drink again? If and without the Fellowship. only a given name violates the Tradi- 1. There is much confusion between people know we are in AA, drinking Strict anonymity at the publiclevel, tion just as much as the AA who per- the meaning of the “Anonymity Tra- would require some very ingenious visible and attractive example at the mits his name to appear in the press dition” as opposed to the meaning of explanations. Are we thus giving private level, wherever plausible with matters pertaining to AA.” the word “anonymity.” We have all sanctuary to a last precious vestige these are the essence of being true . Over the years information gath- heard AA members say such things of denial? both to ourselves and to our fellow , ered by the General ServiceOfficehas as: “1 had to break my anonymity Forgetting ourselves for the mo- members of AA. shown that a plurality of newcomers today. I told my doctor I am in AA.” ment, what can we contribute to AA B. P., Contoocook, N. H. turn to AA through knowing a mem- Broke his anonymity? Yes. Broke the

December 1990

lar degree a trait which 1 have noticed had nothing much going on inside the off and on in various celebrities, my- tent. I’ve been working hard to shut self by no means excluded: a tendency that circus down ever since with varyto regard oneself from an observer’s ing degrees of success. point of views. When she entered a Obviously you don’t have to be a room you could almost see the imagi- celebrity to waste AA by reducing it to nary surrounding cameras with which just another clever act; it’s only that she skillfully watched herself, know- the scam’s more spectacular and blaing exactly how each movement tant when you turn all of it into a novel looked from all directions, every get- or a sitcom. And, sadly, the frauduting up and sitting down, each smile lence is more generally observed and and head toss. Occasionally you could likely to be more destructive. see her quickly correct herself because And of course only celebrities are she’d caught herself in some faulty brought on stage to work that dubipose from a bad angle. ous show-biz routine of topping one I was fairly new to sobriety and to another publicly about how sober AA when I met this woman, and I they’ve become. It’s not just the obvihave bccn very grateful to her ever ous fact that they have feet of clay the since for what I learned from thesight same as everybody else and may end of her in action. up by not setting such a grand exam- The first thing I realized was how ple after all which makes the exercise much I’d used her same trick of view- so dangerous. It’s that the whole ing myself from a distance when I’d thing has the effect of reducing their I am a celebrity – costume in order to have something been an active drunk. It had been revelations (which may indeed be by no means a big respectable to introduce to others, a great help in conning observers sincere) into nothing more than talk one and far from but celebrities’ public disguises are into thinking my sleazy super drinks show gabble, easily brushed aside. being a household not only their livelihood, they are a were ordinary highballs, for instance, Perhaps the scariest part of turning word. But I’m large part of their beloved craft. It’s and an enormous aid in covering up recovery into just another celebrity luckv enounh to understandable that celebrities can sly signals to waiters for more bot- act is that, even though it may well see that welcome littie light which become more obsessed with these pub- tles of wine. now and then brightens a stranger’s lic presentations than most other folk. have the best intentions, it tends to I had occasion to work with a fa- Much more important, I realized glamorize drunkenness almost exactface when he recognizes my name. that I’d been living outside myself so ly as an ad does and make it seem that I was in AA a long time before it mous model during one project. She long I had almost succeeded in be- being a poor sot is somehow an espedawned on me that the notion of was, at the time, on the covers of coming a walking vacancy. In my cially interesting and possibly even celebrity is exactly and precisely op- three major magazines and featured posite from that of anonymity, and in at least that many television com- , prized AA sobriety, I”was still run- superior condition. I can’t speak for ning a kind of circus which had nu- you, friend, but I can state without though the conflict is by no means, mercials. Women would rush up to merous, highly believable posters reservation that as far as this particuonly trouble for celebrities, it does her on the street and it was touchplastered all over its outside – See lar drunk is concerned, that foolish seem to cluster around them in strange ing to see the way their eyes searched the Speclaculur Non-Drinking Per- notion got me into a whole lot of and peculiar ways, and it sure meant her face and figure for the secret of son! Watch How Movingly He Can trouble. Over and over. trouble for me. her magic. The model possessed in a spectacu- Recite the Twelve Steps! – but which Anonymous, New York, N.X We’ve all sewn together a mask and

December 1990

level. Sam had written to Bill stating he have in mind when he said such that he thought, in his case, it would things? If, as one who doesn’t know be helpful to reveal his AA member- the Bible very well, I were asked to ship before the general public by answer, I would say that he was trying name and picture. Here are excerpts to throw a heavy emphasis on modesty from Bill’s response – a letter dated and humility; that he was deeply con- June 22, 1946. Our Fellowship was scious of the human tendency to exhieleven years old. bitionism. So, if I hear him aright, “As a fact, there are few principles he is now saying to us AAs ‘go and. or AA attitudes about which I have a preach’ these principles to all the more definite conviction than that of world. But beware of parading your- ‘anonymity before the general pub- selves in the process.’ lic.’ I find support for my conviction “Just as you are now searching As a newcomer in was celebrating its 25th anniversary among the vast majority of AA mem- your soul about anonymity in pub- AA I had a lot of there. At that time, it was their feel- bers despite the fact that there seem lic, so did I have to go through that ideas about needed ing that anonymity was fine for AA to be a considerable number of AAs very process in 1939, the year our in the U.S. but not for them. The Fel- in our southeastern chapters who book Alcoholics Anonymous went lowship was getting a great deal of agree with you. But in discussing this to print. I was then called upon to I Big Book was too publicity because of the anniversary matter I would rather not rely too make a decision, perhaps the most sexist and I couldn’t understand why convention. There was media cover- much upon the numerical support my far-reaching one I have ever taken. .none of the AA meetings served de- age. One active member, a teacher by own view has. Which of our views is Had it not been for the wise counsel caffeinated coffee. And I was abso- profession, was being interviewed live the better policy – the finer spiritual- of my friends in AA I must humbly utely certain that the biggest mistake by a local talk show host. He was ity, that’s the question, isn’t it? confess that I probably would have was keeping Alcoholics Anonymous identified by full name as an AA “Though less well schooled than abandoned my anonymity before the anonymous. member and was plainly recogniz- you, I, too, regard myself a follower general public. Two courses were In fact, I made an emotional plea able. In the course of the interview, in the tradition of the Master. Per- then before me because two titles for t o that effect when I had six months he was asked what percentage of the haps as a layman, I have not much the book had been proposed, and sobriety under my belt – holding the country’s teachers were alcoholic. standing to interpret him. Yet my both were equally popular. Here Fellowship responsible for my fa- Not anticipating the question and own observation is this: that some- they were: ther’s death from cirrhosis of the being nervous in front of the cam- times Jesus advanced propositions “1. The Way Out liver. It embarrasses me to recall say- eras, our friend answered, “about seemingly contradictory. He lambast- By Wm. G. Wilson ing that if AA weren’t so anonymous, fifty percent.” The headline in the ed money changers and people who “2. Alcoholics Anonymous my father would still be alive, which newspaper that evening shouted, stoned whores, yet I believe he said “I don’t mind saying, Sam, that was, of course, an absurd statement. “Half of Country’s Teachers Alco- ‘resist not evil.’ He preached in pub- the first one looked mighty attractive My father knew of AA and chose holic According to AA.” Our non- lic, and this to such great effect that to me. To justify myself I used to say not to go. anonymous member had become an millions wish they could see him and ‘Well, Bill, you have surely learned Since then I have seen example AA spokesman. hear him today. Yet, did he not re- enough about humility by now. So after example proving why anonym- As expressed in a letter to Sam D., prove those who made a public show the mere signing of this book will ity is so vital for our Fellowship. For an AA member who was also a minis- of giving alms, and did he not say never go to your head. The leaders instance, a few years ago I was in a ter, Bill W. had some thoughts on the that a prayer in a closet was better of every other movement are publicountry in the Caribbean when AA subject of anonymity at the public than a prayer in public? What did cized. All movements have to be per-

sonalized. They have to have per- was addressed by a young U.S. Con- associated with the Oxford Group for an AA member to be too anonysonal symbols to lend them power gressman from Illinois named Abra- and were on hand, it is reported, for a mous? Too anonymous for the good and character. So why shouldn’t I ham Lincoln. gathering in New York City where of the individual and the Fellowship? sign this book? A good title too – So rapid was the group’s rise that it Buchman revealed for the first time The answer is “yes.” And there are The Way Out! soon had 600,000 members. Along his personal hopes for dealing with more than a few exampies of this: ” I almost succumbed to these ra- the way, however, it became so in- the problem of alcoholism. “I’m all members who feel they must not tell tionalizations but my friends tipped volved – even concentrated – on for alcoholics getting changed,” he their families or their friends or cothe scale the other way. ‘What if you promotion of its aims and success announced, “but we have drunken workers or doctors or ministers or got drunk – and Bill, what kind of that its main original purpose began nations on our hands as well.” lawyers that they are members of AA. an example do you think you would to evaporate. Many of its members It was 1938 and before long the There have even been instances be setting for the rest of us egocen- became embroiled in public activities, Oxford Group was transformed into when members have sent requests for trics? Even if you could stand a lot of giving voice to and taking sides in what was called Moral Rearmament information to the General Service newspaper publicity, we couldn ‘t. outside matters such as abolition with Frank Buchman still at the head Office in New York and not included Lots of us would get drunk and let and temperance. of it – with a purpose to bring the a last name or have sent checks to our movement down. And anyhow, By the end of 1847, just seven years nations of the world together by GSO – unsigned. isn’t the American public pretty well after it began its original noble ven- strictly peaceful means. There is indeed such a thing as an fed up on personal ballyhoo, how- ture, the Washingtonians had faded By 1939 AA and the changing Ox- AA member being too anonymous: ever good.’ Well, Sam, my friends out of existence and ceased activity ford Group drifted apart. But in talk- where it can mean failure to extend wouldn’t let me d o it, and how right except in Boston where, in all too ing later about AA’s infancy, Bill said the helping hand when the need arises; – oh how very right – they were.” brief a time, it too vanished altogether. of the Oxford Group: “They had where it can mean failure to correct The spiritual value of anonymity About seventy years later, another clearly shown us what to do” [and] misconceptions about ,414both inside has been recognized for a long time. movement surfaced that was to be “we also learned from them what not and outside the Fellowship; and where The ancient Greeks had a word for it remarkably effective for a couple of to do so far as alcoholics were con- it can stifle -even stop – the flow of and Christ spoke in praise of the hu- decades. This was the Oxford Group. cerned – too authoritarian, aggres- AA knowledge and sobriety from one mility that fosters anonymity when he Interestingly, its founder Frank Buch- sive evangelism, absolute concepts, person to another. said, “Blessed are the meek for they man saw great virtue in anonymity which were frequently too much for This is anonymity at the personal shall inherit the earth.” because there was a considerable drunks, dependence upon the use of level and can indeed be carried too far We will now take a big jump in length of time he preferred to be prominent names (mighty hazardous – in Bill’s words – to “the point of time and space and atmosphere from known as “Frank B.” This was to for US).Because of the stigma (at that real absurdity.” Anonymity at the the Sermon on the Mount to the sec- change, however, along with the over- time) of alcoholism, most alcoholics public level, however, is another matond day of April, 1840 and Chase’s all tone of the original Oxford Group wanted to be anonymous.” ter and no member of the AA Fellow- Tavern in Baltimore, Maryland. On movement. Before too long ordinary Commenting on this still further, ship has shown the genuine humility that date, six drinking friends made a membership purposes were shunted Bill said: “Anonymity was not born to practice anonymity at the public decision to stop their drinking and aside and eventually overwhelmed by of confidence: the bare hint of pub- level more dramatically and in a more took a pledge to d o so. increasing cases of personal ambi- licity shocked us. . .we were afraid of truly self-sacrificing manner than our They called themselves the Wash- tion, campaigns for funds, and eager developing erratic public characters co-founders, Bill and Dr. Bob. ingtonians and in a year’s time they public searches for support, endorse- who. . .might get drunk in public and I’ve quoted Bill a lot in this article had reformed 1,000 drunks and had ment and participation of well-known so destroy confidence in us. . ..” because he was a prolific writer. Dr. 5,000 other members and supportive personalities. No look at anonymity as practiced Bob also provided us with many illusfriends. On their second anniversary AA’s earliest members, chief by AA can be truly complete without trations of living the Tradition of one of their groups in the Midwest among them Bill and Dr. Bob, were including the question: is it possible anonymity. The example I cite took

place soon after his wife Anne had population, the number of public died and nearly a year after he learned anonymity breaks – discomforting he had terminal cancer. It is from his when’ they do occur and sometimes biography, Dr. Bob and the Good potentially dangerous – are compar- Oldtimers. atively few and infrequent. This may “This was at a time when AA mem- be because as AA matures its members were thinking about a monu- bers more fully understand the value ment for Anne and Bob. In fact, a to themselves for anonymity at the collection had been started. Hearing public level. It may also be because of this, Dr. Bob promptly asked that the Bill’s remarkable powerful example money be given back and declared of personal sacrifice for the good of against the Fellowship’s erecting for all. As a demonstration of anonymity Anne and himself any tangible me- in action, this is for all to follow: morials or monuments. He told Bill, Bill discouraged any Nobel Prize ‘Let’s you and I get buried just like possibility for himself. other folks.’ Later, while shopping He declined awards from several for a stone for Anne’s grave, he was colleges (suggesting they be offered asked, ‘Surely you’re going to have instead to the Fellowship itself). something on it about AA?’ He re- He turned down the inclusion of plied, ‘Mercv. no!’ ” his name and a brief personal history Another example: in his farewell to in “Who’s Who in America.” the Fellowship at AA’s first Interna- He said thanks but no thanks to an tional Convention in Cleveland, honorary degree from Yale University. Ohio, in July 1950, Dr. Bob said: “I He rejected a Time magazine story get a big thrill out of looking over a that would have included his picture vast sea of faces like this with a feel- on the cover. ing that possibly some small thing 1 He refused the Lasker Award did a number of years ago played an (which was given to AA instead). infinitely small part in making this And posthumously (through his meeting possible.” This from a co- wife Lois), he declined a degree from founder of what some have called the his old school, Vermont’s Norwich greatest social and spiritual move- University. ment, the most far-reaching crusade When Bill died, his anonymity was for health and mental well-being, of broken by the press (as was Dr. Bob’s the twentieth century – an organiza- at the time of his earlier death). Yet tion with a couple million alcoholics both Bill and Dr. Bob were buried who are living or who have died sober without fanfare and, as they wished, as a direct result of Dr. Bob’s and there is no mention on their tomb- Bill’s determination and dedication. stones of their great indelible contri- This is humility. This is anonymity. butions to Alcoholics Anonymous. Considering the size of today’s AA Anonymous. New York, A! X

January 1 9 9 1

major area of the country and was perance advocates, who considered going particularly strong in central the drunk a hopeless case (Justin New York and New England.” Edwards said in 1822, “Keep the tem- At its peak, the Society’s member- perate people temperate; the drunkship was estimated at anywhere from ards will soon die, and the land will be one to six million, of whom perhaps free”), the Washingtonians treated 100,000to600,OOO were sober drunks. drunks with love and won them over (One difficulty is the terminology – with “moral suasion.” An 1842 docthe Society claimed to have sobered ument gave directions for organizing up everything from “confirmed a Washingtonian Society, which indrunkards” to “hard drinkers often cluded “Declaring that love and kind- Fragments of AA History drunken” to “sots” to “tipplers in ness and moral suasion are your only a fair way to become sots,” and the principles and measures.” distinctions were never too clear.) Accounts of the early Washington- The Washingtonians Others who joined up were friends ians are in some ways remarkably n Thursday evening, April 2, in honor of George Washington. and families (even very young chil- similar to descriptions of AA meet- 1840, six drinking buddies gath- The Society continued to meet for dren), as well as liquor dealers and ings. The Washingtonians were the ered, as was their daily custom, at a time in Chase’s Tavern, but when tavern owners. first to insist on the recounting of per- Chase’s Tavern in Baltimore. A well- the owner’s wife objected to the loss Abraham Lincoln (according to sonal experience in their meetings known temperance speaker was lec- of good customers, they switched to the February 1953 Grapevine) was (apparently this practice began as a turing that night, and four of them the home of one of the members, and “the foremost member of the Spring- pragmatic measure, when public thought it would be a good joke to finally rented a hall. In November, field, Illinois, Washingtonians. He meetings became popular and the go and hear him. As they discussed they held a public meeting which, had never taken whisky, but he had Society’s leaders had to think up a the lecture later that evening, one with subsequent monthly meetings, seen his business partner. . .overcome way to keep them interesting). In Janof them proposed (still not quite seri- proved such a success that by their by it.” And the December 1948Grape- uary 1949, Richard Ewell Brown ously) that they form a total absti- first anniversary, the Baltimore Wash- vine describes how “in Dedham, wrote in the Grapevine: “The Washnence society, and on Sunday, April ingtonians counted “about 1,000 re- Mass., a Mr. Thompson proved him- ingtonian charter provided that only 5, while strolling and drinking, the formed drunkards and 5,000 other self such an eloquent speaker that the ex-drunks could address the meetsix men did make a decision “to drink members and friends in the parade to entire town joined.. . . The leading ings. Thus the ‘benefits of experience no more of the poisonous draft, celebrate the occasion.” liquor merchant gave up his business, spoken in burning words from the fyrever.” The Washingtonians were zealous signed the pledge, and was made Pres- heart’ were made available for all to , Each of the six agreed to bring a in carrying their message of hope ident of the village society” and hear. . .Debates, lectures and speeches man to the next’meefing, and they beyond Baltimore. Several leaders poured his entire stock of liquor on were definitely out, and matters of wrote and signed a pledge not to turned out to be powerful orators the ground. business were limited to ‘as few re- “drink any spiritous or malt liquors, who traveled widely, speaking to Formation of the Washingtonians marks as possible.’ Politics and reli- . wine or cider.” The name Washing- large crowds, and “by May 1842 the was tied in many ways to the temper- gion were both taboo as topics of ton Temperance Society was chosen movement had penetrated every ance movement, which had been discussion.” gaining strength since 1825, but was Brown went on to say: “Every ef- A mqior source for this article is “The Washingtonian Movement.” by Milton A. Maxwell. beginning to lose momentum. At fort was made to prevent the society Ph.D., Quarterly Journal of Alcohoi Studies, September 1950. OthersourcesincludeGrapevine articles in the December 1948, January 1949, and February 1953 issues. first, the Washingtonians were not- from encroaching on anyone’s prejuable for their differences. Unlike tem- dices, so that all people would feel

holic.” The movement’s founding lic criticism. . . free to join the organization. One its members. purpose, and one purpose only, was Affiliation with outside enterprises; L’Equally important, anonymity held in mind: to rescue men from the aim, helping drunks, “became an public controversy: From the begin- increasingly secondary interest of keeps the groups from exploiting toils of drink.” Another aspect was ning, the Washingtonians were closesimplicity: “Responsibility was di- those whose primary interest was the prominent names for the sake of ly allied with the temperance move- furtherance of the temperance cause group prestige; and it keeps individvided equally.. .and everyone was ment, and outside of Baltimore, the kept busy doing missionary work, early “missionaries” were “invariably . . .And as fewer and fewer men were ual members from exploiting their bringing new members to the weekly reclaimed, the last distinctive features AA connection for personal prestige sponsored by temperance organiza- of the Washingtonian movement or fame. This encourages humility meetings and helping old members tions.” Temperance leaders looked and the placing of principles before who had slipped back into their for- dropped out of sight.” upon the Washingtonians as a means Anonymity: In his discussion of personalities.” mer habits.” of “sparking” their cause, and in the Bill W. cited the experience of the Yet by 1848, the Washingtonian AA and the Washingtonians, Milton end, this became the chief interest of Maxwell comments: “A comparison Washingtonians in a number of his movement had “destroyed itselfcom- the Washingtonian leaders them- with the Washingtonian experience writings, and he considered them . pletely and dropped out of sight. selves. In many places, Washington- underscores the sheer survival value both a forerunner of AA and an ob- With it went the hope it had held out ians spoke in churches, and some of the ~rincipleof anonymity in Al- ject lesson for the Fellowship’s fufor thousands of drunks of that day,” came into conflict with the beliefs of and the only tangible evidence re- coholici ~ n o n ~ m o u sAt. the height ture. religious entities. “Nothing can di- of his popularity, John B. Gough In an article in the August 1945 maining was its Home for the Fallen vide groups more quickly. . .than re- Grapevine, he reflected on the lessons in Boston. [one of the most prominent of the ligious or political controversy. Strong Washingtonian missionaries] either of the movement and emphasized the How did it happen? The similari- effortswere made in the Washingtonties between Alcoholics Anonymous ‘slipped’ or was tricked by his ene- importance of being “strong enough ian movement to minimize sectarian, mies into a drunken relapse. At any and single-purposed enough from and the Washingtonians are too clear theological and political differences, to be overlooked: alcoholics helping rate, the opponents of the Washing- within” to be rightly related to the but the movement did not avoid at- tonian movement seized upon this world: “We are sure that if the origieach other, weekly meetings, sharing tracting to itself the hostile emotions of experiences, constant availability lapse with glee and made the most of nal Washingtonians could return to generated by these conflicts. . .it was it to hurt Gough and the movement. this planet they would be glad to see This must have happened frequently us learning from their mistakes.. . of fellowship with the group or its still caught in all the controversy to members, reliance on a Higher Power, which the temperance cause had beand total abstinence from alcohol. to less widely known. . .Washington- Had we lived in their day we might come liable.” ians. Public confidence in the move- have made the same errors. Perhaps Why is AA celebrating 55 years of Singleness of purpose; membership growth, while its nineteenth century ment was impaired. Anonymity pro- we are beginning to make some of requirements: Formed for the pur- , tects the reputation of AA from pub- them now.” forerunner fell apart within’ only a pose of helping drunks, a Society ,few years? Most historians are agreed whose membership encompassed alon the reasons: For one, the Wash- coholics, their families, and nonalcoingtonians had no sustained program holic~of many types could not proof recovery comparable to AA’s vide that vital ingredient of AA’s Twelve Steps. But the real key to their success: identification. “The nonalself-destruction lies in the lack of any coholic member soon grew tired of guiding principles like those incorpo- listening to an endless chain of exrated in AA’s Twelve ‘lladitions. The drunks expatiate on an experience Washingtonian movement “met its that, in the final analysis, had no Waterloo in the conflicting aims of meaning for anyone but another alco-

J a n u a r y 1991 I -r

6. AA does not promise that we’ll to function effectively without booze. never be hurt or feel pain. When AA The Twelfth Step sums it up this way: talks about serenity, it is not talking “Having had a spiritual awakening about the absence of calamity but as the result of these steps, we tried peace of heart, mind, and spirit in the to carry this message to alcoholics, midst of calamity. AA is not saying and to practice these principles in all that we’ll have no more problems; it’s our affairs.” AA also provides . – . .. . Twelve . Tradi-

w hen I look at what AA has done for me. it doesn’t seem like much compared to what AA has done for hundreds of thousands of people all program. It does not promise that we will receive suspended sentences, probations, or paroles. AA does not promise conditional releases, stays of saying that we’ll be given what we n&d t o deal with, and go through, those problems. The absence of trouble is not the purpose of AA. tions whereby we, as individuals in groups, can learn to work with, and be around, other people without all the troubles we h?d in the past doing What, then, is the purpose of AA? over the world in the past fifty-five proceedings, or the early releases AA is a program of action for treat- this. It is within the Twelve Traditions years. To see this is to see what a from prisons or hospitals. ing a problem of reaction. The AA that we find the purpose of AA. The small part I play in the world of re- 2. AA is not a “Dating Game,” nor program provides Twelve Steps where- Fifth Tradition sums it up this way: covering alcoholics. I’m really not as is it a lonely hearts club or a place to by we, as individuals, can live com- “Each group has but one primary , important as my ego likes me to be- find a temporary or permanent lover. fortably with ourselves without a purpose – to carry its message to the . lieve. But I do believe we have Alco- 3. AA is not an employment agency drink. AA shows us how to recover alcoholic who still suffers.” holics Anonymous because we are all or a manpower training program. It from a “seemingly hopeless state of The purpose of AA and its memimportant enough for God to provide does not promise that we’ll all find mind and body” called alcoholism. bers is to simply carry the message! a way out for. us. jobs, get rich, or even become finan- As a way of life, AA shows us how Simple, but not always easy. As I understand it, there is a key to cially solvent. Norman C.,Winnipeg, Man. being both important and unimpor- 4. AA is not a charitable organizatant at the same time. The key is bal- tion like the welfare system or the Salance, and it is often forged between vation Army. It doesn’t promise that the hammer and anvil. No one can we’ll be lent money or given cigasay that the AA program is an easy rettes. AA is not a bank or a credit one to follow. At times, people expe- union, and is not set up to provide rience pain.’Being forged by heat and funds for anyone. hammer is definitely not easy, but it is 5. AA is not a church program or a worth it. It’s not always easy to see at religious organization (although the time one is going through the many groups rent church spaces to growing process. hold their meetings). AA does not, AA does not guarantee that life will force religion down anyone’s throat. become a bed of roses, but it does It does encourage us to develop and guarantee that we’ll be able to live nourish individual spiritual ways comfortably today without a drink. of life that are comfortable for us What then is AA? What is the pur- here and now, but it doesn’t demand pose of AA? In looking at that, let us that we believe anything. Saving souls first take a look at what AA is not: and making converts is not the pur- 1. AA is not an institutions-clearing pose of AA.

– February 1991 I i –

Is AA Changing? well they cover what AA is and what the Traditions and find that “we” are AA is not, how we relate within the just a small part of a larger picture, Fellowship and how we relate to the that our personal recovery depends outside world. We can also refer to upon AA as a whole. The Traditions AA Comes of Age, which explains in lead us out of our self-centered “I” depth the history of our three legacies program into the whole of AA. We of Recovery, Unity, and Service. Do are shown that we must conform and we need to reinvent the wheel? why. They show us what is at stake. ‘ Can our Fellowship survive a We see this is not a selfish program, in major unity break? Would we be able the sense of selfishness and self-cento regroup and get our unity back or teredness. The “I” does have a part would we go the way of the Washing- in insuring that AA is still around for

w hy do we need a “forum for debate” in Alcoholics Anonymous? Has AA really become a debating society? There was once an- We forget that should we lose our unity, the millions of alcoholics who still ‘do not know’ might never get their chance.” From the 1840s to the tonians? I do not believe that any one member sets out to destroy AA. Most Tradition breaks occur because members want to improve AA, make it betthe generations to come. For that, I am responsible. , Tradition Five seems to be getting the most workout lately. This Tradiother group of alcoholics who had 1930s millions of alcoholics didn’t ter, more up to date, to keep it mov- tion states thai “each group has but much success at helping drunks re- have a chance because of the failed ing along in this changing world. But one primary purpose – to carry its cover. Many of you know about the unity of the Washingtonians it is our ignorance of what AA really message to the alcoholic who still suf- Washingtonians. Back in the 1840s The articles in the Grapevine under is that is tearing our unity apart. fers.” But what is our message tothey helped hundreds of thousands the heading “Is AA Changing?” sug- What are the main unity problems day? Many meetings have turned into achieve sobriety. They, too, had one gest to me that we have a serious unity that we are hearing throughout our an extension of aftercare programs. primary purpose – to help the alco- problem within our Fellowship – Fellowship today? Some are “How We discuss anything under the sun, holic who was still suffering. Their member debating against member, in do we introduce ourselves?” and from “getting in touch with our feelprogram worked. Then they decided print, in our “meeting in print.” “What do we talk about at meet- ings” to how abused we were as chilto introduce some secondary pur- Where has all this confusion come ings?” No one is trying to hurt AA by dren, from co-dependence to polyposes into their movement. The mem- from? Have our Traditions, our very introducing themselves as an “alco- addictions. What is the AA message bership couldn’t agree on what these name become obsolete? Our early holic and addict.” Many of these peo- that we have to offer the alcoholic? secondary purposes should be. Some members, through trial and error and ple are just doing what we tell them to Dr. Bob said it so well in his farethought this, some thought that. a lot of pain, laid down a set of spiri- do – get honest – and then we turn well message, when he emphasized Their fellowship started arguing with tual principles called the Twelve Tra- around and say don’t say this and “the simplicity of our program.” Dr. itself. Unity was gone and pretty soon ditions so the future generations of don’t say that! Just introduce your- Bob said, “Let’s not louse it up with s o was the Washingtonian movement. AAs would not have to go through self as this and don’t talk about that! Freudian complexes and things that If we don’t learn from history are the same difficult process of finding In the beginning of sobriety the are interesting to the scientific mind, we doomed to repeat it? Some say out what was best for the Fellowship. emphasis is on “I.” I have to say thus but have very little to do with our yes. In our book, As Bill Sees If, Bill Let’s look at our name. It isn’t and so because I have to remind my- actual AA work.” We share our resaid, “Though many of us had to that complicated. Alcoholics Anony- self of who and what I am. I can say covery, through the working of the struggle for sobriety, never yet has this mous. It states what we are. Our what I want because I’m important Twelve Steps with the newly sober Fellowship had to struggle for lost Preamble is very clear on our and I have to help me. How do we get alcoholic. What happens to our sinunity. Consequently, we sometimes purpose, on what we do and what we beyond the “I” into the “we”? It gleness of purpose when we introduce take this one great gift for granted. do not do. And the Traditions – how happens when we start getting into ourselves with all our other addic-

tions tacked on? We open the door to gram. Without that moment of iden- canned heat. I do, however, have the being one and not the other. I have to talk about the other addictions. If tification, there is no recovery. experience of a double affliction, take care of both my afflictions to . ,one alcoholic walks through our Through learning about the Tradi- namely drug addiction. I know the ensure my sobriety. I find my answers doors only to leave because he or she tions, we go beyond our own wants feeling of hopelessness, the inability in meetings where people deal in honcannot identify with the members and needs and learn to fit into the to love or allow someone to love you, est, gut-level feelings, where the words sitting around talking about alladdic- whole of AA. A whole other spiritual the desire to evade responsibilities, that are spoken come from the heart, tions, then we have failed. We are no world begins to unfold. The reasons and the need to feel oblivion whether where it is not so important how longer AA and we need to close shop. for giving up one’s self become clear it be from a bottle of rye, bottle of much or what you drank or used. We keep hearing that a drug is a when we start the journey toward the pills, or smoking dope. The feelings When newcomers come into a meetdrug, that alcohol is mentioned only self-sacrifice and humility that is the and behavior of the dually addicted ing, chances are increasingly higher in the First Step, that we are really spiritual foundation of our entire re- are no different from those of the that they may be afflicted with alcotalking about feelings, that all addicts covery. Then we can start becoming pure alcoholic. holism and drug addiction. If they inhave the same feelings. Yet the very of maximum service to God and to I cannot help where my disease of troduce themselves as addicts, please beginning of recovery for each of us our fellow man and anything is pos- alcoholism has taken me. We have all allow them the time to come to know is one drunk talking to another. This sible even unity! -I walked our own walks. I am not so what they don’t know yet. And when is the whole foundation of our pro- Jude i? , Waxahachie, Tex. perfect that I can carefully edit my people introduce themselves as alcostory to suit everyone’s needs. The holic addicts, please allow them the program teaches me that I have to be self-honesty that they have finally rigorously honest and to put my life found. You will save their lives by in God’s hands. In the moment of si- allowing them to be who they are. ‘A Desire lence before each meeting, I ask God to give me the words to speak so that I may better help the people in the The most important fact is that we made it here alive, and that we each .

to Stop Drinking’ meeting. When I attended my first AA meeting in 1980, I introduced myself as an have a right to be here if we have a desire to stop drinking. The Big Book carries the answers to all of our problems. I would not be I J addict. I was not asked to leave or clean, sober, or alive today had I not I7hit my bottom alone in my living about a daily reprieve, and introduced told I couldn’t talk about drugs; in- received some of the experience, .!-!. room; It was a dark loneiy place me to AA. On that three months the stead I was greeted with open arms. strength, and hope from pages 439 where there was nowhere to go and foundation of my continued sobriety They told me to come to ninety meet- and 452. We would have all been desuicide seemed an inviting alternative was constructed. With that came the ings, and if after that I felt I didn’t prived of the vast knowledge that to a life without hope. I honestly did belief that by sharing my experience, belong, that was okay. They shared came from a doctor, alcoholic, or not know what my problem was, so strength, and hope I can help others their stories, and their feelings, hurts, addict if we had incorporated the for a year I sought answers in the on their road to recovery. angers, resentments, and frustrations notion that we should not talk about wrong places. In that year my disease Our shared experiences become the were mine. I felt that, for the first drugs or not allow someone who sufrendered me totally bankrupt physi- most valued tool in our sobriety. 1 time in my life, I belonged. fers from a double affliction to attend cally, mentally, and emotionally. truly believe this and it has been with I am an alcoholic and an addict. I our AA meetings. God intervened and a counselor great emotion that I read the letters in , cannot allow myself the luxury of Donna I?. Brooks, A Ila. landed on my doorstep and suggested the Grapevine of late. 1 didn’t have that I enter a treatment center. There the experiences of jail, or losing my they taught me about my disease, family, or being on skid row drinking

February 1991

Staying on track From Canaan, N.Y.: I believe that the practice of “group book Twenty-Four Hours a Day for conscience” as defined in the Fourth discussion topics, others use As Bill Tradition is sufficient to keep the AA Sees It. Some read all of “How It train on its track. With the growth of Works,” the Twelve Traditions, or what I would call specialized groups the promises. Some use a “chip sys- – men only, women only, youth, .tem,” others nothing. gays, etc. -it seems only natural that I guess what I’m saying is, if it’s each group will develop its own ritu- not broke, don’t fix it! als and the writers of the Fourth Tra- As far as the newcomer is condition must somehow have sensed cerned, he or she is probably going to this and so provided for,it. be confused, awed, or befuddled by Back in the early AA meetings in whatever ritual we follow. So let’s Akron, I’m sure they must have had just be the happy group of drunks we their own set of rituals, which were really are, staying sober one day at a hard to escape because of the scarcity time, and hope we ignite a spark in of meetings. But today, in most loca- the newcomer to be like us. G . F. tions there are a sufficient number of meetings so you can opt for whichever rituals you like best. I travel frequently and attend a number of different meetings. Some of these open with the Serenity Prayer, some close with it. Some say amen after it, others don’t. Some close with the Lord’s Prayer. Some say, “We have a nice way of closing ifyou wish to join us” or “We’ll close now with the Lord’s Prayer out loud, or you may wish to use your own thoughts silently.” Some use the Hazelden

April 1 9 9 1

was a school where expressing your trying to get my act together. Deep

f The Beautvof\ opinions in public was very important. On campus, where I hung out as a thirteen-year-old, I heard lots of angry rhetoric about Vietnam, civil rights, and a lot else. My parents down inside I knew I was sick and crazy from booze. But at the time, dealing with it was too frightening. It was easier to engage my parents in a petty debate over some global issue brought the same kind of political beyond our control than to draw anger home with them, and challenged attention to the real reason I was me to come up with informed posi- out of work. tions on the same issues. I was only Today, I’m sober and grateful for ‘ it allows us to concentrate on what we have in common an eighth grader, but I was expected what it was like, what happened, and to engage in adult-style discussions. what it’s like now. I’m even grateful If I didn’t have an opinion on the to my pkents, who put up with me as

s‘z I*m detyin AA is the first thing in life that has really worked. to ‘fellow AAs who’ve AA groups never get involved in the messy business of debating outside issues. The wonderful “extra” imissue at hand, I was considered a failure or a nonthinker. Looking back, it was probably an active alcoholic while also living with their own illnesses. But I’m especially grateful to the alcoholics who’ shown p e how not to drink on a daily plied by this Tradition is that I, as an great training for a future alcoholic. I founded this Fcllowship and gave us basis, apd to alcoholics I’ve never met individual recovering alcoholic, am got very good at hiding the things I the guidelines by which we run our who e&iblished our Steps, Tradi- free to simply enjoy sobriety in AA, was truly ashamed of (especially the groups. Tradition Ten frees AAs to tions, ~ n d Concepts for World Ser- without having to defend my position amount I drank), using a smoke screen concentrate on what we have in com-, ,ice. d h e n I live these principles to on any outside issue. of vaguely directed political opinion. mon – recovery, unity, service the bes{ of my ability, they keep me You see, I grew up in the sixties. I As my disease progressed, 1 was rather than waste time debating outsober and in touch with the God of lived with my parents (one alcoholic, often broke, unemployed, hungover, side issues. Angry debate of things i my understanding. one social drinker) who were closely and in need of a place to stay. Usual- over which we have no power can I,m ppecially grateful for Tradi- associated with a small, left-wing, ly, my parents would take me in, and only serve to split us. tion Ten, where it is suggested that private college in the Northeast. It for months at a time I’d live at home, Matt E , Brooklyn, N.X

June 1991

to use the hotel. 1 just plain can’t pant alcoholic egos were suddenly fully and painstakingly constructafford it.” unleashed upon one another? ed. They have no conception of the “Oh, didn’t you hear? He died. The protecting principles we have stresses and strains that were antic- He had a slip and then tried to go outlined, which prevent these forays ipated, and specifically guarded to a meeting the other night. They into oblivion, are the gist of AA’s against, by the Traditions. They are wouldn’t let him in because he had Twelve Traditions. If AA’s very exis- blind to the ease with which the whole liquor on his breath,.” tence depends upon the principles as fabric of AA could be torn to shreds.’ “That’s crazy,” you say. “Things contained in the Traditions, why do Why shouldn’t they be? They don’t like that can’t happen in AA!” so many regard the Traditions as ir- realize that AA is an impossibility. At the moment that is true. But relevant? Never in the history of mankind these disasters are inhibited solely by a An oft-heard comment is, “It’s the has an organization existed, grown, simple set of principles which keep AA Steps and slogans that keep us sober. prospered, and stayed on course withfrom flying apart. They are really all Who needs Traditions?” Just let out anyone having any authority over that stand between us and chaos, that word leak out that a closed meeting anyone else. guarantee the survival of our earthly will discuss Traditions and the leader So how can AA perform this mir- Who’s source of strength. Here they are:

ern. Our leaders serve, they do not govmay find himself delivering a solilo- acle? Simply because each of us: quy in an echo chamber. believes in higher power; has the There may be several reasons for same purpose – to stay sober and Hotelbag We are self-supporting, accepting no contributions from sources outthis general lack of interest. First, the word itself, “Traditions.” help others; strives toward the same ‘ code of behavior – the slogans and

the Hooks? side AA. We don’t take pay for AA work. We welcome anyone who is wor- Oxford devotes two full columns to the Steps; knows that by strengthenthe word. The net of their definition, ing others we strengthen ourselves; is in our context, is “Some nice cus- driven to practice the program by the ow can I stay sober with that ried about his or her drinking. tom which is handed down from one most urgent possible motivation new local AA President Our Fellowship has no opinion on generation to another.” Unless we life or death. throwing his weight around?” outside issues and doesn’t get involved have really thought about the Tradi- Such dynamic unity is created, pro- “1 quit my regular AA group be- in any other enterprise. tions, that’s probably just where they moted, and protected solely by the cause of the position they’ve taken on We stick to one goal – to stay so- rate with most of us, “Something Traditions. So what supports the Trathat school disciplinary issue.” ber and help other alcoholics. nice handed down. Nice, but not ditions and enables them to function? “They say Joe M. is the best speak- We stay anonymous in public media necessary.” The answer is hooks, “Skyhooks.” er in all of AA, but 1 can’t afford the so we don’t feed our egos, on one Second, because I have been around It’s a well-known fact that skyhooks $50 to go hear him.” hand, and scare away newcomers on a while, I had forgotten how zeal- can’t support anything unless held at “I don’t know which AA to belong the other. ous we were about Traditions when the upper end. to – the one that seeks publicity and And we don’t go out and recruit we were a smaller, more isolated That’s where God comes in. He’s really goes after membership, or the members. Instead we try to set an ex- band. We sensed that without them holding the upper end of the skyone that’s for reviving Prohibition.” ample which will make them want to’ we would destroy ourselves. But now hooks that enable the Traditions to “I get so embarrassed at AA meet- come to us. that AA is so large and so accept- work and make the impossible posings. The hotel has fixed up a lovely Without these inspired, crowd- ed, I have come to assume that it is sible in our Fellowship of AA. setting for us – coffee, cakes and control fences, what would become indestructible. Traditions? Who needs them? everything free. But then their greeter of AA? Can you imagine what would And third, the newer people have Only the people who need AA. comes in at coffee time and urges us happen if a million and a half ram- moved into a Fellowship already pain- B. E l?, VeroBeach, Flu.

June 1991

I always try to put myself in the “The Need for Identification” in the Alcoholics only newcomer’s place reading his or her May 1990 Grapevine, written by a From Loveland, Ohio: very first Grapevine or attending his member of Narcotics Anonymous, I have been a subscriber to the or her very first AA meeting. I feel emphasizes the same mint. ‘ Grapevine for most of my twenty- that I, too, have been at fault in the I say let’s stop being a forum for four sober years. Having gotten sober meeting scenario in the past few years every opinion that comes along and’ at age twenty-six, I am not exactly an in not speaking up sooner and in again become a magazine that prowavering (for a time) in my own be- motes’ tried and true AA philosophy. old fogey (yet) and am trying hard I vote for publishing more positive not to become a bleeding deacon. (It liefs as to whom we should welcome to our closed meetings and whom we articles, written by alcoholics (please), ain’t easy.) so that the new person coming through I am troubled more and more by should direct somewhere else. Lord knows, our groups are having quite that door, picking up his first Grapethe many different points of view vine, will know he is in the right place being expressed in the Grapevine arti- enough trouble these days just trying to carry the AA message to the alco- for his drinking problem. Let us keep cles which you choose to print. It reading articles that have something seems to me that the articles used to holic who still suffers, let alone dealing with all kinds of people withprob- positive to say and leave the debating present a more unified philosophy, to others. S. H. even if from various points of view. 1 lems other than alcohol, without the find it very disturbing to read con- added burden of having our “meetflicting opinions, one right aRer :he ing in print” reflect so many various other, especially in the “PO Box viewpoints by some of these very 1980” section and more recently, “Is same people. AA Changing?” and the can of worms I am in total agreement with Jude entitled “Your Move.” T.’s article in the February, 1991 Grapevine entitled, “Are We a Debating Society?” Even the article

– – AA GRAPEVINE, JULY 1991

primary purpose – to carry its mes- own case I abused other drugs often, sage to the alcoholic who still suf- once nearly fatally. I did not come to fers.” Is an addict, however sincere, AA because of my drug experience. going to be able to carry this message As stated before, the stories of alcoto alcoholics? Are alcoholic newcom- holics got me interested in AA. I

Alcoholics @ -ers, still fighting denial, going to feel don’t have any common ground with that they have the same problem as a the stories of addicts. I share many person whose story is about shooting character defects of addicts, but this

and Addicts heroin or snorting cocaine? makes us first cousins, not brothers Are we to have drug addicts tell and sisters. Alcoholism is a life and death mat- i

Eb their stories at open AA meetings? how closely related are we? Isn’t it possible that the prospective ter. Should we make addicts AA AA member will feel out of place at members when they make an alcoan AA meeting filled with addicts? holic newcomer feel out of place? If Perhaps the newcomer leaves and this causes the newcomer to leave, never comes back. Does an addict never to return, has the alcoholic not have what it takes to sponsor an alco- been cast out in the interest of helping holic? My sponsor from day one had addicts? I t is not as though the addict y dreary story of alcoholic tragic/comic stories was now enjoy- the story of a two-fisted drinker and has no other place to turn. Where drinking covers about thirty- able. That was me, I was like that, the despair that comes with it. He does the rejected alcoholic go? five years. I rapidly progressed to these were my people. I wasn’t so was an example of my kind of drinker. Just hoping the problem will go daily drinking. Then came divorce, “different” after all. In my opinion only those who have away doesn’t seem to be working. getting fired, treatment for alcohol- This beginning led me to the prac- played the game can give playing tips. One group in my area has ceased to ism, going to AA, and more drink- tice of the AA program and a sober There is much talk about “every- exist after a dispute over this matter. ing. I spent nineteen dismal years and contented life since then. So, body” today being “dually addict- A few Alcoholics Anonymous memon that treadmill, always denying what’s my problem? Recent debates ed.” I still find plenty of alcoholics bers lost their home group! Has this my alcoholism, convinced I was taking place in the AA groups to who do not see themselves as “dually helped anyone? “different .” which I belong. The debates? About addicted” even though young. In my Jack E , Aurora, Ill. I hope my final treatment program allowing drug-dependent addicts to was in 1978. While there, I was put in become AA members. Because alcotouch with AA members who had hol is a drug, alcoholics are addicts, overcome hardships greater than so goes the reasoning. Drug addicts mine, and who now plainly enjoyed are in need of help, and AA could life. They possessed a self-assurance I possibly be of help to them, but let’s had always lacked and longed for. look at the consequences before we When these AAs visited treatment, get carried away. The law of uninthey talked about hiding bottles; tended consequences could be a source humongous hangovers, hugging the of harm to AA by these well-intentoilet bowl while throwing up, and tioned addicts and AA members. other consequences of their drinking. First consider the meaning of Tra- At open AA meetings hearing these dition Five: “Each group has but one

August 1991 j <* i

– Is AA Changing? It has been my privilege to be asked Big Book. to lead at many meetings over the I now feelcomfortable, whenasked years, add I have always avoided to tell my story, telling allof it. I guess mentioning drug use. The result has it goes back to what my first sponsor, been that 1 always felt a little dishon- Ronnie B., said to me over seven est. I now wonder if, perhaps, some years ago: “If you always tell the of the old-timers and winners that truth, you can’t go too far wrong.” I have known have never read the Paul G.. Akron. Ohio

. w hen I came into the Fellowship a little over seven years ago, I from cover to cover. I was fascinated to discover Dr. Restraint of was told to stick with the winners and listen to the old-timers. I was not sure who the “winners” were, and assumed that anyone sober longer than Bob discussing sedatives on pages 176 and 177; the “gentleman” using barbiturates on page 217; the “lady” using sedatives on page 304; the “teen- Tongue and Pen myself qualified as an old-timer. ager” with pills and marijuana on Having been battered by alcohol and page 354; the “alcoholic and drug ad- have been a little distressed lately These are topics that relate directly to drugs for over sixteen years, my think- dict” on page 418; the “doctor, al- by some of the sharing at discus- religious, political, racial, and sexual ing was confused at best. coholic, and addict” who mentions sion meetings I have attended. On opinions. ‘ Almost immediately I was con- Benzedrine, tranquilizers, Demerol, several occasions, I have listened as He went on to explain that the fronted with the controversy about codeine, Percodan, Pentothal, and AA members shared their anger or avoidance of these topics is based on whether or not to discuss drug use at sleeping pills on pages 442 through frustration regarding religious, racial, the following Traditions: an AA meeting. Several groups in my 443; the “prisoner” who used “other sexual, and political issues, that they Tradition One: Our common welarea had incorporated a warning into drugs” on page457; and the “belle of apparently felt had contributed to fare should come first; personal rethe group format, cautioning new- the bar” who discusses her heroin use their suffering. From the back of the covery depends upon AA unity. comers to “confine their remarks to on page 480. room, I watched as people began to Tradition Three: The only requireproblems with alcohol.” Out of re- Having strived for years to stay out :wist in their chairs and felt the ten- ment for AA membership is a desire spect for old-timers and a need to feel . to stop drinking. of this controversy, I now find myself sion rise in the room. accepted, I decided not to mention wondering why there is any contro- Through the grace of my Higher Tradition Ten: AA has no opinion my drug use, and have maintained versy to begin with. Please don’t mis- Poyer and the program of Alcoholics on outside issues; hence the AA name that position until this year, when a understand – alcoholism is my prob- Anonymous, I am sober today and ought never be drawn into public most remarkable event occurred which lem, and the desire to stop drinking have been for over eight years. One cmtroversy. changed my perspective. I!m a little is what brought me to AA. It’s just night, in early sobriety, while riding There is only one problem that we embarrassed to say that it took me that now it appears to me that (at to a meeting with some of my new all have in common – that is our until this year to read the entire Big least according to the third edition of friends, an old-timer shared with us problem with alcohol. It is this prob- Book. Oh, I read this page and that the Big Book of Alcoholics Anony- his belief that there are certain areas lem that gave us our unity in the first page, this chapter and that chapter, mous) it is not against the rules to of discussion we should carefully place. Once we begin to move beyond. but I had never read the entire book mention drugs. avoid getting into at AA meetings. our alcoholism, we are talking about

the things that make us different – bashing in your religion.” I was angry things that can serve to separate us, and he was right. After five years of divide us, even rip us apart. sobriety, I had forgotten what that AA members come from vastly old-timer had taught me. I was still different backgrounds and experi- blaming my problems to some degree ences which directly affect our views on the religion that I had been raised of the world. Many people come into in. More importantly, by being spethe AA Fellowship with very strong cific about the denomination, I was feelings regarding these areas of life. being insensitive to the other mem- Sometimes there are deep-rooted bers in the room. It is more than likefeelings of anger, resentment, and ly that some of those in attendance even outright hatred. These are po- were adherents of that religion and have a deep, abiding faith that if I groups in the world. That sounds tential powder kegs that could go off the effect of my comments was to take care of the AA program, the pretty unchangeable to me. So, we at any time. belittle their religious beliefs. program will take care of me – and must accept the Traditions as some- The plain and simple fact is that we The portion in the Big Book on you – and those who have yet to thing we cannot change. are never going to be able to solve “HOW It Works” says: “Our stories come. And for that to happen, AA Next, let us ask for courage to these kinds of larger problems from disclose in a general way, what we must survive and grow. Some changes change the things we can. the inside of an AA meeting. The used to be like, what happened and will have to be made to adjust to a In 1965, Bill asked, “What sort of only problem we have a real chance what we are like now.” When with changing world and to deal with the heritage are we leaving for the use of of solving is our common problem friends, inside or outside of the pro- problems that arise. all those future generations that will .with alcohol, and we can only solve gram, 1 am free to divulge my per- But AA can survive and grow only people our Society? Is this heritage as that one day at a time. sonal opinions on any issue; but when if our living and changing is done good as we can make it? What can we The world’s worst bigot, regardless sharing in the rooms, I have learned within the limits allowed by our Steps still do that may multiply our assets of how one defines that term, has the to keep my opinions to myself. In- and Traditions. To do this I think and decrease our liabilities?” These same requirement for AA member- stead, I have been taught to share my we can use our Serenity Prayer as questions are still valid today. ship as the rest of us: a desire to stop experience, strength, and hope – in a our guide. I do not like the phrase, “If it ain’t drinking. Within the program of Al- general way. First let’s ask for serenity to accept broke, don’t fix it.” Just because we coholics Anonymous, we are all sup- In turn, I have benefited from the the things we cannot change. These always do something a certain way posed to be equals. What if members experience, strength, and hope of are the Traditions. My first sponsor doesn’t mean it is the best way. Bill’s feel they have the right to espouse alcoholics of every persuasion. Part told me the Steps were to save me philosophy was that “the good is their viewpoints on these matters? of being open-minded for me today is ,from my disease and the Traditions often the enemy of the best.” If we Are we prepared to open a door that subjugating my own points of view in , were to save AA from me. These Tra- are able to accept just not being broke we might later find impossible to order that I may continue to learn ditions were not plucked from the air as our goal, we will cease to make any shut? In a very short time, we could and grow in sobriety. but were forged on the anvil of expe- progress at all. be at each other’s throats and the That old-timer concluded his re- rience. Many groups (and therefore Our greatest danger is that we may unity that we so desperately need marks by saying: “Unity, unity, unity. many individual lives) had to be lost become too rigid, too formalized, would be gone. Look at the first three letters of that while the Traditions were being devel- that we cease to pulse and grow, that This is something that I myself have word. It tells us that You and Ican do oped. Thank God the Traditions are we become a monument – beautiful, been guilty of. One night after shar- together what we cannot do alone. now written in stone, so to speak. To maybe, but cold and dead. So we ing at a meeting, I was approached by We need each other.” change them requires the written ap- should not fear to go forward slowly, a friend who said: “I see you’re still Pat M., A lbany, N. X proval of three quarters of the AA we should fear only to stand still.

For example, I have attended meet- the very thing our co-founders wished sal penalty for the failure to go on perceptions and our ability to work ings where the opening and closing to avoid. Dr. Bob emphasized that he growing. Just as each AA must con- out possible solutions. ‘are more ritualistic than sharing or did not want a monument. Bill passed tinue to take his moral inventory and So, for a conclusion, I am going to informative. The Preamble is recited up many honors. act upon it, so must our whole Soci- reach into the past and share some of in unison sounding much like a bunch We must read and reread, study and ety do if we are to survive and if we Bill’s wisdom. He said, “We have to of second graders reciting the multi- restudy our history. The books AA are to serve usefully and well.” grow or else deteriorate. For us, the plication tables, “How It Works” is Comes of Age, Dr. Bob and the Good To accomplish this task, we must ‘status quo’ can only be for today, read in a monotone while most of Oldtimers, and Pass It On contain the have honesty, openmindedness, and never for tomorrow. Change we those present are either conferring in wisdom we need. I think we should willingness. We also need time – must; we cannot stand still.” low tones or looking vacantly around maintain contact with the very fal- time to understand the problems fac- He asked, “Just how, then, can ‘ the room giving no heed to the life- lible persons our co-founders were. ing us and time to implement the very AA go on changing for the better? saving words being spoken. If these Bill also said, “Should any be tempt- best solutions. Does this mean we are to tinker with things are done only as a habit, they ed by the dream that AA is becoming Someone once said that the only our basic principles? Should we try to would just as well be dispensed with great, powerful, or may be destined thing constant in the universe is amend our Twelve Steps and Twelve to leave time for more honest shar- to save the world, they could well change. Nothing, not even AA, can Traditions? Here the answer would ing. I believe these should be read – reread the foreword of AA’s Tradi- stay static. We must change. We must seem to be ‘no.’ Those twenty-four read with enthusiasm and feeling, tion where these words are to be seen take the time required to be sure the principles have first liberated us, have with thought given to just what the ‘. . .If, as a movement, we remain a changes are the right ones, the best then held us in unity, and have enwords mean. They should be listened spiritual entity concerned only with I ones, not just good enough, not just, abled us to function and to grow a$ to with undivided attention, because carrying our message to fellow suffer- “It ain’t broke.” AA members and as a whole. . . what is heard might just be the thing ers. . . then only can we most effec- Time! Remember when your spon- “So then, if our basics are so firmrequired for another day’s sobriety. tively complete our mission. . .’ sor said “it takes time”? Didn’t ly fixed as all this, what is there left to Bill said, “lndividually and collec- “For just so long as we shall hum- you just hate it? But experience has change or improve? The answer will tively, structurally and spiritually, we bly meditate in this spirit upon our taught me: immediately occur to us. While we shall ever need to build for the future. great yesterdays, just so long will God 1. The feeling that AA cannot grow need not alter our truths, we can sure- We are still laying down the founda- grant us our vision of tomorrow.” to meet any future problem is formed ly improve their application to ourtion on which all coming generations In AA Comes of Age, Bill wrote, in fear, not faith. The Big Book tells selves, to AA as a whole, and to our of AAs will have to stand, perhaps “In the years ahead, we shall, of us that God will provide if we stay relation with the world around us. We for centuries.” course, make mistakes. Experience close to him and do his work well. can constantly step up ‘the practice of So, finally, we need to ask for wis- ‘has taught us that we need have no 2. As a Fellowship, we have no real these principles in all our affairs.'” dom to know the difference. In other fear of doing this, providing that we problems as long as we abide by our What I will be tomorrow, 1 am words, are there any pitfalls in change? always remain willing to confess our ,’ Traditions. becoming today. What Alcoholics Of course there are. faults and to correct them promptly. 3. Today’s problems in AA won’t Anonymous will be tomorrow, it is One thing that concerns me is that I Our growth as individuals has de- be tomorrow’s problems. becoming today. Let us, you and I, see shrines springing up in Akron, in pended upon this healthy process of 4:The passage of time and the ac- make sure it is becoming the very best Vermont, and at Bill’s home, Stepping trial and error. So will our growth as a ceptance of changes in the world be- it can be. Stones in Bedford Hills. Yes, these Fellowship. Let us always remember yond our control will help to alter our Bob E , Waterbury,Conn. should be preserved for their historic that any society of men and women value, but I fear they are becoming that cannot freely correct its own holy places where people visit to wor- faults must surely fall into decay if ship Saint Bill and Saint Bob. This is not into collapse. Such is the univer-

September 1991

world, I asked Reed how he thought our feedback. Our meetings were al- I might be accepted in meetings on ways lively because everyone was exthe outside. pected to participate. My ideas had as “Why don’t you just come and much merit as anyone’s, and though see,” he said. “In fact, if you come to you didn’t always get your way, you our meeting on your first night out, did always have a voice. one of us who has been coming here As I stayed sober and stayed out of will be there to meet you.” prison, I became friends with Reed. The next week, the authorities re- I eventually became a GSR for my leased me, not to the penitentiary in group and got to watch Reed and Texas, but to the state parole board, other AA leaders as they demonstratand after a busy day of signing papers, ed how to be trusted servants. One of finding a job and a place to live, I the most valuable qualities they taught went to the meeting place that Reed me was how to listen. Even though had spoken about. I was scared and many of them had been involved in alone as I climbed the stairs. Since no service for a long, long time, and had one knew about my release, I hadn’t probably heard most everything bebeen able to set up a contact with any- fore, they were clear that even though one. But as I stepped into the room at one group might have solved theprobthe top of the stairs, the first person I lem in the past, each new group had saw was Reed. to arrive at its own solutions in its I was so nervous, I said, “I don’t own time. Though these AA leaders suppose you remember me?” all had different styles, they operated He took my hand and with a big from common principles. They trustsmile said, “Of course I do, Don. ed the process and the people and Come on in.” passed this trust on to me. In thinking back, I now know that One fellow I remember particularly Reed was what I consider to be an was another man named Don. When AA leader. I had come to trust him he served as area chair, he would and to believe him. He was regular stand at the podium during our often and consistent. When it was time to heated discussions, gently guiding us be somewhere, he was there. You to keep our comments on the subject could count on him. at hand, yet always allowing for full Reed served on committees, was discussion. He insisted that we be area chair, area delegate, and a true responsible for the decisions that elder statesman. He often spent time were made, and with great patience around the coffee tables listening and he would coax the group conscience talking. He always shared his experi- out of us bit by bit. How often he ence and solicited ours. He had plenty would stand before us and say, of ideas for better ways to serve the “What is your pleasure?”, “How do Fellowship and he listened intently to you want to do this?” or “What do

you think?” and as a group we would Conference committees which de- most needed onc, putting the good of me that I should stand nonetheless so have to figure out where we were fined what an open meeting was and the Fellowship first. that there would be enough people going and then determine how best to what a closed meeting was. The Con- As I reflect on the abundance of from which the assembly could make get there. While Don’s great strength ference itself setmed to be split into good leaders I have known in my a fair choice, and that the only qualilay in helping to facilitate the group three factions over this statement: twenty-three years in AA, 1 can iden- fication I needed was a willingness to conscience, at the same time, if he felt those who wanted the statement to tify several qualities they all had, and listen and the time needed to do the strongly about something he would. be Conference-approved, those who my friend Reed embodied many of job. The job would teach me, he said, always speak up. wanted no statement at all, and those those qualities. He was a spiritual if I would just show up and listen. Some years after Don had rotated who wanted a statement that could be man. He believed in God and he be- Reed always said yes to AA. He . off the area committee and I was area used by such groups as needed it but lieved that given time God would was happy to do the big jobs, and yet chairperson, we had the unfortunate which would not be construed as “ex- reveal himself through our group con- he was equally happy doing the less experience of having a committee clusive” or be used to keep people out science. He was never rude, but he glamorous jobs. He was not always chairperson abscond with some of the of AA meetings. The debate went on was always willing to share his views right, and would be the first to tell area funds. After all the facts were in, for hours. The wording of the two and experiences if asked. Reed be- you so, but he was never afraid to it was my duty to go before the assem- statements was worked and re- lieved in people and always gave them take a chance if it looked like the Felbly to inform them and to ask, as worked, but no clear group consci- the opportunity to be the very best lowship might benefit. When he was Don had done so ably in the past, ence was emerging. Finally, noting they could be, while he loved them right, he gave away the credit; and “What is your pleasure? What do we that there was still a considerable without judgment – even when they when he was wrong, he admitted it do?” Don was first on his feet to the amount of material left on the agenda acted their very worst. I remember and cleaned it up with style. But most microphone, and he said in his quiet, and that the Conference as a whole one time just before an area election of all when 1 think of Reed, I rememloving way, “We should do nothing. was facing the possibility of running ‘when I went to Reed and told him 1 ber that he was always there. When- It’s our fault that this happened be- out of time altogether, discussion was felt I didn’t know enough about a par- ever I got to the top of the stairs, cause we did not have the proper ended and a vote was taken. The issue ticular job to feel truly qualified and there was Reed with his hand out sayreporting and checking systems in seemed to have come to a close, and that I thought I should not make my- ing, “Hi, Don. Come on in.” place. It looks like we eat this one,” yet there was still unrest among the self available for the election. He told Don R , Aurora, Colo. he said, “and take steps to see that it delegates as a whole. A turning point can never happen again.” had been reached. Even though a lot A true AA leader always puts the of time had been devoted to this issue best interests of the Fellowship ahead and it had, temporarily, been reof anything else, and one of the finest solved, one AA member who had examples I ever saw of this was at a voted on the side of ending the discus- General Service Conference a few sion reversed his vote and put the years ago. Under consideration were topic back on the floor. Somehow he some very emotionally charged issues knew that the Conference as a whole revolving around the participation of was not through talking, that a true, nonalcoholics a t closed meetings and informed conscience had not yet been how topics unrelated to alcoholism born. Even with emotions almost at were frequently being discussed at the fraying point, the discussion conmeetings. tinued until substantial unanimity The specific item on the table was a could be achieved. A true AA leader statement prepared by one of the had once again shown up when we ‘

September 1991

gctting a message: this was serious pect as tiny flames flickered from stuff (too serious to allow for the an- cigarette lighters randomly struck tics I was used to) and that somehow around the room. what was going on here, whatever it Still in darkness and silence, Marge was, was working for some people. resumed her story, while three home This fascination with procedure, along group members slowly felt their way with the fact that I was desperate to to the supply cabinet, found used , stop drinking, kept me coming back. candles from December’s holiday The power of our primary purpose Although it’s been quite a few days meeting, lit them and placed one on since those first few meetings, I am each table. One more was placed on still amazed at the aura around AA the lectern in front of Marge, illumihe first time I sneaked my fear- years before I came to AA. I was an meetings. I still marvel at the way a nating her face as she continued to ful, bewildered self into an AA expert at running meetings, solving group of very ego driven people quiets speak. The three members retook their meeting, I was struck by the serious- problems, and convincing others of down to a hush when the chairperson seats, and in the blackness, no one ness and singlemindednessof the meet- the superiority of my point of view. 1 announces the beginning of a meet- moved or made a sound. We all sat ing and its participants. The meeting had no understanding at the time that ing, at the attention when the Steps there, Marge’s voice somehow ampliwas a somber, pain-filled beginners this was a symptom of my “self-will are read, at the courtesy given to the fied by the silent darkness and the meeting. These were the first real al- run riot.” And as long as I was willing speaker. No matter what our immedi- earnest concentration of the group. coholics I had ever seen, and unsure to take care of all the details and fol- ateproblems, fears, or resentments, we When Marge came to the part about whether I belonged there, 1 listened for low through on the decisions, others come to a halt when the meeting begins her recovery, the lights went back weeks until 1 found that their pain and seemed to be quite impressed with my and focus on our primary purpose. on, but no one seemed to notice. No bewilderment was the same as mine. command of the organizational struc- Nothing illustrates this more than cheer, no acknowledgment at all that But mostly I remember my astonish- ture and personally 1 thrived in the what happened at my home group anything had changed, except that the ment as I compared these meetings to leadership roles that I later discovered , meeting last spring. A small, soft- posture of the group relaxed slightly the committee meetings I had become had become my way of covering up my spoken woman had begun to speak to in response to the resumption of the accustomed to in my outside life. growing insecurities and my increas- the eighty-odd alcoholics gathered sound system that made Marge’s I was used to free-wheeling discus- ing sense that I was losing control. that night. We could hear her better voice easier to hear. sions, often flying off the subject and But here, at AA meetings, was a because of the new amplifier the group After the meeting ended and the into the personal agendas of those phenomenon I had never experienced. had just bought. Five minutes into room filled with the raucous noise of present, the jockeying for position, The meetings began and ended on her talk, the lightning and thunder fellowship, I reflected on the simdemands for attention and the ego time. One topic was chosen, each per- raging outside were competing with her plicity of this wonderful program. driven clamoring for the upper hand. son took a turn, in order, and stayed whispery voice, and bodies were lean- For forty-five minutes, attention to I had been a “leader” in my commu- on the topic. No one interrupted, and ing forward to hear better as Marge everything around us – the thunder, nity, and had learned well how meet- to my astonishment some even passed told where alcohol had taken her. the sudden blackness, the difficulty ings worked. You determined how an so they could listen to others. Suddenly the lights dimmed twice of hearing Marge’s timid voice, the issue was to be resolved (according to I was glad that no one knew of my and then went out, leaving the church insecurity of not being able to move your own knowledge of what was prestigious abilities to run meetings basement pitch black. Marge stopped, about freely – was suspended as we best), convinced others of your point because then, at the end of my drink- and everyone waited for the lights all focused ‘on our primary purpose: of view beforehand, and generally in- ing, I was too beaten and lacked the and the microphone to go on again. one drunk talking to another about timidated the rest to go along. Meet- confidence to do more than offer my After a few minutes of hushed black- alcoholism and recovery. ings like this dominated my days for brief coniments and pass. But I was ness, the room took on a spooky as- Nadene S.,Pittsburgh, Pa. .

September 1991

The future is now From W. Hempstead. N.Y.: This letter is in response to “2035: an AA Odyssey.” Well allow me to introduce you to “1991: an AA Odyssey.” What our friend from Manassas, Va. wrote in the May 1991Grapevine is exactly what is going on right now. All you have to do is go to my home group and you’ll walk into a real amusement park: bumper stickers, coins, keychains, etc. I remember when 1 first became sober back in 1983, I wanted to get the entire world sober by making posters (I love to draw) and hanging them around me while I paraded in public. 1 thought if I did this a lot of people would wake up. Then 1 learned of AA’s Twelve Traditions and after reading them I knew I would be making a terrible mistake if I went through this. In a similar way, AA will indeed turn into “Wilsonland” if a lot of AA groups don’t start coming to their senses and stop doing it their way and start doing it AA’s way. A lot of AA groups 1 used to go to were always breaking Traditions, including the group I go to now. I try to carry the message of the Traditions to my group since we do have a Traditions meeting on Tuesday nights; however, I’m lucky if I get three people interested. After reading “2035,” 1 have realized once again just how important our Traditions really are. J. s.

October 1991

to begin sharing the full miracle of ple that they belong? Do we insist my life with AA and not just the peo- they avoid speaking of the brightest ple I sponsor or my new home group, details in their lives, while other AAs my opportunities to serve AA would talk casually about husbands and disappear. Would people continue to wives? Do we expect these desperate invite me to speak in their small-town newcomers to make the first leap into meetings of farmers and workers? Or open-mindedness, forcing them to be their respectable downtown groups? tolerant of others’ intolerance be- I, like the assembly speaker, found fore they’ve even begun to heal? Do love in sobriety and share a classic we really listen and try to identify ac- AA-Al-Anon partnership with my cross t he differences? sweetheart – but will we ever be It’s been estimated that one in allowed to share our experience, three gay people is alcoholic, and that obriety has saved my life, and in not so different from mine, I thought strength, and hope as a program cou- one person out of ten is gay. That’s a Alcoholics Anonymous I am again about the times well-meaning ple at a convention? staggering suggestion. Is AA now learning a great many things. More people in AA have encouraged me It scares me to think my story of willing – or will we ever be willing than ever I desire the spiritual life of not to talk about my intimate rela- recovery matters less to AA because to help all these people recover and to awakening and giving and receiving tionships at meetings, that being gay I’m not straight and not lying about it be helped by them? Is our message of that the Twelve Steps offer. In many was an “outside” issue. I thought to protect anyone. But what scares hope really for everyone? ways my story is exactly like that of about the time, in my first group, me more are the drunk, alienated, I am sober today and in service for any other person who has experi- when I was told I would never be able suffering lesbian and gay alcoholics my group because AA gave me life enced the miracle of life through the to sponsor people because I was a out there in the world, who don’t see and God and hope, and because I program. I love AA. lesbian. Others suggested being gay recovery for themselves in AA be- want the hand of AA always to be ex- But here at my area assembly meet- was symptomatic of my active alco- cause they don’t hear about sobriety tended for the next suffering drunk. ing as a newly elected GSR, a night- holism and that once I’d sobered up from lesbian and gay people behind In that way, I’m not different. I want marish concern has reappeared for and come into a right relationship the podium. They sense that they will AA for myself and for others. me. The speaker last night told her with God, “normal” life would be always be outsiders, even in AA. But does A A really want me? story, describing her growth in sobri- appealing and possible for me again. What do we do to reassure these peo- Karen L., Durham, N . C. ety through service. In her story she Sitting there last night listening to described how her first boyfriend had this AA speaker, 1 heard the full taught her to drink, and how she had weight of a message that has been married him, then finally divorced carried to me in one way or another him years later when she got sober. for five years, alongside of AA’s mes- When she told us how she fell in love sage of hope: that because I am gay, again in sobriety, really for the first my entire life is an outside issue; that .time, and now experiences the love how alcoholism and sobriety and our Higher Power makes for us, she God have happened to me, the way I beamed. I know how she felt. These am, has no’real place at a meeting or things have happened to me. in service. But I am a lesbian. And while I sat My nightmare has two parts. First and listened to this woman tell a story is the nagging suspicion that if I were

November 1991

Long may they wave! my life, and the Traditions work in From Lexington, Ky.: my life, just as the Steps do. Try put- And hooray! for B. F. P. of Vero ting “I” where there is “we” in the Beach, Fla. and his article “Who’s Twelve Traditions. Holding the Hooks?” in the June Why would they have wasted paper 1991 Grapevine. Long may B. F. P.’s and print to include the Traditions in and my sentiments wave! And, dear Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions if God of my understanding, may many they were not to be read. Try ’em, AA members, and those alcoholics you might like ’em! E. I. who just attend meetings, read the article and the heart of our Traditions expressed therein, which was put so simply, even I could understand it. As Dr. Bob said: “Let’s not louse it all up with Freudian complexes and things that are interesting to the scientific mind, but have little to do with I the actual AA work.” This message also applies to those life-saving Traditions. I believe that we work the Steps or we die, and we use the Traditions or AA dies. We have ,a Traditions meeting here that has been meaningful to me for the unity of the Fellowship that saved

November 1991

Cease the mindless debate From Manhattan, Kans.: The article “Alcoholics and Ad- holiccan fully understand an addict, dicts” in the July Grapevine stirred or vice versa. ‘ me up. I am dually addicted, and was I am grateful for a group that retold upon discharge from the hospital spects the Third Tradition. If a group that 1 should go to AA and NA meet- is debating this topic, wake up and ings. I didn’t find the support, experi- read the Traditions and cease the ence of recovery, and caring attitude mindless debate. Remember that our in NA that I did in AA, so I went to primary purpose is to carry the mesmy sponsor with my confusion. He sage to the still suffering alcoholic.E. s. explained the Third Tradition, and realizing I had to make a decision, I From Earp, Conn.: selected AA. A very special thanks to Jack F. It Having made that decision, you has to be said again and again at meetwill not hear me introduce myself as ings or wherever appropriate that an alcoholic-addict – this is out of alcoholics are powerless over alcohol, respect for my group and for AA Tra- and addicts are powerless over their ditions. I have been sober since April addictions. I sincerely hope that the 1982, and have found that when my addict realizes how much NA needs addiction is stronger than my alco- support to carry their message, meanholism, myAA program works, with- while leaving the business of one out offending anyone. drunk helping another to Alcoholics I am in complete agreement with Anonymous. H. A. the man from Illinois: addicts do not belong in AA closed meetings. There is a considerable difference between the two, and there is no way you can explain the difference so that an alco-

December 1991

expressing my faith in AA through was simply being stingy with 4,the . the two dollar bill has come back to program that had literally saved my’ ‘ me, usually as I was driving, meditat- life, with no questions asked, for no . ing, or falling asleep, and, sometimes, money down, no payments back, and when I was putting a single one dollar no interest. bill in the basket of some meetinn- in The banks do have supplies of thd’ Michigan, or San Francisco, or Spring- two dollar currency. Or they can get few years ago, while at an AA dale, Arkansas. It seems to me that them for the asking. I have a few in area assembly in Little Rock, I never thought of it when I was in my wallet now, and in my modest Arkansas, I heard one of our trusted a bank. Perhaps I really never want- way 1 will see that they crop up in servants talking about our need to ed to think of it at those times. But, baskets wherever 1 attend. practice the Seventh Tradition for our like a resentment untended, or an Readers with some degree of familown good, and for the good of AA amends unresolved, the idea contin- iarity around the track will rememas a whole. ued to nag me. ber that the two dollar bill is the old I remember thinking at the time’ Now I have faced it. I began by standby denomination of the sportthat we didn’t have to put in more asking myself why I continued to pro- ing crowd. I think we could come bills, just larger denominations. crastinate about putting into prac- to view the AA meeting as the Two Then, as usual, I donated a single tice this simple idea, and why had I Dollar Window on a sober life, and dollar, ignoring the fives and tens in never shared the notion before? Cer- our donation of a “deuce” as a suremy wallet that somehow were just too tainly I am earning much more thing bet. big to put in. But at that time I had money than I ever did, drunk or so- Perhaps in time, if others in our the thought that, if I had an old-fash- ber; it wasn’t rational to argue that I Fellowship take up the practice, the ioned two dollar bill, that would be couldn’t afford it. I now realize that I two dollar bill will come to be associjust right. It occurred to me that if have never fully resolved certain ated with sobriety, and as the money each one dollar bill could become a hang-ups I had about money that are circulates back through society pertwo dollar bill, the pot would dou- in sharp contrast to rigorous honesty. haps a bit of our power might rub off ble, and maybe our financial worries “If I can get AA for a buck, why on others. Just a lucky hunch, you would be over. pay two” was the nakedly honest know, but I’ll surely bet on it. However, like many of the ideas I answer that I finally gave myself. I Frank R., Sun Francisco, Calif.’ had in early recovery, this one required more action than I was willing to put out. I would have to go to the bank and get two dollar bills; I would have to remember to carry them, I would have to become willing to put them in the basket. I was so overwhelmed by this potential effort that I promptly dismissed the idea. It was gone, but not really forgotten. Over the years and miles since that meeting in Little Rock, the idea of

January 1992

him that he is dead wrong, and, if he Eventually, of course, we cooperate goes too far, Barleycorn brings him because we really wish to; we see that real conviction. without substantial unity there can be So it is we learn that in matters no AA, and that without AA there deeply affecting the group as a whole, can be little lasting recovery for any- “our common welfare comes first.” one. We gladly set aside personal am- Rebellion ceases and cooperation bitions whenever fhese might harm 1 begins because it must: we have disci- AA. We humbly confess that we are plined ourselves. but “a small part of a great whole.” By Bill W. (from the December 1947 Grapevine) Our whole AA compliance or noncompliance with program is secure- any principle of AA is a matter for ly founded on the the conscience of the individual; he is principle of humil- the judge of his own conduct. Those ity that is to say, words of old time, “judge not,” we observe most literally. perspective. Which implies, among other things, that we “But,” some will argue, “if AA relate ourselves rightly to God and to has no authority to, govern its indiour fellows; that we each see our- vidual members or groups, how shall selves as we really are – “a small part it ever be sure that the common welof a great whole.” Seeing our fellows fare does come first? How is it pos- All members of ing was threatened with breakup due (thus, we shall enjoy group harmony. sible to be governed without a gov- our group agree to an outside issue. We were a smok- That is why AA Tradition can confi- ernment? If everyone can do as he that our Friday ing meeting, dividing the room into dently state, “Our common welfare pleases, how can you have aught but night Rig ~ o o k smokers on one side, nonsmokers on comes first.” anarchy?” Study Meeting is the other. We had one fan, but in the “Does this mean,” some will ask, The answer seems to be that we our lifeline. An winter we had to close the doors. It “that in AA the individual doesn’t AAs cannot really do as we please, old-time Big Book thumping meet- finally became unbearable and the cdunt too much? Is he t o be swal- though there is no constituted human ing, it offers a clear and strong mes- nonsmokers had to take a stand: Go lowed up, dominated by the group?” authority to restrain us. Actually, our sage of recovery through the Steps of nonsmoking or we would start an- No, it doesn’t seem to work out common welfare is protected by pow- Alcoholics Anonymous. Newcomers other meeting. I felt particularly bad that way. Perhaps there is no society erful safeguards. The moment any and old-timers alike come once and because it was’my allergies that had on earth more solicitous of personal action seriously threatens the com- end up staying. We have nearly dou- begun the fight. welfare, more careful to grant the in- mon welfare, group opinion mobi- bled our size in the last year. The Tempers flared for two weeks. dividual the greatest1possible liberty lizes to remind us; our conscience foundation of our strength is our sin- Each faction barely spoke to the of belief and action. Alcoholics begins to complain. If one persists, he gleness of purpose. We rely on the Big other. Many phone calls were made. Anonymous has no “musts.” Few may become so disturbed as to get Book totally. We focus only on the There were angry conversations and ‘ AA groups impose penalties on any- drunk; alcohol gives him a beating. book, dealing with personal prob- much character assassination all the one for nonconformity. We do sug- Group opinion shows him that he is lems at the break. way around. But there were also &st, but we don’t discipline. Instead, off the beam, his own conscience tells But suddenly this powerful meet- many prayers said for the unity of

the meeting. the same time – we were all struck way this was my last meeting here. I night. At our customary coffee hour The night of our group conscience with the same idea. This is the best was crushed. I loved this meeting but after the meeting we stayed longer meeting came. We were sitting around meeting in the world. The love that my illness dictated my actions. The than usual, needing to bask in the the tables glaring at one another. The we all have for one another came chair called for the vote – very few warmth we felt that night. The feeling chairperson – newly elected – was flooding out. We finished the inven- hands went up. But then a few more continues and all differences seem to terrified. She didn’t think she could tory with a feeling of euphoria. went up and then almost all hands have been healed. We have moved keep the group in order. She opened But we still had to discuss the smok- were raised. It was 19-3 in favor of on, despite having had several people with a passage from AA Comes of ing issue. The discussion began and nonsmoking (the nonsmokers were slip. But those of us who stay know Age, the one about personal sacri- the smokers still didn’t want to give outnumbered in attendance that the strength we gained from that confice (see below). She also had the up their “pleasure.” But some of night 18-8). We were bonded by the troversy. And others know only that presence of mind to begin the discus- the most vehemently opposed had Higher Power. We were not angry at we are a strong meeting. sion not with the smoking issue, but changed their minds. Oddly enough it each other anymore. The seemingly We learned a great lesson that night. with the group inventory from the was because of the paragraph from unbridgeable rent had been repaired. Personal recovery really does depend “Group Handbook.” AA Comes of Age, which some of the The unity of our group was more on AA unity -and the AA Traditions As we read through the questions, smokers had proposed reading to the important to us than our personal are a vital tool in helping us keep our the responses were at first slow in nonsmokers to show how they should plcasures. meetings in good health. coming and the respondents’ voices be willing to make some sacrifices to Even the nonhuggers hugged that B. v. M., Portsmouth, R.I. tense and hard. Yes, we were doing keep the meeting together. By this ‘ much to carry the message. Yes, we time, too, some of the smokers were willing to try to continue with the – –

had a good cross section. We could do a little more in the way of public infor- smoke while thinking of ways to allemation, but we were very good, bet- viate the prdlem. , ter than most groups in our area, at Then a relative newcomer stood up B making the newcomer feel welcome. Suddenly the tension was split open. We begdn to laugh and joke (it was someone we had “picked up” at a treatment center, who claims we saved his life) and said simply, “I’m frightened. If this meeting is threat- 4 a ity!’ with one another as was our former I custom. In an instant – seemingly at ened with a breakup because of my I At a recent AA my home group informed me that a Pall Malls” – he threw them down forum, I heard similar practice has started in my on the table dramatically – “then some distressing area. Some AAs are starting meetings I say they’re not worth it.” He had I news. A member in their homes and “tapping” certain spoken for all of us. We were all reported that AAs to attend. The young man from frightened. , somc old-timers in my group said that he knew he didn’t Someone offered us a smoke-eater, his area are going “underground” come from the right socioeconomic but I said that unless there was no , because they don’t like the changes in group to get “tapped.” smoke in the room, I would not be AA and are frustrated by the prob- Both of these instances caused me able to come back, because of in- lems. These underground meetings to reflect on our First Tradition, and creasing illness due to smoke. Some- are open only to some AAs and al- to remember how I got introduced to one else had problems breathing, too. 1 legedly have attendance requirements, its principles. The time came for the vote. Tears such as having to be five years sober. Early in my AA life, my sponsor came to my eyes. If the vote went one Just last night, a young man from insisted that I choose and commit my-

self to a “home group.” “You need (like taking it upon myself to change At times, I have fallen short of the from the United States, where it aII t o be part of a group,” she said, “in the group’s format), they loved the ideals implicit inTradition One. Some- started. There was an American womorder to grow in sobriety and learn group enough and me enough to times it’s simply because I don’t stop an there who had gotten sober in this the principles of Alcoholics Anony- straighten me out on the spot and in and think long enough to realize the small town and a man who was in his mous.” So that’s how One Parkway no uncertain terms. ramifications of my actions. Last first few months of sobriety. They became my original home group. “Unity” was as difficult a concept summer my husband (also an AA) didn’t know the woman with us wasn’t It was there I learned that “our for me to understand as was “com- and I took a cruise that docked in a an alcoholic and called on h a to . common welfare” referred not only mon welfare.” I thought it meant small town in Mexico. A nice lady share. She shared at length on a probwhom we had met on board ship at a lem that had nothing to do with alcoto my group, but to AA as a whole. 1 that we should never disagree or argue was told that it was important for me about anything. Once at my group’s holism. During her sharing, a local to learn all I could about AA and how business meeting, in the midst of one it functioned. I was directed to a wide of our usual heated debates, I angrily . . . Great love and drunk came and stood in the doorway, apparently approaching AA for range of AA literature and encour- voiced this expectation. “You call yeat suffm’y the first time. With horror, I realized . aged t o participate in a variety of AA this unity!” I shouted across the table that without thinking I had put my activities. at one of our old-timers. He smiled at are our discipli- needs and desires first. What seems like an insignificant action could in Every month before our business me, looking rather amused, and said, meeting, we held a Traditions meet- “This is enthusiasm. We’re arguing narians, we m d reality mean signing the death certifiing. Regardless of which Tradition we about how we can better carry the cate of the alcoholic who still suffers. happened to discuss, almost without message.” And so I was also taught no others. The experience in Mexico remindfail someone would bring up Tradi- that inherent in Tradition One is the ed me that like the Steps, the ‘lfadition One at the business meeting. idea that we e ~ s hneed to be willing to “Friends of Bill W.” meeting (attend- tions require vigilance and work on In fact there was one old-timer who do our part for our common good ed by alcoholics and nonalcoholics as my part if I am to grow in my ability would always say, with much vigor, and that we can only do that through well) told us about an AA meeting in to practice these principles. I the town. I knew the lady was not an I believe that the need as well as the “If you can’t get Tradition One, then participation. you can’t get any of them.” There The real demonstration of unity, I alcoholic and that she had attended desire to maintain our unity in AA was an amen corner that would chime came to understand, was evidenced the “Friends of Bill W.” meeting be- hasn’t really changed that much. I in, “You’re right!” Then we would by what happened in the process of, cause of a problem other than alco- think what’s changed is that we’ve. go about trying to figure out what and after, all that heated debate. holism. But partly because 1 didn’t gotten bigger and therefore the job was or was not good for our com- Everyone got a chance to be heard. want to hurt her feelings and partly and the responsibility have gotten mon welfare. The group struggled to arrive at deci- because it was convenient for me, I greater. AA has taught me that being There was always talk about com- sions that were for the “common wei- accepted her offer to take us to the “a small part of the great whole” mitment. My group taught me that fare” of the group and AA as a whole. local meeting and attend it with us. I carries with it a responsibility and I being a committed group member We held hands and recited the Seren- could have talked with her about AA that there is always something that I meant putting the welfare of the ity Prayer in unison at the cnd, know- and our Traditions, but I chose not to. can do to contribute to “our comgroup before my own; they said learn- ing that, despite our disagreements, I At the local meeting that rlight, my mon welfare.” When my sponsor ing t o d o this would ensure my sobri- we were each coming back to the I husband and I found out that the told me that 1needed a group to grow, ety and therefore my life. Most often. group and to AA because we needed group was really struggling for sur- she also told me that I wouldn’t grow my group members were gentle in it to survive. We each had a responsi- vival. It was the only AA group in by running away and that I had a teaching me these lessons, but now bility to make sure AA continued to I town and its few members had never responsibility to show up. and then when my ego got out of hand be there for the next alcoholic coming been exposed to AA anywhere else. I pray that leaving AA or going and I decided to do things my way in the door. They were so grateful to have AAs “underground” never looks like a

good alternative to me. I hope in- great love and great suffering are our committee, the secretary then called for love, compassion, and action and stead to remember the lessons that disciplinarians, we need no others. 1 me and asked if I was aware of what were willing to proceed should it be the One Parkway Group, my spon- have no doubt that I suffered as much was going on and that people were the will of the committee. One was a sors, and fellow AAs have taught me. as I could stand from active alcohol- “running scared.” 1 said that I was woman with good quality sobriety I’ve learned that I can strive to make ism, but 1 am not sure I have learned and, after praying about it and talk- who was loving and nurturing and my home group the best AA group in to practice loving Alcoholics Anony- ing some more with my sponsor and had seen a number of AIDS films and the world, which of course means one mous as well as I believe is possible. I our central office, I decided to call presentations. The others were two that conforms to our Traditions. I certainly have not yet learned to prac- the health department and get more men, one with a Ph.D. and the other have learned that I can strive to be the tice Tradition One perfectly. But I information about AIDS. a pharmacist whom I trusted wholekind of sponsor who tries to pass on have enough love to try to grow in my Then I called our area delegate who heartedly in the AA Fellowship. all of AA to the newcomer, our three ability to place our common welfare told me that “AA does not know how When the time came, I presented legacies of Recovery, Unity, and Ser- first. I am convinced that my life de- to deal with AIDS. Our job in AA is all the information I had collected to vice, and not just what 1 think the pends on it. I pray, that I may con- to stay sober. But, if we are to inform the members of the steering commitnewcomer wants or can handle. I tinue to grow in unselfishness, enough our group conscience, we must first tee. Some were very hostile. They have learned t h ~ 1t can and need to be to care about the lives of all alcohol- become informed ourselves.” He thought we were trying to kick the of service to my group and, where ics, wherever they may be, those that suggested I get in touch with some of newcomer out of AA. I said that was possible, to AA as a whole. are with us and those yet to come. the gay groups in our area to find out not what we were trying to do at all, Our literature reminds me that Dorothy H., Piscataway, N. J. how the gay community deals with it. and they finally agreed that approach- He also suggested that the steering ing the newcomer with our group committee of our group should talk concerns would cause no harm. about it once we had gotten all the in- So, the three people I had asked, formation. facts, and experience pos- plus one more from the steering comsible. Then, he said, we should get mittee, had a talk with this newcomer.

Love in two or three sober, caring, informed group members who would be objective to talk to this person and let him know what AA is and is not and that we are here to save lives from alcohol- They were very kind, loving, and informative. The young man became angry and defensive and afraid at first, but he calmed down after a few minutes. I ‘ Recently, o u r Well, several people including my- ism; that if he wants to be sober he is It worked wonderfully and things group’s commit- self’ found out about this and the welcome, but if he is here for other are calm now in the group. God works ment to unity was news spread like wildfire and people reasons this is not the right place; and, when we are responsible and take tested by a real went berserk with panic. A lot of peo- finally, to encourage him to also join action in love. The group members problem. A young ple are really not educated about a support group for AlDS victims. encouraged him to keep coming back .- man came to us AlDS so there was some wild talk. Another solid AA member I spoke and also to attend an HIV support with barely two weeks of sobriety. He The next day it was brought up in to told me the same thing. He empha- group in Dallas. I am very pleased had just been asked to leave another our group’s morning meeting and the sized the importance of immediate with the way God allowed us to hangroup. He is a bisexual man with group secretary got real crazy with it. action and group unity. So I prayed dle this. By facing a difficult situation AIDS who had been told he had only After the meeting, my sponsor (who some more and set up an emergency with love and tolerance, we were able about six months to live. It seems he knows a lot more about AIDS than steering committee meeting. The to maintain our unity and reemphathtn put the make on at least two most of us) talked with the secretary. three people I asked to speak directly size our singleness of purpose. young men and one young lady. Since I’m on the group’s steering to the newcomer understood the need Anonymous, Texar

J a n u a r y 1992

should hide from him or walk up and say hello. Later I found that he had several years in the program and he became my first sponsor. It was not apparent to me that admitting that I was alcoholic and accepting it as a fact of life were two very different things. After acceptance, the shame melted into the new interest that I had never been t o an AA meeting head of the table read a statement soon took in my recovery, knowing before, but the counselor had said about anonymity: “Who you see that at last I was working in the right that it would start at 8 o’clock. It was here, what you hear here, when you direction. With acceptance of my disnow 755. Other people were going in leave here, let it stay here.” case of alcoholism came a full-fledged and walking up the stairs. It would be some time before I effort to work all aspects of the re- Well, I thought, if I didn’t like it I would understand the meaning of covery program. I began to attend the and chairs, got out the books and could always get up and leave; they that phrase. On the one hand it said Step study groups and really put them literature. They were greeting the can’t make me stay. Nobody says 1 mind your own business, what a per- to practice. newcomers and making them feel have to go, anyway. Okay. Up the son shares with the group is not to be Recovery took on a familiar pat- welcome. They participated when stairs I go. discussed outside the meeting. If he’s tern. The people who were sincere called upon and listened intently while It’s a large room with tables down having a problem with his boss and I about staying sober showed up regu- others spoke of their experience. the center, some theater seats by the know who the boss is. what was said larly for meetings, set up the tables They set an example by helping and windows, a coffee urn in the corner. should remain confidential. It would lending a hand when needed. The whole place smelled of smoke. dawn on me in time that people are Last names and job titles had nothp o t wanting to be obtrusive, I took a relieved of the burdens of guilt, an- ing to do with recovery. What matseat in the comer. ger, resentment, self-pity and other tered was what was shared at the table The person seemingly in charge sat emotional baggage by speaking out and the conduct in this small room. a t the head of the table. Behind him and talking about the things that The ones who beat the drum the loudhung the portraits of two men. They troubled them so. That was a key to est are just trying to attract attention began in a businesslike manner with a the success of the program. Those to themselves. The ones who have got moment of silence followed by a who were concerned about how their the serenity do not need to bring atprayer and the reading of several story sounded to others or who want- tention to themselves for they are lengthy statements called the Steps ed to look better than they were feel- content just being themselves. Humiling were not making much headway ity is a personal achievement, it canand Traditions. not be givqn away. It comes in glim- 1 What was said sounded familiar to in recovery. They were becoming me, stories and problems that hap- actors who said what others want- mers and grows like an ice crystal. It pened t o me or to someone I knew. It ed to hear. is fragile, too, thus requiring constant felt good to be with people who un- At first 1 thought everyone was care and protection. Iderstood the circumstances that I was ashamed to be here, because that’s Maintaining anonymity insures that experiencing. They were open and how I felt. Soon I recognized an old the focus of our efforts is on the prohonest about their troubles and con- neighbor of mine, whom I hadn’t gram and not the personalities. Fred E., Seattle, Wash. flicts. Toward the end the guy at the seen in years. I didn’t know whether 1

January 1992

Dllutign From Los Angeles, Calif.: I am a recovering alcoholic and my I ponder why our singleness of pursobriety date is March 28, 1979. It pose (alcoholism) is diluted by so makes no di’fference whether I’m much duality of identification. I am male or female, a celebrity, a non- tired of folks discussing at length smoker, a pilot or a lawyer. I’m a per- their problems other than alcohol, son with an allergy of the body and thus muddying the waters of identifian obsession of the mind who lost the cation for alcoholics who are still ability to control my drinking. I re- finding their way to AA. covered by taking Steps One through Recently, at a large meeting where Nine to the best of my ability and I I was the speaker there was a group maintain that recovery one day at a conscience that only alcoholics partime by living in Steps Ten, Eleven, ticipate in an AA meeting. I t would and Twelve. I have had a spiritual seem obvious, but there were dissentawakening, achieving victory over ing votes! We seem to forget that alcohol by being willing to go to any basketball players don’t interrupt lengths, and have been reborn. My tennis niatches with the excuse that relationship with God is right and I’m it’s all a sport. the miracle in my life. It appears to me that it’s time for It seemed so simple twelve years alcoholics to start standing up for ago. I live today in a large metropoli- Alcoholics Anonymous or we’ll really tan area where there are over 2,000 start falling for anything. Bill and meetings to choose from. One mcet- Bob were on fire with a great idea ing alone has over 1,000 people in at- in 1935 and it has worked perfectly tendance. And I’ve witnessed changes for me and countless others. Stand in AA that I view with disappoint- up and speak! It begins with just ment, anger, and even alarm. I won- one voice, and today I’ll let it begin der where the “old-timers” have gone with nic. A. S. to. I see alcoholics walking out of AA meetings as our common problem and common solution get lost in what seems like psychobabble and a mental health marathon. I have come to the conclusion !hat just because you’re in the hen house doesn’t make you a chicken and just because you’re a warm body in an AA meeting does not make you a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

J a n u a r y 1992

nancially until a full accounting was Responsibility made. This treasurer was then absent From Montello, Wisc.: from this meeting for a long time and 1 have experiences to share with a new treasurer was elected. Eventu- John R., Santa Barbara, Calif. (Oc- ally the accounts were squared away, tober, 1991 Grapevine, “What Is an and a misappropriation of money Enabler?”) was discovered. The group was in I, too, have attended closed AA debt for rent money, and behind on mectings where a number of addic- its contributions to the district and tions are addressed. When it is my GSO. Subsequently, the rent debt was turn to comment, if necessary, I do paid and the group became current takc the opportunity to express Tradi- with all expenses. tion Three: “The only requirement Too often we ask people to take on for AA membership is a desire to the duties of the group before they stop drinking.” Coupled with a re- have had the opportunity to focus on minder that AA stands for “Alcohol- sobriety and recovery. Sometimes, ics Anonymous,” not “Addictions out of apathy or complacency, we Anonymous,” this often serves both continue with the same group offisides of the issue: those who would cers for long periods of time. Groups not have one word about anything can prevent such problems by electother than alcohol abuse, and those ing trusted servants who have time who would focus only on addiction to enough in AA to be acquainted with something other than alcohol. and supportive of the Traditions. In one group the long-time trea- Based on group experience, the sugsurer declined to give financial re- gestion of orderly rotation of group ports when asked. Although 1contin- servants can prevent problems of ued to attend that meeting I expressed money, power, and prestige. my intention of not contributing fi- Sometimes I’m a solitary voice and have the unpopular view, but it’s because of what I’ve learned in AA that I have the courage to express my convictions and not condone by silence. C. K.

February 1992

tion, it was emphasized that we have, vidual member, however good or ( TRADITION TWO ) in AA, no coercive human authority. wise he may be. This is a striking and Because each AA, of necessity, has a almost unbelievable fact about Alcosensitive and responsive conscience, holics Anonymous. Hence we can and because alcohol will discipline safely dispense with those exhortahim severely if he backslides, we are tions and punishments seemingly so finding we have little need for man- necessary to other societies. And we made rules or regulations. Despite the need not depend overmuch on infact that we do veer off at times on spired leaders. Because our active By Bill W. tangents, we are becoming more able leadership of service can be truly roto depend absolutely on the long-term tating, we enjoy a kind of democ- (from the January 1948 Grapevine) stability of the AA group itself. With racy rarely possible elsewhere. In respect to its own affairs, the collec- this respect we may be, to a large de- Sooner or later, groups are basically the same, each tive conscience of the group will, every AA comes to group does have its own special atmo- gree, unique. given time, almost surely demonstrate Therefore, we of Alcoholics Anondepend upon a sphere, its own peculiar state of de- its perfect dependability. The group Power greater than velopment. We believe that every AA ymous are certain tha! there is but conscience will, in the end, prove a one ultimate authority, “a loving himself. He finds group has a conscience. It is the col- far more infallible guide for group that the God of his lective conscience of its own member- God as he may express himself in our affairs than the decision of any indi- group conscience.” understanding is not only a source ship. Daily experience informs and of strength, but also a source of posi- instructs this conscience. The group tive direction. Realizing that some begins to recognize its own defects of fraction of that infinite resource is character and, one by one, these are now available, his life takes on an en- removed or lessened. As this process tirely different complexion. He expe- continues, the group becomes better riences a new inner security together able to receive right direction for its with such a sense of destiny and pur- own affairs. Trial and error produces pose as he has never known before. group experience, and out of correct- As each day passes, our AA reviews ed experience comes custom. When a his mistakes and vicissitudes. He customary way of doing things is def- “their” narrow-mindedness. There le’arns from daily experience what initely proved to be best, then that I never was much. of one for author- was no way I could be wrong about his remaining character defects are custom forms into AA Ttadition. anything, and I knew my opinion as and becomes ever more willing that The Greater Power is then working ity, unless I had the opportunity to ex- to how things should be were the they be’ removed. In this fashion through a clear group conscience. ercise my own. I same as any other rational person’s. he improves his conscious contact We humbly hope and believe that resented the au- Then came AA, and I soon saw with God. our growing AA Tradition will prove thority of state and federal govern- where there was an authority figurein Every Mgroup follows this same to be the will of God for us. ments, my church, the telephone com- my life that, try as I might, alwaysgot cycle of development. We are coming Many people are coming to think pany, my family. I figured I had the its way with me: alcohol. to realize that each group, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous is, to some right to do what 1 wanted to do as When I heard AA described as “a each individual, is a special entity, not extent, a new form of human society. long as I didn’t hurt anyone, and if 1 In our discussion of the First Tradi- benign anarchy,” the poetic justice of quite like any other. Though AA 1 didn’t get my way it was because of its irony was not lost on me. Certain-

ly, like many of us, I tried to inflict frankly admitted she didn’t know my ways of doing things, my think- much about writing. She suggested I ing, and my behavior on others, with show it to Jim, a fellow on the other little regard for their standards. Cer- side of the county who was the area tainly 1 expected others to treat me PI chairman. This guy was a sign with the respect I would give them – painter, for Pete’s sake. What did he provided they agreed with me. But I know about journalism? learned early on that if I wanted to get Jim looked it over, thought it was along with people and keep from get- pretty good, with some reservations, ting into conflicts that might lead me and indicated it would be a good idea to drinking, 1 had to give others the to show it to this guy in my home right to be wrong. The idea of a be- group – seems this guy was the area nign anarchy made the “rules” of delegate, or something like that. Now AA more palatable, and somehow I I respected Charlie, but I really didn’t was able to let others in my group tell like him. He secnied to act like some treatment centers should be deleted to ~ h e E w e r esome real ~roblems. me what to do. But there was the wise and pompous AA guru. “Un- avoid any appearance of affiliation. chief among them being the comfort in the back of my mind that real,” that was the word for him. Bc- Somehow I swallowed my pride failure to adhere to our singleness of if I chose to, 1 could do it my way, sides, if he was going to have the final and took his suggestions, made the purpose. I butted heads with those and the group be damned. say, why did I waste my time with Jim changes, and submitted the story. who wanted to let anyone attend As my recovery progressed, I was and Ramona? The group conscience of myself, two closed meetings, and the result was a drawn into service work. I mopped I was beginning to get tired of this PI chairpeople, and the delegate had lot of anger on all sides and some very floors, winterized the pipes, and be- run-around Tor what was really just a reached a decision. No one ordered hurt feelings, particularly my own. gan doing public information work – simple feature story, but my desire to me to do anything, and I did not have The group was flaky, I said. They a natural, since I held degrees in jour- carry the message of AA (part of our to be insulted by their observations. I told me no one had the right to judge ‘

nalism and education. In the course of primary purpose) through the printed did not realize it at the time, but the any AA group as flaky. This prothis, an editor offered me the oppor- media would not be denied. I went to experience was a perfect example of gram, they said, helped them to deal tunity to write a story about local AA Charlie, and he read it, then sat back “our leaders are but trusted servants; with other physical disorders, as well for his newspaper, and my baptism by and said, “This is basically a good they do not govern.” as their alcoholism, and they were not fire into the Traditions began. story, but I think there are some At five years of sobriety, I had going to deny this help to anyone who 1 studied how to phrase things, things we need to look at.” made the rounds of GSR, district sec- could use it. protect anonymity without losing ‘ “That does it,” I thought. “This retary, district CPC chairman, and 1 saw the mistakes, I thought. No characterization, express no opinion four-eyed turkey is going to presume all-round Mr. AA. Because of my one had been around to teach these on outside issues, and so forth. When to tell me, a trained journalist, how to work, 1 wasn’t regularly able to be people the meaning and importance I had the story complete, 1 knew it write a story.” But his suggestions around my group to inflict – I mean of AA Traditions, since theold-timers was good: nicely structured in three were minimal. While he didn’t argue impart – my experience, strength, were gone and I had been away so parts, describing my progression into about the amount I drank, he indicat- hope and wisdom to new members. much. So I tried to talk Traditions alcoholism, the disease concept and ed that the average reader would find Years later, I became a bleeding dea- every chance I got. Fellowship, and the Steps and my it hard to believe – “sensational” con. By then my long-time home They didn’t like that, either. progression into recovery. I showed it was the word he used. And if 1 was group had changed, with members The hardest decision I’ve made in to Ramona, my group’s PI chairper- going to write about AA for the pub- going to groups nearer their homes, sobriety was to leave my original son, who, while enthused about it, lic, he said, perhaps the references to moving out of state, dying, or get- home group. I had become, in their ting drunk. eyes, a dictatorial pariah, and their

before I came in, so we had lots of After that meeting, I made a sign, assessment was pretty accurate. There there are usually 25 or 30 that show up newcomers as well as just a few old- picked a date, and posted the anwas very litt/e love expressed by my- for businessmeetings. We get bent out timers, and through that first year we nouncement on the board at our self regarding the problems I saw. of shape about some things, such as grew in size and I felt comfortable meeting place. The next day the sign There was no chance for a group con- whether taking contributions for liter- and at home. When my first birthday was gone. I was told by the man who science (though we did make a stab at ature to be used in the state’s sub- arrived they all celebrated with me. It owns the building – he was a recovtaking a group inventory), because stance abuse treatment is affiliation. was the best feeling I ever had. I felt ering alcoholic – to not put up any minds were closed on all sides. A But when thearguments are made, the loved and “a part of.” more signs; he said we would have no closed mind prevents an informed vote is taken, the minority opinion ex- When I was sober about eighteen group conscience meeting unless he opinion, and any opinion based on pressed, and the vote retaken, ‘the months, we elected a GSR from the called one. I did try to explain what I misunderstanding is worthless. strong convictions of “winners” and , group. Up to that point we hadn’t had heard, and that as GSR it was my Things worked out, however. I “losers” generally take a back seat as had a GSR, and because none of us responsibility to pass it on. Then we joined a much larger home group that we close. None of us govern, none of had too much time in AA we decided argued over the telephone for a while. holds monthly business meetings, us get our way all the time, and all of to allow anyone with one year of con- 1 said many things that day and I was and I hear by the grapevine that my us cling to the love of this Fellowship tinuous sobriety to be eligible to run in a rage by the time the conversa- “adversaries” at my old home group for our emotional well-being, our so- for the job. tion ended. how have a willingness to learn about briety, and our lives – another aspect I was elected. I’m sure my ego was 1 cried and screamed, went to meetthe AA program and its Traditions. of our primary purpose. out of control; it seemed like another ings, and shared my feelings. My true My new home group is amazing to ,A benign anarchy? Indeed! popularity contest and I had won. feelings were hurt. My ego told me I watch. With around 150 members, E. A . L., Genrr,: Ark. But I decided to do my best at this was in charge and that surely everyposition and to follow through and one would see how right I was. The return to my group with a monthly man who owned the building very selreport from area meetings. I fought dom came to meetings, so there was my pride and ego before that first never any direct confrontation. area meeting, and prayed for some After one week of sick rage and humility. 1 did the best I could at the bad feelings, no sleep and name calltime. At the first area meeting the ing, some people asked me to have other GSRs welcomed me, and they the group conscience meeting anytalked about giving money back to way. I had decided before this toleave central office and GSO. We didn’t do the group and find a new one, but that in my home group, and they told now 1 decided that I was not alone, so me to take it to our group consci$ce we scheduled the group conscience on — – — – p-p – and to explain the need for helping on a Saturday afternoon. Once again the I have often heard fueled by resentments. 1 sobered up these levels. I told them we had no man called me and told me the doors it said that all you at a group close to my hon~e.The regular group conscience meeting and would be padlocked. need to start a new people there welcomed me and loved they were all amazed. We had never At this point, I was sick and eaten AA group is a re- me and told me to keep coming back. had elections for any positions other up with resentment. 1 felt like getting sentment and a By the grace of God, I did. These than GSR and alternate and a central drunk for the first time in a long time. coffeepot. Resent- folks loved me through that first year. office representative. They suggested On that Saturday morning, 1woke up ments had kept me drunk for many They hugged me and honestly shared that as GSR 1 call a group conscience to a beautiful day that 1 couldn’t see, years, and in 1987 1 was literally dying their experiences, strength, and hope. meeting to pass on what they told me. and 1got on my knees and prayed for from alcohol and drug addiction, Thegroup had broken up about a year

courage and guidance and for God’s From that first conscience meeting, will not mine to be done. I was scared, a miracle happened. We now have a and I felt I had created yet another new group that we love and members crisis, and wanted everything to be who care about a group conscience. I okay again. “Please God, give me pray for the man at the other group what I need in order to know your on a daily basis, and although the will.” After I got up off my knees the resentment can be refueled from time phone rang and it was the delegate to time, I work on my part of the refrom our state whom I had tried to sentment, and feel that this was part contact earlier in the week. I felt calm of my spiritual growth. Our group is and serene as I spoke to him. The fear small but we have been there for other and the anger had left and I felt newcomers who need us as much as God’$ presence near me. We spoke we need them. I am sober today, for almost an hour, and he told me to thank God and AA, and my Higher hang in there and not to forget our Power is with me, and reveals more to ,primary purpose -staying sober and me each new day. helping others. I can remember the people who We had our group consciencemeet- loved me back to life, and I can feel ing – another group offered us their content with my choices. I can’t forbuilding as the doors were indeed get where I got sober, but today, I padlocked at our meeting place. I choose service, unity, and recovery. I knew I was okay when I accepted the have learned a little more of the locked doors. I didn’t like it but I meaning of “Live and Let Live. ” accepted it. Toni E , Wichita, Kans.

March 1992

to give, if only you will receive.” tion of “dry” AA groups, “wet” AA That is all. But to our new friend, it is groups, Republican AA groups, comeverything. Without more ado, hc munist AA groups. Few, if any, would bccomcs one of us. wish our groups to be designated by Our membership Tradition does religious denominations. We cannot contain, however, one vitally impor- lend the AA name, even indirectly, to tant qualification. That qualification other activities, however worthy. If -relates to the use of our name, Alco- we do so we shall become hopelessly holics Anonymous. We believe that compromised and divided. We think By Bill W. any two or three alcoholics gathered that AA should offer its experience to (from the February 1948 Grapevine) together for sobriety may call them- the whole world for whatever use can selves an AA group provided that, as be made of it. But not its name. ‘ The Third Tradi- enter the dark cave where he is and a group, they have no other affilia- Nothing could be more certain. tion is a sweeping show him that we understand. We tion. Here our purpose is clear and Let us of AA therefore resolve that statement indeed; realize that he is altogether too weak unequivocal. For obvious reasons we we shall always be inclusive and never L 3 1 it takes in a lot and confused to jump hurdles. I f we wish the name Alcoholics Anony- exclusive, offering ail we have to all, of territory. Some raise obstacles, he might stay away mous to be used only in connection save our title. May all barriers be thus people might think and perish. He might be denied his with straight AA activities. One can levelcd, may our unity thus be preit too idealistic to tie Gactic& It tells priceless opportunity. think of no AA member who would served. And may God grant us a long every alcoholic in the world that he So when he asks, “Are there any like, for example, to see the forma- life – and a useful one! may become, and remain, a member conditions?” we joyfully reply, “No, of Alcoholics Anonymous so long as not a onc.” When skeptically he hesaysso. In short, Alcoholics Anon- comes back saying, “But certainly ymous has no membership rule. there must be things that I have to do Why is this so? Our answer is sim- and believe,” we quickly answer, “In ple and practical. Even in self-protec- Alcoholics Anonymous there are no tion, we d o not wish to erect the slight- musls.” Cynically, perhaps, he then est barrier between ourselves and the inquires, “What is this all going to fellow alcoholic who still suffers. We cost me?” We are able to laugh and ‘ know that society has been demand- say, “Nothing at all, there are no fees ing that he conform to its laws and and dues.” Thus, in a brief hour, is conventions. But the essence of his our friend disarmed of his suspicion alcoholic malady is the fact that he and rebellion. His eyes begin to open – – .-.- – – — – – –

has been unable or unwilling to con- on a new world of friendship and I am no historian efforts at redefinition than any of the form either to the laws of man or understanding. Bankrupt idealist that of AA, but from other Traditions. God. If he is anything, the sick alco- he has been, his ideal is no longer a what I have read, According to the “Twelve and holic is a rebellious nonconformist. dream. After years of lonely search it I this Third Tradi- Twelve,” the founding members of How well we understand that; every now stands revealed. The reality of tion has, through- AA were, understandably, so nervous member of AA was once a rebel him- Alcoholics Anonymous bursts upon I out AA’s fifty- on behalf of AA’s reputation that self. Hence we cannot offer to meet him. For Alcoholics Anonymous is seven-year-old history, caused more their inclination was td keep out all him at any halfway mark. We must saying, “We have something priceless anguish, hand-wringing, and periodic but the most sterling characters –

sterling, of course, except for their that she has a strong urge to leave the speak from the floor and only on sub- Many things have changed in the drinking. Then early members dis- meeting when she hears them. I jects relating to alcohol and recov- world out there, and AA is and must covered that this would exclude all Many of us in the Fellowship were ery from alcoholism. There are other be a reflection of the larger society. but a handful of drunks, and emphat- recently startled to find, in a large members, including old-timers, who For one thing, people coming in are ically did not include those who most regional magazine, a lengthy article find these restrictions damaging to much younger, and although this is needed the Fellowship. quoting several long-term members the traditionally tolerant attitudes of not always the case, many of their More lately there’s been another who voiced many of the above com- AA and, when asked to open a meet- drinking experiences, started far earphenomenon, especially worrying to plaints. The article discussed the pro- ing, refuse to read such a statement. lier in their lives, are just as grim as old-timers – an increasing abundance liferation of rehabs, at least some of My own beef with much of what I those I heard in the sixties when newof twelve-step programs covering which refer to almost any form of be- hear today is with the apparently comers were, on average, anywhere everything from pills to smoking to havioral problem as “a disease,” and diminished role of personal responsi- from fifteen to twenty years older overweight to compulsive sex, plus ad- the practice of counseling patients bility. When I listen to a speaker than newcomers today. Also, for all ditional programs for the human en- who are leaving the rehab to attend blaming “the disease,” whatever it is, the “Anonymous” in the name of the vironment, now dubbed codependents AA meetings and to call themselves for his or her behavior, or starting a Fellowship, people now talk happily, (a great number of whom seem to qualification not with the first drink anywhere, to anyone, in or out of the alcoholics whether they are or not. have found their way into AA meet- Certain defensive actions have been but with early childhood and thus media, about being AA members. It ings). All this has provoked anguished attributing, by inference if not state- makes me long for the old days when taken by individual groups. One is to cries from old-timers (like me) about nicnt, alcoholism to abusive or alco- being an alcoholic carried a stigma. read a statement at the opening of a the “sharing” – that is, speaking holic parents, what I hear from the Excerpts from a Grapevine article discussion or Step meeting requesting from the floor – by people who “just speaker is not “I picked up the drink, by Bill W., called “Problems Other that only those who are alcoholics Than Alcohol,” represent principles want to say how I am feeling today,” I havc to put it down,” but, “I am by others distraught over losing a a victim and thcreforc not rcspon- which havc been reaffirmed by memsible.” A sense of responsibility does bers of the AA General Service Conboyfriend, and yet others who are simply feeling “vulnerable” – and not go well with chronic victimhood. ference in 1969, 1970 and 1972. want to talk about it. “Vulnerable,” The whole tenet of my own respon- “Can a nonalcoholic pill or drug “sharing,” and “dysfunctional” are sibility was drummed into me when I addict become an AA member?” No. first came to AA twenty-fivc years “Can a pcrson be brought, as a visthree perfectly good words in the English language; but, according t o ago. “You are responsible for what itor, to an ‘open’ AA meeting for you do and say twenty-four hours a help and inspiration?” Yes. another old-timer friend of mine, they have been used so ad nauseum day,” was said to me by someone “If so, should these nonalcoholic within my first three months. I will pill or drug users be led to believe never forget the time and the place that they have become AA memand theodd, wonderful man who first bers?” No. pointed a finger at me and said that. “Can a pill or drug taker, who also What it gave me was an ovcrwhelm- has a genuine alcohol history, become ing sense of freedom. I was no longer a member of AA?” Yes. a puppet, being played on by people Bearing in mind the above as added and circumstances. I was free. I could guidance, would I, if 1 could, change choose. 1 was reminded of thc lame or enlarge the Third Tradition as it man at the gate who suddenly and mi- was written by the founders? No. raculously found he could stand. Isubelle [I., New York, N.X

When I started at- Bob had insisted that the Third Traditending AA meet- tion had read: “The only requirement ings, I introduced for membership is to be an alcoholic myself as an “ad- with adesiretostopdrinking.” I think ‘ dict.” 1hadn’t had if the Third Tradition were worded in a drink in close to this manner, our membership would two years. After I had been in the pro- be substantially smaller and the nunigram for three months, I began to ber of still-suffering alcoholics would take a hard look at my past and what 1 be considerably higher than what it found was that when I started to use already is. (I would not be here.) drugs, it was because 1had reached the The point I’m trying to make is that point in my drinking where I was ex- the Third Tradition was worded the tremely violent and unpredictable. way it is for a reason. I admit that My behavior scared the daylights out AA’s answer may not fit everybody, of me, so I switched to tranquilizers but whether AA is right for any particand marijuana. I usually went to sleep ular individual is a decision between “I’m an alcoholic took me aside after the meetings to and became somewhat more predict- that person and his Higher Power. – and a drug ad- talk about this, but I dismissed them.) able when intoxicated by these drugs. If I catch myself questioning any- dict .” “I have One night, I was talking in the When 1 started in recovery, I tried one else’s right to be a member of AA, to say this – for parking lot after a meeting of my several different fellowships, but I I have toaskmyself, “Whosewillam me.” “I know this home group. As the people cleared found what I wanted and I get what I I trying to do, mine or God’s?” God is a meeting- of out, I realized there were just two of need in AA. In reading the Third Tra- loves us all the same, regardless of Alcoholics Anonymous but. . .” us left – myself and a newcomer. He dition, I’m extremely grateful that our faults. So I try to leave my God- I used to think I had to share about was in his sixties. We got to talking the early memb~rsof AA had enough suit at home and try to share the same my drug use. After all, AA teaches us and he actually seemed to be listeninsight to realize that we are dealing love and acceptance for others that I with a disease of denial of our con- to be rigorously honest, doesn’t it? ing to me! 1 really felt amazed that a received when I first reached out and dition and of our feelings, to name And as a younger person in AA, I was man old enough to be my grandfather ‘ asked for God’s help. different than a lot of the older, would listen to me about anything, just a couple of kinds of denial. 1 wouldn’t be sober today if it I’m curious how much difference it “pure” alcoholics, wasn’t I? Nobody and especially about AA. hadn’t been for that help. The meeting that night had been on is going to tell me what to say. Nobody would have made if Bill W. and Dr. A . J., Wichifa, Kans. did, either. (A couple of old-timers Step One and many people, including

me, recalled their use of drugs (some but were the details worth it at the in great detail). This man and I began possible expense of others? I realized to talk about the meeting and then I should stick to alcohol and alcoholhe dropped a bombshell on me. He ism in order to keep the door wide didn’t think he qualified to be an open, not make it more narrow. If alcoholic because he hadn’t used any even one person gets the wrong idea drugs! Here was a man who drank and feels they don’t belong, that is for more years than I have been alive one too many. Besides, I had been (most of them, by his account, alco- sober for a while and I knew what holically), yet he didn’t feel like he I was. belonged in AA. And we were sup- I guess I started to think just a little posedly talking about alcoholism! more about other people than I did Well, I sputtered and stammered about myself. So that’s why some for a while and I finally convinced groups are so concerned about AA’s him that the only requirement for singleness of purpose – some groups membership was a desire to stop in my area even read a statement of drinking and that there were no re- singleness of purpose before their quirements for drug use involved. meetings. It isn’t just to be tedious Thank God he is still sober. and nitpicky and to “bust chops,” Later that night, I really began to especially the chops of young people. question myself and the message I It is so all alcoholics can feel that they was carrying. Sure, it was important belong once they get to AA. that I qualified and identified myself, J. H., Dover, Pa. ‘

April 1992

By Bill W. (from the March 1948 Grapevine) Tradition Four is a For example, an AA group could, if it Yet please note one important qualspecific application wished, hire a paid preacher and sup- ification. It will be seen that such exof general princi- port him out of the proceeds of a treme liberty of thought and action ples already out- group nightclub. Though such an ab- applies only ro rhe groiip’s own uj’ lined in Traditions surd procedure would be miles out- jiiirs. Rightly enough, [the long form One and Two. Tra- side our Tradition, the group’s “right ofj this Tradition goes on to say, dition One states: “Each member of to be wrong” would be held invio- “But when its plans concern the wel- Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small late. We are sure that each group can fare of neighboring groups also, these part of a great whole. AA must con- be granted, and safely granted, these groups ought to be consulted.” Obvitinue to live or most of us will svrely most extreme privileges. We know ously, if any individual, group, or die. Hence our common welfare that our familiar process of trial and regional committee could take an effect, our overall general service comes first. But individual welfare error would summarily eliminate action that might seriously affect the committee. For instance, no group or follows close afterward.” Tradition both the preacher and the nightclub. welfare of Alcoholics Anonymous as intergroup could feel free to initiate, Two states: “For our group purpose Those severe growing pains which a whole or seriously disturb surround- without consultation, any publicity there is but one ultimate authority – invariably follow any radical depar- ing groups, that would not be liberty that might affect AA as a whole. Nor a loving God as he may express him- ture from AA Tradition can be abso- at all. It would be sheer license; it could it assume to represent the whole self in our group conscience.” lutely relied upon to bring an erring would be anarchy, not democracy. of Alcoholics Anonym~usby print- With these concepts in mind, let us group back into line. An AA group Thrrcfore, we AAs have univer- ing and distributing anything purlook more closely at Tradition Four. need not be coerced by any human sally adopted the principle of consul- porting to be standard AA literature. The first sentence guarantees each government over and above its own tation. This means that if a single AA The same principle would naturally AA group local autonomy. With re- members. Their own experience, plus group wishes to take any action that apply to all similar situations. Though spect to its own affairs, the group AA opinion in surrounding groups, might affect surrounding groups, it there is no formal compulsion to do may make any decisions, adopt any plus God’s prompting in their group consults them. Or, it confers with the so, all undertakings of this general attitudes that it likes. No overall or conscience would be sufficient. Much intergroup committee for the area, if character are customarily checked intergroup authority should chal- travail has already taught us this. there be one. Likewise, if a group or with our AA general headquarters. lenge this primary privilege. We feel Hence we may confidently say to regional committee wishes to take The idea is clearly summarized in this ought to be so, even though the group might sometimes act with comeach group, “You should be responsible to no other authority than your /! any action that might affect AA as a whole, it consults the trustees of the the last sentence of Tradition Four, which observes, “On such issues our plete indifference to our ‘kadition. own conscience.” Alcoholic Foundation, who are, in common welfare is paramount.”

April 1992

ence has shown me that things go well carried away in self-seeking, arroand I really live out the turning over gance, pride, and self-will. of my will and my life to God. It’s the What’s in it for me? Plenty. If I live same with the group in Tradition Step Three, it will stimulate and en- Four. When our group’s collective courage Tradition Four. I f I live Traarrogance and pride and self-will take dition Four, it will in turn stimulate over, the group moves collectively and encourage the living out of Step ‘ away from turning its will and life Three in my life. There is a reciprocal over to God. But when it submits dynamic between these two princiitself to the good of other groups ples. And 1 come out a winner beand of AA as a whole, it will experi- cause I’ll stay sober. If I submit my ence that peace and growth that will and live in Step Three, 1 lose the What does Tradi- to indulge in grandiosity and mega- comes with submission to the will of dominion of my exaggerated arro-. tion Four mean to lomania! Once we let our discipline the Higher Power. It will flourish. gance and self-willed pride. I gain me? This Tradition go lax, our humility and sense of When it doesn’t do that, it will wither freedom. If I live that way in the reminds me of Tra- obedience diminish and our foolish away and die, just as 1 will if 1 neglect group and encourage the group to dition One. Tradi- pride and blind ego take over. Then Step Three. live that way in Tradition Four, the tion One deals with we can be a negative influence in a What does this Tradition call on same thing will happen to the group. the relationship between the value of group, do harm to the individuals in me to do? It calls on me, it invites In submitting itself to the welfare of personal recovery and AA unity. i t – even contribute to the destruc- me, it obliges me to be vigilant in the other groups and AA as a whole, in Since personal recovery depends on tion of the group. group for collcctive pride and self- the very act of submission, the group AA unity, then our common welfare How is this Tradition working in will, just as I have to bealways vigilant will lose slavery to its lower instincts . must come first. Now Tradition Four my life? It reminds me of Step Three. in my own life for thesame poisons. It and gain freedom. And I, as a member domes along and deals with the rela- The group is given a reasonable and doesn’t mean I have to be the resident of the group, will share in that freetionship between the group and AA decent independence, but then it is guru or “bleeding deacon.” It only dom and at the same time contribute as a whole. Here again maximum lib- called upon to turn its will and life means that in a humble, prudent, car- to it. Step Three and Tradition Four erty and respect is to be given to the over to AA as a whole, as an expres- ing way I be aware of the dangers to inspire and strengthen each other. I group. But the group, and the indi- sion of the will of God for us. The our group and to other groups and to win and the group wins and AA wins. viduals in it, are asked – for their Third Step works this way on the indi- AA as a whole, if we let ourselves get Anonymous, Los Angeles, Calif. own survival and sobriety – to ad- vidual level, Tradition Four on the just, temper, and discipline that free- group level. dom when it begins to affect other If I don’t listen to my sponsor and groups or AA as a whole. I f each get rebellious, am filled with pride group runs amuck and does what it and self-will, it is only a matter of pleases, Alcoholics Anonymous will time for me to get the “crazies” again be destroyed and in short order the and fall into the practice of my addicgroup and individual sobriety will be tion once more. But if I reject my destroyed in turn. foolish, blind pride, have a healthy We alcoholics are plagued by a distrust for my own opinions and thousand forms of fear. We are eas- motives, and submit myself to asponily moved to overcompensate and sor and do what he says, then experi-

April 1992

tices. As long as its actions didn’t my home. A call next day to interaffect any other group or the AA Fel- group verified time, day, and place. lowship as a whole, each group was At my first meeting, 1 noticed that free to do whatever its members de- there were fewer than twenty-five id. cided was in their collective best inter- people in the room. I even recognized 1 k?l f, ests. No group could dictate practice some familiar faces. Maybe this was $% * &.i or policy to any other group. Even the meeting I was looking for. our intergroup office, and AA World “Anyone have a topic or prob- Services itself, couldn’t tell any group lem?” the chairperson asked. I felt alone, alien- not. They will help you get out of what to do or not do. They could sug- “How about us talking about jealated. I was just a your negative thinking.” Before 1 gest and they could urge, but they ousy and envy?” someone suggested. , couple of years could say anything he added, “Why couldn’t dictate. The Fourth Tra- Jealousy and envy? That was a new in the program not give some thought to what the dition seemed to me to have been de- one on me. I couldn’t ever remember and had recently ‘Twelve and Twelve’ has to s i p about signed to put a brake on the al- having heard of this topic before. moved from a vil- the Fourth Tradition? I t might give coholic’s well known tendency to Certainly it wasn’t on the list that my lage of a few thousand to a city of over you some ideas that can help you un- take control and try to run things. own group back home had prepared half a million. I missed my friends derstand better what AA is all about. I t was “Live and Let Live” applied and from which the discussion topic and my home group. I missed the That’s also a part of your problem.” to groups. was usually !ilken. Is jealousy and1 meetings I knew well, the ones that His suggestion surprised me. Up to While all of that seemed clear envy really an A A topic? It seemed saved my life. The big-city meetings then, I had never been to any of the enough, what wasn’t clear was how pretty remote from alcoholism. Did it lacked the friendliness, the warmth, Traditions meetings. Why should I? 1 any of it could help me deal with my have anything to do with recovery? and the intimacy of my village groups. had heard somewhere that the Tradi- negative attitudes toward the AA Yet the group didn’t seem to have any The largest meetings I had known tions kept groups healthy, just as the style that was typical of that city. problem with it. The old, familiar were never more than a dozen or So; Steps held individuals healthy. Apart I continued to go to meetings any- “why-isn’t-this-like-home?” think- “small” meetings in the city were from an occasional stint at coffee way because I knew I needed them as a ing was with me again. I was disapoften in excess of forty people. I felt making or serving as a group secre- defense against relapse. I went to pointed. This wasn’t turning out to lost in them. Speaker meetings were tary, I was not involved in service at them because in my frequent calls to be the kind of meeting I had first the most common, with often well the intergroup level, or in anything my sponsor, he would get around to thought it would be. over a hundred people sitting in a that involved relationships between asking how many meetings I had gone As the discussion proceeded, one large room. Smaller discussion meet- groups. The Traditions didn’t appear to that week, and what my impres- man spoke of how jealousy of his ings like the ones that sobered me up to have any real relevance to my life. sions of them were. As time went by, wife’s closeness to one of her woman were rare. There were none within So my sponsor’s idea that the Fourth and as I remained stuck in my home- friends had harmed his marriage. A miles of where I lived. Complaints Tradition had something to help me sickness, these impressions remained woman spoke of the damage done to about what was wrong with the new- adjust to big city AA was not what I largely negative. I still didn’t seem to her by a coworker who envied her to-me AA were a part of almost all my expected to hear. fit. AA meetings weren’t fun any- ability and work record. It got so bad phone calls to my sponsor back home. The discussion of the Fourth Tra- more. They were bad-tasting medi- that she found herself drawn into “It will take time for your home- dition in the “Twelve and Twelve” cine for my disease. messy office politics. The job she had sickness to end,” he said after one seemed to me to be straightforward One evening, as I left yet another loved had become painful, and she particularly angry call from me. enough. It meant that each group was speaker meeting, I overheard talk dreaded going to work in the mor- “But,” he continued, “keep going to to be independent of all other groups about a new discussion meeting that ning. In the end, and to keep her semeetings, whether you like them or – in governance, finances, and prac- was within easy driving distance of renity, she resigned from the com-

pany. Another man admitted how, sations he remarked casually, “Aren’t presence for those who still suffer, years earlier, he had become envious you glad that we have the Fourth Tra- and to help members grow in their of the popularity of another member dition?” Is jealousy and envy recovery. But we are all different from one of his home group who was much in demand as a sponsor. His envy-driven “Fourth Tradition?” “Yes, Fourth Tradition.” He was real4 an AA topic? It another in our life histories, our backgrounds, our needs, and the Fourth resentment resulted in his criticism of the other man. The group had bequiet for a moment. “It seems to me,” he continued, “that people seemed petty remote Tradition helps protect each of us in come seriously divided within itself, were able to come together without ?om alcoholinn. our right to be different. The meeting that keeps me well may not work for with factions developing and widen- anyone in AA stopping them or hasing. Gradually many of the group’s sling them, and could start a discus- you, and yours may not work for me. members drifted away from it. The sion group in an area where speaker ings, Step and Tradition meetings, The way one group expresses the messpeaker described how difficult it was meetings seem to be the custom. You open meetings, closed meetings, Big sage of recovery may inspire me, but for him to make amends to the man could finally find a group that could Book meetings, Grapevine meetings, may not inspire the person sitting he had harmed and to the group itself help you – and that group has given meetings for gay people, for women next to me. In the first months o f . for his behavior. you something new to think about.” alone, for men alone, for health pro- recovery, I needed meetings that As the meeting continued, 1 real- He paused and said, “What might it fessionals, for members of the legal emphasized the basic tools of the proized how much envy and jealousy can have been like for you if some AA and law enforcement professions, gram and showed me how to apply bring serious harm to both individ- authority was in control of meetings meetings that focus on the basics of them to my iife. Other meetings, uals and the Fellowship. The discus- and decreed that there could only be recovery, meetings that are geared to which went beyond these basics, sion made me look at myself, at the one type of meeting in the area.. . spiritual recovery, or to emotional meant nothing to me. But as I grew in ways in which I was envious of others, and it was a speaker meeting?” Not recovery – all of these, and more, my sobriety, I needed different meetand the ways in which my criticism of too good for me, I thought. exist so that each of us can find the ings, ones more geared to helping me other persons in the program, and of “Is that what the Fourth Tradition help and healing we need. If I don’t become emotionally and spiritually groups, might have damaged them – is about?” I asked. like how a particular group chooses healthy. I expect that, as the years go and me. The discussion was opening “1 think so,” he replied. “As you to bring the message of recovery, or if by, I will need still other kinds of for me a new level of awareness. This saw for yourself, it’s about curbing I don’t like a particular kind of meet- meetings. . .even, perhaps, speaker was a great meeting! I could hardly our power drives, but I think, at a ing (I still don’t get too much from meetings! wait to talk to my sponsor about it deeper level, it also quietly invites us speaker meetings), there are other The Fourth Tradition has made it and about what I had learned about to find many different ways to ex- meetings available to me. I can even possible for all kinds of meetings, myself from it. press our message of recovery.” start any kind of meeting I like with- expressing different perspectives on For a while after that, complaints Until then I had thought that the out having to get permission from recovery, to exist within our vast AA any individual or group within AA. Fellowship. Building on the principle about AA were put on the back Fourth Tradition’s purpose was soleburner, as my sponsor and 1 talked ly to slop something happening. But We all have the same disease; and so of tolerance which “Live and Let about how envy and jealousy had there was a flip side to this. The Tra- the principles that guide our recovery Live” expresses, it makes it possible affected my life and behavior. I t was dition also cncourages something that are thesame. Whatever themeeting or for each of us to find the specifichealthe first time we had ever discussed is a cornerstone of AA’s success in group might be, we share the same ing we need within the Fellowship. the subject because it was the first helping us – the need for different Steps, the same Traditions. We find The program will always meet you at time I had even considered the possi- perspeclives on recovery, for a vari- common guidance from the Big Book, the level of your needs. Because of bility that I suffered from these par- ety of ways for us to find the hcaling from the “Twelve and Twelve,” from the Fourth Tradition, AA makes and ticular defects. wc need. As Bill Sees It. Our groups are united keeps that promise to all of us. In the course of one of our convcr- Speaker meetings, discussion meet- in their commitment to be a healing Jamie C., W.Henrietta, N.X

May 1 9 9 2

Of this subtle vintage may we never And may we reflect with ever deepdrink too deeply. May we never for- ening conviction, that we shall never get that we live by the grace of God be at our best except when we hew – on borrowed time; that anonym- only to the primary spiritual aim of ity is better than acclaim; that for AA. That of carrying its message us as a movement poverty is better to the alcoholic who still suffers althan wealth. coholism:

By Bill W. (from the April 1948 Grapevine) — – Says the old prov- continue, people will commence to erb, “Shoemaker, assert that AA is a brand-new way of stick to thy last.” life, maybe a new religion, capable of Trite, yes. But very saving the world. We shall be told it is true for us of AA. our bounden duty to show modern How well we need society how it ought to live. When you’re un- group into a format that robbed its to heed the principle that it is better to happy with your former upbeat atmosphere. do one thing supremely well than home group, how The meetings alternated between many things badly. should you han- dictatorship and anarchy. After each dle it? Stage a re- meeting opened with the moment of volt? Grumble and silence, the Serenity Prayer, the Premoan? Form a faction and engage in amble, and “How It Works,” the holic, a tremendous responsibility has guerrilla politics? Stay on, even when secretary took up to ten minutes with descended upon us all, an obligation it’s apparent that the group conscience rambling announcements. By then it so great that it amounts to a sacred has left you behind? was 8:20. When the members broke trust. For to our kind, those who None of the above are constructive up into four subgroups, you couldn’t suffer alcoholism, recovery is a mat- Oh, how very attractive these proj- to serenity or good AA. But there’s be sure whether chairpersons would ter of life or death. So the society of ects and ideas can be! How flattering another choice: Quietly depart from be on hand for each one. Alcoholics Anonymous cannot, it to imagine that we might be chosen to the group, and start a new one. Cross-addicts – many of them dare not, ever be diverted from its demonstrate that olden mystic prom- That’s what a dozen or so of us did dropped off at the door by our loprimary purpose. ise: “The first shall be last and thelast five years ago after our longtime home cal rehab centers – were allowed Temptations to do otherwise will shall be first.” Fantastic, you say. group -I’ll call them the Whiz Bangs to engage in grassalogues and cokecomeaplenty. Seeing fine works afoot Yet, some of our well-wishers have – had strayed down paths that we alogues. The treasurer insisted in in the field of alcohol, we shall be begun to say such things. didn’t want to follow. keeping $600or more in cash reserves sorely tempted to loan out the name Fortunately, most of us are con- It was a strong group, with many at all times. and credit of Alcoholics Anonymous vinced that these are perilous specula- longtime sober members. But a cadre Am I describing inferior AA? Not to them; as a movement we shall be tions, alluring ingredients of that of devoted, nonrotating officers, plus at all. The Whiz Bangs had a right to beset to finance and .endorse other heady new wine we are now being of- a handful of my-way-or-the-highway set their own policies. The group was causes. Should our present success fered, each bottle marked “Success”! bleeding deacons, had locked the – and still is – well-attended. But

for a few of us, the former magic was new member – usually hungover and gone. So we quietly split. Sometimes shaking – subjected to an hour of it’s better to switch than fight. preaching by a roomful of old-timers We found another meeting place who think they’re inspiring the new on a different night of the week, and ; guy with details of their own recovery. established a closed discussion group We don’t give out chips or birthday with a bare-bones format. It may not’ cakes. either for newcomers or oldbe mainstream AA, but it seems to timer anniversaries. We hold infrework for us. quent business meetings and short We start at eight o’clock. We close ones, at that. Offices rotate often.’ at nine sharp. We try for fifty-five The set-up person has light duties, As often happens, weekly meeting at a local treatment solid minutes of discussion in be- and for one month only. But if he or we learn the most center. We carry our format and our tween. One way we achieve this is by she doesn’t show, or fails to get a s u b in AA from listen- group’s message to them. From this eliminating nonvital announcements stitute, there is unshirted hell. It’s ing to our newer weekly Twelfth Step activity, our and “How It Works.” happened only once since our meet- members, and my group has grown as some of the alco- We open with the Serenity Prayer ing was founded. home group re- holics in the treatment center join a i ~ dthe Preamble, to which we tack We’re a small group, but we outdo cently experienced a new dimension with us when they leave treatment. on these words: “This group has de- some of the larger ones in the size and of the Fifth Tradition because of it. Our group has benefited in several termined that our discussion will be regularity of our contributions to We have a periodic group inven- ways other than new members. For a limited to AA, alcoholism, and sobri- intergroup, to the General Service tory, every four to six months, so that while, we saw an influx of nonalcoety. We therefore ask that you please Office, and to the church where we we can stay healthy as a group. We holics into the AA groups. Many refrain from references to addictions meet. In some ways we sound hard- . use the Traditions as well as some of of these came to us from treatment, other than alcoholism.” This cuts out line, but our meetings are friendly the questions from the “AA Group” having been told to just go to AA the grassalogues without actually dis- and usually filled with laughter. We pamphlet as our guide. We pick a s e p by well-meaning professionals who couraging attendance by cross-addicts enjoy AA, sobriety, and each other. arate night and spend three or four were not really familiar with what (of whom we have several). After we left the Whiz Bang group, hours checking our group pulse. At AA did and did not do. We have The discussion doesn’t open until many of its members looked on us as one of these inventory sessions, we learned that we were at fault when someone volunteers, loud and clear, traitors. But now some of them are had gotten to the Fifth Tradition this happened. If we do not show up to chair next week’s meeting. The drifting into our meetings, and like when a member who had been with us to explain AA to new people, they chair must provide his or her own it. We have no argument with the for five months or so spoke up. will hear about it from people who do subject. We have zero tolerance for Whiz Bangs or anyone else. We’re “I am confused,” he said. “This not know about AA. the “Does anyone here tonight have a neither the best AA group around, Tradition says that ‘Each group has This simple activity of carrying the problem?” nonsense, which allows nor the worst. but one primary purpose – to carry message out of our meeting room thousands of AA discussion meetings We’re just a small band of men and its message to the alcoholic who still also answered another problem we to be derailed by members who think women who were out of step with an suffers.”‘ He paused a moment, were having. Those of us who have a love spat or burned toast are suit- established AA group, and who elect- then hesitantly said, “I have been at- been blessed by being in AA when able topics. ed to move on.rather than stay be- tending this group recently for five there were plenty of “live” Twelfth We welcome visitors. Same for AA hind and play dog in the manger. The months now, and we have never left Step calls talk a lot about them. Our newcomers, but we don’t devote en- end result was a plus for everyone this room!” younger members now have an inextire meetings to them. You’ll under- concerned. The result of this new member’s haustible supply of “live” Tkelfth stand why, if you’veever seena brand- Anon., Indian Rocks Beach, Flu. wisdom and willingness to participate Step calls. is that our group now sponsors a By regularly showing up at the

treatment center in the spirit of cooperation, we are getting to know the professionals who do deal with problems other than alcohol. When someone shows up at our group who needs help of a different kind from that which we deliver, we can direct them to a person who can help, rather than just throwing them into the winds. This helps us in our effort to stick to taught from the beginning: The Tkaour primary purpose, helping alco- ditions apply to my personal life as holics achieve and maintain sobriety. well as to my group. Just as the pri- By being willing to stick close to mary purpose of my AA group is to our primary purpose, by being willing carry the message, as a member of to actually carry the message physi- AA, my primary purpose also is to cally out of our meeting space, we as carry the message. I may not always a group have made our statement – like the little sacrifices of time and if you attend a meeting at our group, effort, but I am never confused as to you will hear the message of Alcohol- what saving my life by God was really ics Anonymous, and if you watch us, all about. The Twelfth Step and the you will see the message of Alcoholics Fifth Tradition make it clear that my Anonymous in action. sobriety is not only for me – it is for By being a member of a group that you. Thank God I belong to a group participates in the Fifth Tradition as that acts the same way. an activity as well as an idea, I find Don I?,Aurora, Colo.

May 1992

Fellowship, though 1 accepted that as was called to clear the air. In the spirit an organization we had our sins. I of AA, and attempting to face the was most concerned about ego and realities and sincerely believing that power-driving within myself and AAs would do the “right thing,” I made every effort not to abuse the went to the meeting. Prior to the big Fellowship by trying to have every- meeting, my own group held its own thing done my way. 1 was delighted to conscience debate on the subject. support any AA venture that could After much discussion we came to the strengthen our Fellowship. My enthu- conclusion that we were doing the siasm was unlimited in AA. How- best we could and that no one was ever, all this was about to change. being denied access to our group. I come originally from a country However, the general group conwhere the racial majority is a United science meeting – as I had feared – States minority. I refused to discuss turned nasty, with members accusing with AA members why this group was other members of prejudice. There not entering into the Fellowship in the was much pain and hurt. Our memsame numbers as the majority. My re- bers were divided. A few power drivfusal was based on our Preamble. Our ers, believing in the rightness of’their job, I often said, was to carry the mes- position, lashed out and took everysage, period – not get involved with one’s inventory according to their social issues or make social state- own bias. stood in my living room and ness suffered, but since money was ments, though surely we should pro- I couldn’t believe what was hapscreamed that I was quitting AA. not my sole objective, I persisted in vide opportunity for everyone. pening. Charges and countercharges My Al-Anon wife was stunned. She this practice against sound advice. I looked at prejudice as just an- were being laid. Everyone was suscouldn’t believe what she was hearing Living in a small community, I other of our many character defects. pected as a bigot. Newcomers were and all she could do was cry. could really see how AA had an im- It was up to the individual to deal being told to avoid certain meetings 1 had been sober for seventeen pact. I enjoyed being part of AA’s with it the best way he or she knew because the members were prejudiced. years and in that period I had devoted growth, while I watched with a cer- how. Our program deals with it forth- Martin Luther King and Malcolm X myself to AA. For me, Alcoholics tain amount of sadness as the tradi- rightly and honestly in our Preamble were quoted. We had become em- Anonymous was not an avocation tional Twelfth Step call was being by stating simply that we are totally broiled in outside issues. It was hard but a vocation. 1 averaged four meet- made dbsolete by treatment facilities. inclusive. to believe that the older members ings a week and spent many, many 1 also watched with some skepticism I was accused of being naive, of involved couldn’t see how destructive hours in service. My house was often as the God of our fathers was re- not accepting the political realities of this was to the Fellowship. like Grand Central Station – a stop- placed by the therapist. But 1 tried the world we live in. I was told some I was stunned. Then came the reping-off place for drunks. I had no very hard to avoid controversy on members felt they were being discrim- sentment, a resentment so deep that it interests outside of AA and work. I outside issues and encouraged mem- inated against. But I continued to dogged my heels for three years. I had a small business and never lost bers to keep their eye on the ball – the refuse to be drawn into the argument. could not let go of it. I became angry . the opportunity to help the out-of- ball being, of course, the suffering Meanwhile, a few members, not as for allowing the resentment to perwork newcomer by giving him a job. alcoholic. I encouraged cooperation naive as 1 was and well-versed in the sist. But it was as if a light had gone Most of the time, these newcomers with outside agencies. political realities, had their way and a out of my soul. My perceptions of took much and gave little. My busi- I was totally enamoured with the general group conscience meeting AA changed. I found myself at meet-

ings counting the number of people in course, but hidden behind every accuracial grdupings. sation there was a grain of truth and Gone was the enthusiasm. Where perhaps more than just a grain. once 1 was truly color-blind, 1 now At that point I had truly bottomed saw AA in terms of black and white. out emotionally. I had every inten- In their eagerness to prove lack of tion of quitting AA. I didn’t, but it bias, groups started pushing into ser- was close. vice those with a minimum amount of’ Of course I was wrong. But in this sobriety. It no longer seemed to diatribe is a warning, not simply that matter whether people were reason- we must learn to live and let live and ably qualified. The color of their skin that self-pity and resentment will became more important. driveus back todrink. Not simply that I became sicker and sicker. My 1 was not “working my program” group recovered, it always does, but I and that “I was not walking the spiriremained scarred. Consumed with tual walk.” All this is very true. anger, self-pity, and resentment I But how many have experienced slowly deteriorated. I became rigid in similar things? How many of us have the Fellowship. At every meeting I made AA their “whole life”? And harped on the Preamble. But the joy then watched as this life was torn had gone. No longer was AA the apart because we didn’t accept the same for me. “political realities.” How many of us 1 tried to become defender of the have left AA? If there are others out AA faith. 1argued against outside lit- there who are no longer going to erature permeating AA. 1 constantly meetings because of similar goingsreminded members that AA was not on 1 would like you to know that I about the “inner child” or being understand. shame-based. I am speaking to those who gave And I became sicker and sicker. I the Fellowship their best shot, who judged members as I became harsher once believed that AA should stick to and harsher. I lost my business be- its primary purpose of helping others cause I was so consumed with anger to achieve sobriety. and self-pity. I couldn’t sleep. Gone I made a big mistake in trying to was my childlike delight in the Fel- protect our Fellowship. But 1’11 tell lowship. I had finally entered the you straight out that AA needs a few g6~n-u world ~ of “political reality.” champions right now. We mourn the And I didn’t like it for one minute. loss of our extinct species in the world So there I stood in my living room, – AA may one day be among them. 1 screaming, “I have had enough of would urge any of the old-timers to AA!” I let loose with a tirade of all return and hold steady. Keep your eye the anger that had been building up on the newcomer. for years. There were distortions, of Anonymous

May 1992

and sat back down. But being drunk, ing, I had been locked out, my last Part Two I he couldn’t be good enough. Again, they began to escort him to the door. hope locked away from me. It is scary that one alcoholic could I was angry and said he has a right lock another out. to be there. The Third Tradition en- The “Twelve and Twelve” mensures him a place. But they wouldn’t tions “early intolerance based on hear me. This time they locked fear.” I saw a lot of fear that evening. him out. Some didn’t want to see the dirty I was shocked, appalled, and angry. drunk; I guess he reminds them from I was always told that the only re- where they came. Our pride gets hurt quirement is a desire to stop drink- once we’re all cleaned up. The Fifth ing, that “any alcoholic is a member Tradition states that “each group has if he says he is.” I didn’t realize we but one primary purpose – to carry could say “No, not you. You’re dirty, its message to the alcoholic who still drunk, and noisy!” suffers.” I wonder if they felt he wasn’t suffering enough? There were four people who said They told the they had wanted to drink that day.

Are We m n if he After our friend was there none of them had the desire to drink.

I Locked couMn’t be quiet he’d have There were five newcomers that night. All of them were confused. Why do we say that all alcoholics are welcome and then throw one out and to have. They lock the door? I am worried about what message wme louder we carry to the newcomers. Where went to a meeting this last Satur- and so were the other newcomers. I than he was. are our principles? Where is our com- , passion, our tolerance? And where is day night. The usual stuff was said, It’s OK. We need him. happening. You know, hot coffee, To my surprise, the woman chair- our future going to be if we lock the and people laughing and sharing. ing the meeting was angry, along One gentleman told me that if a door on the newcomers? We started the meeting with the with three other people, all four drunk is disruptive then we have a How can we survive, grow and Preamble, a reading, and a topic. with several years of sobriety. They right to kick him out. I thought, How carry out our primary purpose with- 4 Then a wet drunk came in. He stag- told the man if he couldn’t ‘be quiet intolerant. I wonder how many times out the drunks? gered in, found a chair, and pro- he’d have to leave. They were louder we as drunks were disruptive in bars, Will the hand of Alcoholics Anonnounced he was an alcoholic. You than he was. in restaurants, on the streets. Weren’t ymous be there if you or I get drunk? could tell that the man lived on the In a short time the woman and one we disruptive when we were out there? How would Bill W. or Dr. Bob feel streets. of the men got up and escorted the How many times I had come home about locking out a drunk? I thought, Oh this is wonderful. I alcoholic out the door. One of them .drunk, to disrupt my family, neigh- Well, I need to say the Serenity had a new sponsee there first meet- told him to shut up. In a few minutes bors, and friends! I wonder where I’d Prayer! E. L., Council Bluffs, lo wa ing since treatment. She was nervous he came back in, said he’d be quiet, be if, when I came to my first meet-

May 1992

f< “

‘Part Three us. Bill told me to sit in the back seat more, the man was admitted to detox. and that if the guy became violent to Later that night, back at Bill’s put the gag on him. This sounded house, we talked about the experience Our primary purpose is to stay sober okay to me since the guy looked likely and I had plenty of questions. Sitting and help other alcoholics to get sick and I figured I was better at the kitchen table eating ice cream, I to achieve sobriety. off in the back than the front if he asked Bill the point of what we had started throwing up. – done that night. I remember trying to The man insisted that we take him understand the point. To my way of for some breakfast before the hospi- thinking, the man was obviously a tal. He ordered us to drive to a nearby hopeless drunk and I wondered what diner that He knew. The diner was good we could have possibly done . closed, being eight o’clock at night, him that night. What good would but the guy couldn’t seem to grasp another detox do him? What was the

What’s that it was night. He kept insisting point in trying to help him when he that it was eight o’clock in the mor- didn’t seem to want the help? ning. I remembered a time when I Bill explained something that I came out of a bar in Atlantic City, hope 1 will never forget. He told me the having been drinking all day and all that what I had done that night was night and all day. 1 remember trying for me. Helping that guy helped me. to understand how the sun could be It helped me to remember where I Point? shining when I was certain it was still had been and where I could easily go the middle of the night. again if I ever forget what I was, When we got to the hospital, Bill which is an alcoholic. The entire time ne Saturday night, a few months gutter, mumbling to himselfand look- and 1 learned that our new friend was that we were tying to get this guy into after I had come into AA, my ing every bit the still-suffering alco- a veteran at the hospital, having been the hospital, I hadn’t spent a single sponsor called me. He said that he holic. He was dirty and bruised – the admitted to its detox unit some ten or second thinking about myself and my had just received a call from New Jer- aftereffects of a brawl of some sort. eleven times in the past year and a problems. The message became so sey Intergroup and was going to pick The manager of the halfway house, half. The emergency staff flatly re- clear in that instant, the point so true up a guy that needed to go into detox. told us that this man had just been in that I almost cried. Did I want to go and how soon could fused to admit him, saying that: jail for being drunk and disorderly. 1. He did not have adequate insur- It’s been nearly ten years since Bill I pick him up? He still looked pretty drunk to me called me that Saturday night. Over I was excited to realize that this was ance; and having been in that condition 2. He had been admitted many the years, I have had the opportumy first official Twelfth Step call and myself just a few months before, I nity to share Bill’s lesson with many I’d be going on the call with my spon- times before and it did no good; knew that this guy was right on the 3. They would not admit him un- others. Occasionally, I get the chance sor. Bill had twenty years of sobriety brink of being disorderly. to explain to a newcomer the point of then and although I didn’t know less his doctor signed him in. Bill asked him if he wanted to go to 1 certainly didn’t know what to do, helping others, just the same way Bill what to expect, I felt confident that the hospital and told him that if he Bill could handle any situation. but Bill didn’t seem the least bit dis- explained it to me. did, we were willing to drive him. couraged. Somehow he managed to It’s the greatest secret to happiness The man we met was sitting outside Somehow – I guess from twenty find a doctor that would sign this man I have ever learned. I hope 1 never a halfway house. In fact, he was sit- years of experience – Bill was able to in and after many, many hours of forget it. ting half on the curb and half in the tell that the guy was willing to go with Mike A., Red Bank, N.J. waiting and arguing and waiting some

May 1992

111g ILISICS 01 I C C O V C I ~ rall~cr t l ~ a r ~ready b c c ~ ~ rnvc~~led a~~c tlrcl blucp: r r ~ t pseudo-psychiatric jargon. The group handed down to us by the inventors, came alive again. our founding fathers. They also gave It seems to me that when atten- us handbooks for interpreting that dance and money problems afflict a blueprint: the Twelve Steps and group, it ought to start looking be- Twelve Traditions, A A Comes of yond short-range schemes such as Age, and the Twelve Concepts for raffles, dances, or picnics if it wants World Service. A t a recent business meeting of my home group, we were discussing the problems of low attendance range schemes we were coming up with. Her remarks were quickly rejected by the majority: “You can’t . to become self-supporting again. I Rejection of our rotation principle have sat in on business meetings is a factor that can lead to group dewhere the group, in bad financial pression. When group members see and an ailing treasury. My mind ran have a meeting without coffee. No- shape, seriously discussed jointly the same people in office, term after back to other business meetings at body at all would come then.” This, purchasing a public address system term, chances are they will either other groups. despite the evidence of other local with another AA group that used the grow resentful and leave the group One group I was active in was also groups that were serving no refresh- same facility. The group finally de- or they will become apathetic and having attendance and treasury prob- ments but had no empty seats. No- cided that, while it might have been no longer participate. I remember lems. In one business meeting after body would say it but there was no convenient and economical in the one business meeting where a chair another, we would gavel up, gear up, doubt that the group had become short run, both groups would have was about to be reelected to a fifth and groove down into what were es- dispirited. Its leadership was steering run the risk of surrendering part of consecutive term. Timidly 1 asked sentially the very same things we had an on-again, off-again course, thus their autonomy and all of their claim about rotation and was told that nosaid before. I wonder if we could leveling a direct assault on thegroup’s to self-support. body could ever be found to fill the have made any better progress if the unity. Discussion meetings grew lack- A group with attendance and job. Wonder of wonders, that very group secretary had taken notes? But luster and attendance continued to money problems might also review its night somebody else was found. I rein order to get good seats at the cof- drop. Expenses were being met by a meeting format(s). If the group, in its member another group where, every fee shop we had to be there by a cer- small handful of members who were autonomy, offers a topic meeting, election season, the same man would tain hour, so there was no time for on the verge of closing the doors. I such as Steps, Traditions, or begin- propose that at least one member of minutes. hadn’t as yet developed enough of a ners, it might ask itself a few ques- the current slate of officers not rotate The group had already begun to sense of group loyalty, and I regret to tions. Is the topic being discussed by but stay in office for a second term. buy fewer, cheaper cookies. For anni- say that I abandoned ship. both speaker and audience? And is it This, in spite of the fact that rotation versaries we had a cupcake, a solitary Can you imagine with what nostal- the group conscience that meetings was discussed. Was there nobody else cupcake with one lonely candle, re- gia I identified With a Grapevine arti- should be dumping grounds or shar- to fill the job? The reason always gardless of the celebrant’s length of cle, “Keeping the Meeting Alive,” ing grounds? Members ought also to given for ignoring rotation was that sobriety. One dear soul tried to point July 1991? If there was such a thing ask themselves whether they are in the person was “doing such a good out that if cookies had to go, if the as required AA reading, I’d include the midst of a group depression. If job.” But in another group, when anniversary cupcake had to go, if the that article. Like that group in Phoe- the group is lucky enough to have old- there was no candidate for a particucoffee itself had to go, the rent must nix, Arizona, the last determined timers among its membership, it lar job, the officer would rotate out be paid. A ninety-day hold on refresh- members of my old group turned might be wise to ask for their input. It and the new slate of officers would ments, she suggested, would do more their focus on the Fifth Tradition and could also be useful to hold a group pinch-hit until someone was found. to ease the group’s money problems started paying more attention to conscience/inventory meeting. Above Such was the group’s trust in the vital and keep us within the guidelines of members as recovering alkies instead all, the group ought to stop rein- principle of rotation. There are small the Traditions than any of the short- of social acquaintances, and to talk- venting the wheel. The wheel has al- groups, of course, that have a legiti-

mqte problem with rotation. But com- the same as everybody else. I didn’t mon sense, which is the basis for our know about our Twelfth Tradition at Traditions, can suggest to any group the time but the group’s actions spoke how to adapt to the spirit of rotation. louder than words. As I think about my beginnings, in Experience has shown me that any 1960, there was only one thing that group with problems that does not’ kept me coming back: the group’s make use of our Twelve Traditions attractiveness. There was nothing will not get very far in solving them. gimmicky or commercialized about The Traditions were codified for us the group’s activities. People smiled for this very purpose. There is probat me, spoke to me, shook hands with ably not a single group problem tome – a glorious experience consider- day, in any part of worldwide AA, ing my former lifestyle. A feeling of that did not exist fifty years ago in one trustworthiness and permanence was form or another. It is my experience established as I saw the same faces that those groups holding regularly week after week in the audience and scheduled Traditions meetings where in the group leadership. Unpredict- our group guidelines are actually disable behavior, in myself and others, cussed, without getting sidetracked was what I was used to when I was into our private aches and pains, are drinking, but here was the same elect- generally the healthiest and smoothed chair opening the meetings, the est functioning groups around. same elected secretary doing the an- What about your home group? nouncements. Yes, the meetings were Does your group hold Traditions disalways there. They were predictable cussions? If not, this might be a good . because the officers were responsible. time to bring it up at your next busi- 1 became aware, too, that we had a ness meeting – only as a suggestion, celebrity as a group member. As far of course! as I could see, the group treated him W; H., New York, N.Y:

June

Of course, we of AA would be the message, not the place; it’s the talk, not TRADITION SIX first to say that many a fine enterprise the alms. That does our work. Just does a lot of good with a lot of money. places to meet and talk, that’s about all

b To these efforts, money is usually pri- AA needs. Beyond these, a few small An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend mary; it is their lifeblood. But money is offices, a few secretaries at their desks, the AA name to any related facility or outside enter- not the lifeblood of AA. With us, it is a few dollars apiece a year, easily met prise, lest problems of money property,and prestige very secondary. Even in small quanti- by voluntary contributions. Trivial in- Idivert us from our primary purpose. 1I ties, it is scarcely more than a necessary deed, our expenses! Nowadays, the AA group answers nuisance, something we wish we could do without entirely. Why is that so? its well-wishers saying: “Our expenses – – We explain this easily enough; we are trifling. As good earners, we can By Bill W. don’t need money. The core of our AA easily pay them. As we neither need procedure is one alcoholic talking to an- nor want money, why risk its hazards? (from the May 1948 Grapevine) other, whether that be sitting on a curb- We’d rather stay poor. Thanks just the stone, in a home, or at a meeting. It’s the same!” The sixth of our from the material, confine the AA’ Twelve Points of movement to its sole aim, and ensure AA Tradition is (however wealthy as individuals we may deemed so impor- become) that AA itself shall always retant that it states at main poor, We dare not risk the distraclength the relation tions of corporate wealth. Years of expeof the AA movement to money and rience have proven these principles property. beyond doubt. They have become cer- This Tradition declares in substance tainties, absolute verities for us. that the accumulation of money, proper- Thank God, we AAs have never yet ty, and the unwanted personal authority been caught in the kind of religious or so often generated by material wealth political disputes which embroil the comprise a cluster of serious hazards world of today. But we ought to face the against which an AA group must ever be fact that we have often quarreled violent- Time and experi- port from AA groups. on guard. ly about money, property, and the ad- ence proved that a Individual AA members may private- Tradition Six also enjoins the group ministration thereof. Money, in quantity, policy of “no en- ly endorse related facilities or outside never to go into business nor ever to has always been a baleful influence in dorsements” would enterprises, but no group of Alcoholics lend the AA name or money credit to group life. Let a well-meaning donor keep AA’s doors Anonymous ought to lend the .AA name any “outside” enterprise, no matter how present an AA group with a sizable sum open to the greatest to any of these. Why? Because nothing good. Strongly expressed is the opinion and we break loose. Nor does trouble , number of prospective members. There should be allowed to divert us from our that even clubs should not bear the AA abate until that group, as such, somehow are “related facilities” that provide vital primary purpose of carrying a message name; that they ought to be separately disposes of its bankroll. This experience services to alcoholics-hospital wards, of hope to the alcoholic who still suffers. incorporated and managed by those in- is practically universal. “But,” say our treatment facilities, drunk tanks, and Think about it. If AA were to endorse dividual AAs who need or want clubs friends, “isn’t this a confession of weak- clubs-but Tradition Six recommends a treatment center, political party, or enough to financially support them. ness? Other organizations do a lot of that they should operate without en- football team, wouldn’t fans of the other We would thus divide the spiritual good with money. Why not AA?” dorsement, affiliation, or financial sup- team get mad? Has your home group

ever fought about rnoney at its business home group met burned to the ground. meeting? Have you known newcomers but the group carried its message as who were nervous about attending AA usual, I learned that an AA group is meetings i n church basements? more than property. As for prestige, 1 Tradition Six helps keep us from getting have learned that it has a lot to do with bogged down in these types of conflicts. ego, while ours is an ego-deflating pro- It recommends no endorsements. It gram. As long as I don’t get too iniporwarns us not to let money squabbles un- tan1 to serve, I’ll probably be fine. dermine our primary purpose, and en- Money, property, and prestige (like ables us to assure newcomers about the defects of character) are simply part of meeting places of Alcoholics life, but they become liabilities when Anonymous. AA groups are in no way they eclipse my primary purpose of affiliated with the creed, politics, sect, staying sober and helping other alcoholor denomination of their landlords. ics to achieve sobriety. It was personal experience that helped At our Thirty-Fifth Anniversary me grasp the significance of this International Convention, the Declari- Tradition. When I rnet a rich woman tion of Unity put it this way: “This we who couldn’t stay away from the first owe to AA’s future: to place our comdrink, 1 understood that sobriety is more mon welfare first; to keep our Fellowthan money. (I learned more about this ship united. For on AA Unity depend when I was active and happy in the our lives, and the lives of those to Fellowship while unemployed and in come.” debt.) When the church in which my Anonymous, Orncrhu, Nch.

June d r Let’s put the alcohol back in AA Cooperation not affiliation From Camano Island, Wash.: From Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: . Whatever happcncd to physical so- I see people struggling at AA meet- rides to meetings out of town. I was set- bclievc the public information commitbriety? You know that principle ings with the concept of keeping the ting myself up for a relapse. tees of both Fellowships can work towhere you don’t pick up a drink no mat- focus of their discussion on alcohol. I Finally I reached out for help. A gether to help newcomers find a consistter what the reason? Whatever happencd want to share my own experience in the friend suggested that I start attending ent message of hope and ongoing to those corny clichcs that hclpcd so hope that others may learn from my AA meetings again on a regular basis. recovery in either Fellowship. many of us find sobriety? Likc “Onc day mistakes. Since I began recovery I have After reaching an emotional and spirit- NA needs the support of the many at a time,” “Don’t take the first drink come across many opinions regarding ual bottom, that’s exactly what I did. dual addicts who are in recovery in AA. and you won’t get drunk”? Where arc addictions to drugs othcr than alcohol. As my first year of sobriety passed, As for myself, 1 shall continue to supthose drinking storics that helped us My first sponsor was addicted to co- I was attending an average of seven AA port both Fellowships in gratitude. As I form a common bond? Thosc sonic- caine and had not abused alcohol in over meetings and three NA meetings per look back on all the problems I’ve had times funny, often hurting, storics that ten years when he started his recovery. week, and maintaining an active service trying to juggle the two, I see that most t remind us of where we were? Are we all I felt very comfortable with him because commitment in both Fellowships. I was of my troubles were the result of misinso relieved of our discase and restored I was also addicted to cocaine and didn’t told by people in NA that I didn’t need formation. to sanity that we don’t have to, or necd feel that I had abused alcohol as serious- AA, and people in AA told me I didn’t Lct’s take the path of wisdom and use to, share our experience, strength, and ly as I had other drugs. need NA for my addictions to other sub- our past troubles as lessons to’grow by. h o p ? Have we raised the bottom so Many other newcomers in my area stances. I felt torn and resentful to hear K. B. high that many alcoholics now have a also seemed to be like my sponsor and people on both sides trashing the other “social disease” and not that mental ob- me, with problems other than alcohol Fellowship. After a couple of years of session coupled with a physical allergy that needed to be addressed. But, when this, I finally found a new sponsor in that the Big Book speaks of? we started to share in meetings about AA and cut down on my NA meetings It seems like many of the meetings our drug histories, we were told to keep to one or two a month. I go to have becomc a havcn for psy- the focus on alcohol. This new sponsor helped me see chobabble and other forms of self-help. A counselor from the alcohol treat- things in a whole new light. I began to or self-awareness. In all fairncss I have ment center I had been to was very help see how important it is to separate my – – addiction to alcohol from my addictions to admit that I still find somc good ful to me. She suggested that 1 might feel more comfortable at Narcotics to other substances. It was vital for me physical sohricty at thcxc ~ncctings. to focus totally on my drinking to shed But whcrc arc all our tcachcrx? Have Anonymous (NA) meetings. I took her suggcstion and began to attend NA light on any minimizing that I might be all the old-timers dicd, or just run doing and to root out other forms ofdeaway from these type of mcctinps? I meetings on a regular basis. In NA I learned that 1 suffer from the disease of nial. My initial surrender had bcen due don’t know. to my powerlessness over drugs, but Thc reasons wc drank arc not as iln- addiction and must abstain from all drugs in order to recover. deep in the back of my mind I still roportant as the fact that wc drank. So manced a drink. AA’s singleness of pur- Ict’s plcasc put thc alcoholic and tlic al- As the months passed. howevcr, 1 began to slack up on NA meetings. pose was necessary for me to bc ablc to cohol back in Alcoholics Anonymous. finally hear my own story. Lct’s gct thc AA railroad back on tl~c There wasn’t as much variety in meetings in my hometown as I would have The relationship between the AA tracks. Remember thcrc arc literally Fellowship and the NA Fellowship is millions of alcoholics in nccd of our: liked and I didn’t have the willingness to humble myself and ask people for one of cooperation and not affiliation. I help. I: P

July

Anonymous for other than AA pur- thankful if you pay this small obligation ( TRADITION SEVEN ) poses. While there may be little harm in yourselves.” a small friendly loan which your group When reflecting on these things, why really means to repay, we beg you to should not each of us tell himself: “Yes, think hard before you ask the most will- we AAs were once a burden on everydeclinina outside contributions. – )\ ing friend to make a large donation. You body. We were ‘takers.’ Now that we are can, and you soon will, pay your own sober, and by the grace of God have be- – – way. For each of these overhead ex- come responsible citizens of the world, penses will never amount to more than why shouldn’t we now about-face and By Bill W. the price of one bottle of good whiskey become ‘thankful givers’! Yes, it is high (from the June 1948 Grapevine) a month. You will be everlastingly time we did!”

Our growth contin- and doughnuts, he might drop $25.00 a uing, the combined year in the hat. Or if he belongs to a income of Alcohol- club, it could be $50.00. In case he ics Anonymous takes the AA Grapevine, he squanders members will soon an extra $2.50! reach the astound- So the AA member who really meets ing total of a quarter of a billion dollars his group responsibilities finds himself yearly. This is the direct result of AA liable for about $5.00 a month on the avmembership. Sober we have it; drunk erage. Yet his own personal income may we would not. be anywhere between $200 and $2,000 By contrast, our overall AA expenses a month-the direct result of not are trifling. drinking. For instance, the AA General Service “But,” some will contend, “our On Thursday, De- guilty about my imagined deception. At Office now costs us $1 S O per member friends want to give us money to furnish cember 23, 1982, 1 the break my guilt disappeared and ema year [in 19481. As a fact, the New that new clubhouse. We are a new small walked.through the barrassment took its place when the York office asks the groups for this sum group. Most of us are still pretty broke. door of my first AA winning rafflc tickets were drawn. The twice a year because not all of them con- What then?” speaker’s meeting. group also passed a basket for voluntary tribute. Even so, the sum per member is I am sure that myriads of AA voices There in the door- contributions to cover group expenses. exceedingly small. If an AA happens to would now answer the new group say- way. behind a small wooden table which I found that the ticket table I had so live in a large metropolitan center where ing: “Yes, we know just how you feel. hcld a basket full of money and a roll of stealthily bypassed was only selling rafan intergroup office is absolutely essen- We once solicited money ourselves. We tickets, sat an oldcr gray-haired gcntlc- fle tickcts for AA books; they were not tial to handle heavy inquiries and hos- even solicited publicly. We thought we man. “This must be where thcy charge charging admission. pital arrangements, he contributes (or could do a lot of good with other peo- admission,” I remember thinking. My I learned latcr, after reading a copy of probably should contribute) about $5.00 ples’ money. But we found that kind of whole AA experiencc at that point was Dr. Bob und the Good Oldtimers (won annually.* To pay the rent of his own money too hot to handle. It aroused un- two discussion meetings in the prcvious in another group raffle), that AA has group meeting place, and maybe coffee believable controversy. It simply wasn’t twenty-four hours. never charged admission. That book worth it. Besides, it set a prccedent Aftcr managing to sncak in without taught mc a great dcal and inspired mc *At the end of 1990, the annual cost of services per member was $4.49, while the average contri- which has tempted many people to use paying, I found mysclf an cmpty scat to read AA’s othcr literature and to learn bution per member was $3.63. the valuable name of Alcoholics and took it feeling both sclf-satisfied and more about our Fellowship’s history.

Among other things, I learned about the always seem to have their hands out. fisted with my money at other groups I than we spent. I explained the situation spiritual roots of our Seventh Tradition Our refusal of outside contributions \ attend. This is especially true when I at- to the group and made repeated pleas to and discovered that we are self- lends credibility to our Fellowship. This tend groups which are “not spending “go a little heavier on the hat,” but those supporting for two primary reasons. refusal also prevents outsiders from their money right.” And although this pleas fell on deaf ears. The group finally First, we are self-supportingbecause controlling our Fellowship by control- problem is covered in the Sixth moved to a less expensive hall and the we do not understand the principle of ling our purse strings. Tradition, I am especially critical of problem was solved. freely giving when we are new, and the These philosophical observations groups who contribute group money to This incident taught me something Seventh Badition helps to drive home about the Seventh Tradition are nice, non-AA entities such as rest homes. very important about Tradition Seven. I our primary purpose. We can let new- and it is fascinating to learn how our Of course you know who is wrongly learned that while many times we need comers know that we do not care wheth- Traditions have developed, but as with sitting in judgment when I start criticiz- to increase our income, there are also er they contribute financially or not. all of AA’s program I need to ask my- ing any group but my home group. I times when we need to take a look at our Most drunks are immediately suspicious self, “How has this Tradition worked its need to learn to give feeely at all the expenses. We need to ask ourselves, of anyone who is trying to “make a way into my personal life?” groups I attend. Even two dollars a night “Where can we cut our expenses withbuck” at their expense, and through the A few years back, when the General is less than I used to spend on beer. And out losing our ability to carry the mes- Seventh Tradition newcomers learn that Service Conference was discussing the if I really feel strongly about n group’s sage?” In my home group’s case the we arc here to stay sober and to help Seventh Tradition, I became aware that misuse of AA funds I can try to change message was carried just as well in the others achieve sobriety. By keeping the perhaps my single dollar in the basket that misuse, or I can attend another cheap hall as it was in the expensive one. profit motive completely out of our deal- was not enough anymore. Nothing 1 meeting. In serving our area as DCM (district . ings with fresh new AAs; we can more could purchase for one dollar when I got At about one year of sobriety, I was committee member) and later as area easily win their trust. sober in 1982 can be purchased for a chosen as treasurer of my home group. treasurer, I learned another lesson about Second, I learned that by declining dollar today, so why haven’t I increased Shortly afterward we changed meeting Tradition Seven: Sometimes group conoutside contributions we prove our- my contribution? Well, sometimes I halls. The new hall was more cxpcnsive tributions, or the withholding of them, selves respectable to an outside world have. My home group always gets two and each week we barely squeaked by, are an expression of the group conthat has a jaded view of causes which dollars now, but I can still be quite tight- some weeks even taking in less money science. I have seen groups and districts,

unhappy with the way AA affairs were looking at myself I found that I could being handled, which withheld or threat- easily tell my home group, district, area, ened to withhold contributions. I can and even GSO when their spending was think of few more direct or powerful ex- out of line with their income, but I repressions of the group conscience than fused to take the same hard look at my this. Faced with shortages of funds, AA own finances. 1 could speak eloquently service entities sit up and take notice. about AA’s need to be less extravagant And what about my time? Isn’t a do- and to live within its means, but was I nation of my time and services just as living within my means? important as my donation of cash? What No, in fact, I was not. if my home group had money for coffee, This revelation caused me to look rent, and literature, but no one to open more closely at my own financial house the meeting room and make the coffee? and to take steps to put it in order. As What if the intergroup office had money always it is easier to take someone else’s for literature for jail meetings but no one inventory than to take my own, but to take the meetings in? And what about when I started to practice the very prinpublic information. treatment facilities, ciples 1 had been preaching to others, phone answering, and all the other va- my own finances got miraculously more, rieties of Twelfth Step work? These all manageable. require more than just money; they re- 1 find that many AAs associate the quire contributions of time and service. Seventh Tradition only with contribution I need to be as willing to give my time baskets. But in studying and trying to as I am to give my money, for it seems practice this Tradition-not only in my that when AA service is the most incon- AA service, but in my daily life-1 have venient I receive the greatest rewards. learned lessons in giving which 1 might Finally, all those years of fiddling never have learned otherwise. And I am with AA finances have taught me some- sure the learning has only begun. thing about my own financial affairs. In Kreg K., Manassas. Va.

August 19

fcw paid workcrs arc pcrforniing only special services. Let us treat thcm as ( TRADITION EIGHT thosc service tasks that our voluntecrs AA associates, and not as hired help; cannot consistently handlc. Primarily Ict’s recompense thcm fairly and, thosc folks arc not doing Twclfth Step above all, let’s absolve thcm from the work. Thcy are just making more and label of professionalism. better Twelfth Step work possible. Let us also distinguish clearly be- Secretaries at their desks are valuable tween “organizing the AA movement” points of contact, information, and and setting up, in a reasonably busipublic relations. That is what thcy are nesslike manner, its few essential ser- By Bill W. I paid Ibr, and nothing else. Thcy help vices of contact and propagation. (from the July 1948 Grapcvinc) carry the good news of AA to thc out- Once we do that, all will be well. The . .. .. – , , .7..-…,-.- side world and bring our prospects million or so fellow alcoholics who are Throughout the Anonymous is never going to cut its face to face with us. That’s not “AA still sick will then continue to get the world AAs are own lifelines. To a man, we are surc therapy”; it’s just a lot of very neces- break we sixty thousand AAs have altwelfth-stepping of that. sary but oftcn thankless work. ready had. with thousands of But what about’thosc who scrvc us , So, where needed, Ict’s revise our Let’s give our “service desks” the new prospects a full timc in other capacities-arc attitude toward thosc who labor at our hand they so well deserve. month. Between cooks, carctakcrs, and paid intergroup one and two thousand of these stick on secretaries “AA professionals”‘? our first presentation; past experience Because our thinking about thcse shows that most of the remainder will people is still unclear, wc oftcn feel come back to us later on. Almost en- and act as though thcy were such. The 1 tirely unorganized, and completely impression of professionalism subtly nonprofessional, this mighty spiritual attaches to them, so we frequently current is now flowing from alcoholics hear they are “making money out of who are well to those who are sick. AA” or that thcy are “professionaliz- One alcoholic talking to another; that’s ing” AA. Seemingly, if they do take, The great and what I mean. all. our AA dollars they don’t quite belong blessed wonder is The Traditions didn’t come into Could this vast and vital face-to- with us AAs anymore. We sometimes how well most king simply because they seemed like face effort ever be professionalized or go further; we underpay them on the AAs, most places, a good idca, or because AA needed a even organized? Most emphatically, it theory they ought to be glad to “cook” most of the timc set of rules to live by. They were born could not. The few efforts to profes- for AA cheap. are guided by the out of the experience of the early sionalize straight Twelfth Step work Now isn’t this carrying our fears of Twclvc Traditions. First of all, it’s a groups ardnicmbcrs as antidotes to have always failed quickly. Today, no professionalism rather far’? If these wontlcr bcciiusc the Traditions ilrc scl- the problems that threatened their very AA will tolerate the idca of paid “AA fears cvcr got too strong, none but a don1 studied at any depth by most AA existence or merely caused diversion therapists” or “organizers.” Nor docs saint or an incompetent could work for groups, and sccond, because thc dis- by controversy. Thcy really aren’t any AA like1to be told just how he Alcoholics Anonymous. Our supply of tinction between adhcrencc to and di- “rules” but principles, which A A must handle that new prospect of his. saints bcing quite small. we would vcrgcncc from thc AA Traditions can groups and nicmbcrs honor in order to No, this great life-giving stream can certainly wind up with less compctcnt be such a fine line. Anyone who has insure AA’s future. As Bill said, “The never be dammed up by paid do- workers than we need. cvcr heard two “Traditions Iawycrs” Twelve Traditions represent our comgooders or professionals. Alcoholics We are beginning to see that our discuss the “fine points” will know mon consent to conform, and the

:. Traditions. in thc final analysis, arc skills quitc apart from thcir AA mcm- awarc of it-of course, we were frc- me to be an active .member of my own animated by love and the need for bership. On the job, thcy coims~lthcir quently criticized for a lot of other group, to share my experience, , ‘ survival.” clients; in their AA groups, thcy slurre things and were often made acutely strength, and hope with another alco- As with most of thc Traditions, at their cxpcricncc, strcngt h. and hopc. awarc of it! I was paid a salary to work holic, to be grateful to AA for helping face value it would sccm that the Thosc nicnibcrs who arc cniploycd a 40-hour wcck, doing work that I me to find my lifc. Eighth is about as direct and straight. as staff by GSO and by intcrgroups lovcd. to be sure; but no one could pay C . L . B.. Lelund. Miss. forward as one could wish. But, take and central offices fall into yet anothcr a look at AA Cotnes of Age (pagcs catcgory-not “two-hatters,” but AAs 1 14- 1 17) and scc how fraught with paid to do AA work; rlot. howcvcr, misunderstanding thc cmploynient of paid to do Twclfth Stcp work. Bill has AA membcrs has bccn historically, said and written on niorc than onc ocand may still be in somc placcs. casion that thcsc spccial workcrs arc There was it timc, for instancc, paid to do thc work that hc+s niakc when a lot of members fclt that tho$c thc Twclfth Stcp possible; helping in AA members who accepted employ- thc prcparation of bullctins, guidement in AA scrvicc offices, or- lines, films, and litcraturc; making My alcoholic Book. That program has a notcworthy hcaven forbid!-in “outsidc agcn- available materials for PI, CPC. pris- drinking carccr track rccord, so hc saw no need to put cies.” were exhibiting anything but ons and treatment facilitics; corrc- lastcd ncarly 35 togcthcr a custom-madc special- “consent to conform.” sponding with groups and Lone mcm- 1 years. Drinking led purpose prograni as I had tried to do When I was a newcomer in AA, the bers all over the world; coordinating to my bccorning a so often in the past. His idea of carrycontroversy about thosc fcw mc~nbcrs thc annual Gcncral Scrvicc liar and thicf, con- ing thc message was like onc beggar who wore “two hilts” was just bcgin- Confcrcncc, the biannual World I stantly living in fcar of bcing Ihund showing anothcr whcrc he finds thc ning. By thc time I bccamc a mcnibcr Scrvicc Mccting, and thc International out. Uncontrollable fits of boo~ing brcad, not bccorning thcir baker. I of the GSO staff sonic ycars later, it Convcntion cvery five ycars. All of I saw me fircd, jailcd, dishonorcd, suf- Problcms havc bccn constant companwas raging. By now, we’ve lived to scc thcsc are tools for helping to carry thc fering intolerably, going into hospitals, ions, but I havc had a sober and rea- . AA continue to grow and thrive. as AA mcssagc-our Twclfth Stcp. treatment programs, and AA. With a sonably contented lifc since I’ve tried have the other agcncics and facilitics, Thcsc arc scrvices which rcquirc full- fcw variations, I rcpcatcd that pcr- to practice thc AA program to the best so we are more relaxed about each time attcntion on a continuing basis forniancc ovcr and over for about of my ability (cmphasizc tricd). other. that volunteers cannot provide, and as I nineteen years. Ovcr a year of my life Alcoholics arc likcly to enter AA In AA, we are all amateurs, and the they require full-timc scrvicc, thcy was wasted in trcatment because no morc cager to hear advice on how to Twelfth Step can ncvcr be profession- also rcquirc compensation commcnsu- one could see that my rcal problcms straightcn out thcir pcrsonal life than alized. Long before wc had AA scr- rate with the job. To quote Bill again: wcrc a nagging wife, nasty bosscs, how to lcarn to livc sober, troubles and vice offices or “outsidc agcncics.” this “. . . Thosc who labor in servicc for and pcoplc who wcre out to gct mc. all, onc day at a timc. Because we are policy was established whcn the group us are worthy of thcir hirc.” I I My way of asking for help was, “tkrc naturally protcctivc of newcomcrs. a conscience of the early members camc As an AA nicmbcr who was once I am, turkcys, fix me! If you had my growing numbcr of AA members are down firmly against Bill’s accepting also a member cif the GSO staff, I problems, you’d drink too.” just as cagcr to offer explicit advice employment as an AA counselor at ncvcr, cvcr thought of myself as a I sincerely hopc that my final trcat- about resolving personal difficulties. Towns Hospital. Today wc mily hiwc “prokssional,” and I objccted to k i n g mcnt program and AA rcncwal was in In so doing, arcn’t we putting our members who are employed as coun- called that by outsiders. If thosc of us 1978. This timc around I was lucky to work on a scrvicc planc, rather than selors, but they aren’t “AA counscl- at GSO at that tinic wcre criticized for find a sponsor who was strong on the sharing our “cxpcricncc. strcngth, and ors”; their job qualifications involve being paid to do AA work, I was not AA program outlincd in thc Big hopc”? “Working With Othcrs” in thc

fessionalism has a much dccpcr meaning. True professionals are highly cducated individuals such as physicians. – Alcoholics are professors, psychiatrists, research scilike4 to enterAA entists, and others, not mcrcly people who are paid for working. There are m e eager to hear professionals who arc also alcoholics. but the idea of a professional alcoholic advice on how to is far-fetched. In somc AA groups there is no csstra@htenout cape from would-be experts on i11c0holism, sociology, psychology, phartheir personal macology, or you name it. An AA newcomer who innocently asks il l@ than how to question may be inundated with snap learn to live judgment directions and advicc from those well-meaning gurus. A ncwsober . . . coiner has no reason not to regard those unqualified AAs as “pros,” but disastrous results are possible. I won- Big Book states: “We simply do not der where I’d be today if I had fblstop drinking so long as we place de- lowed somc strong advicc that led mc pendence upon others ahead of dc- to seriously consider separating from pendence on God.” I havc been down my wifc. She supported me and paid that long road. Here are key lines from the bills during long periods when I “Whose Responsibility?” in As Uill was incapable of working. After a su- Sws Ir: “an AA group, as such, cannot icide attempt, it was my wifc who take on all the personal problems of its saved my life. And who in AA is qualmembers . . . the solutions of all his ified to urgc another to discontinue problems of living and growing rests taking medicationsa? squarely upon the individual . . . I pray that I will stay humble and teaching and practice of AA’s Twelve not forget that 1 am just a drunk, sober Steps. is the sole purpose of the today through the grace of God and group.” the AA program. Thc next time I Ice1 The first part of AA’s Eighth that urgc to “help” somc poor soul. I Tradition reads: “Alcoholics hope to remember the meaning of Anonymous should remain Ibrcvcr Tradition Eight. I havc much personal nonprofessional . . .” In general. AAs experience to shilr~.but a “learned simply take this to mean that AA is a profcssional” I ain’t, nor do I bake ansociety of amateurs, that nobody gets ot her’s bread. paid for Twelfth Step work. But pro- J d i I.:, Aul~ortr.Ill.

August 1992

Some truths exist forever From Calgary, A h . : I havc been rcading the Grapevine M y honic group recently held some fbr over twenty years; and for the same mini-workshops using material from length of time our “meeting in print” our A A pamphlets to shed somc light has encouraged and inspired me in my on this and othcr topics (most helpful sobriety. was the pamphlet, “Problems Other By rcading what other members Than Alcohol”). It was wonderful to havc been sharing Isee that we arc not scc heads nod and eyes light up when hcing n unique situation in our area. the correct inlbrmation was shared. Nonctllclcss, il is a tlccply disturbing As “old-timers” we mustn’t go unone. 1’111 rckrring to this business of derground to survive. We havc to rc- “a drug, is a drug, is a drug.” We hear main right where wc are, even i f i t things in closed meetings of A A such means bcing in the middle of the as “t he word ul(~)holic~s should be action, continuing to be that quiet, droppcd from Alcoholics Anonymous steady voice speaking the truth in and slrhsltrnce rrDu.sc~r.sused instead order to ensure that when othcr alcobecause it’s all the same anyway.” Or, holics reach out, A A will be there for “It doesn’t mattcr whether you drank them as it was fhr us. or not,’ we’re all hcre to help each When we arc accused of bcing “out other, no matter what the affliction.” . of touch” or hcing a “person of the or “Alcohol never was my drug of past.” we must show our newer mcmchoice.” bcrs that somc truths exist Ibrcvcr; and What about those of us who suffer for this I am responsible. I). H. the disease of alcoholism who don’t know about drugs? What about our singleness of purpose’? I f we as alcoholics don’t preserve the Legacies of Kccovcry, Unity, and Service passed on to us by our co- Ibundcrs, who will? This must be done from within the Fellowship.

September 1992

If, for instancc, an AA group elects really organized or professionalized. TRADITION NINE a sccrctary or rotating committee, if Yet our recovery program has been an area forms an intergroup commit- enormously aided. While important, AA, as such, ought never be organized; tee, if we set up a foundation, a gcn- these service activities are very small butwe may create service boardsor committees cral officc, or a Grapevine, then we by contrast with our main effort. directly responsibleto those thev serve. arc organizcd for service. The AA As such facts and distinctions bebook and pamphlets, our mceting come -clear, we shall easily lay aside places and clubs, our dinners and re- our fears of blighting organization or gional assemblies-these are services, hazardous wealth. As a movement, we By Bill W. too. Nor can we sccurc good hospital shall remain comfortably poor, for our (from the ~ u g u s t1948 Grapevine) connections, propcrly sponsor new service cxpenscs are trifling. prospects, and obtain good public re- With such assurances, we shall lations just by chance. People have to without doubt continue to improve The least possible twang the lyre” at every crossroad oft hc be appointcd to look after these and cxtend our vital lifelines of special organization, that’s world. Millions for drunks, grcat AA things, somctimcs paid people. service; to better carry our AA mesour universal hospitals, battcrics of paid organizers, Spccial scrviccs arc performcd. sage to others; to makc for ourselves ideal. No fccs, no and publicity expcrts wiclding all the But by nonc of thcsc special serv- a fincr, greater Socicty, and, God willdues, no rules im- latest paraphernaliaofsound and script; ices has our spiritual or social activity, ing, to assure Alcoholics Anonymous posed on anybody, such would be our promoter’s dream. thc great current of AA, ever been a long life and perfect unity. one alcoholic bringing recovery to the “Yes, sir,”he would bark. “My two-year next; that’s the substancc of what we plan calls foronc million ~ ~ m e m b c r s most desire, isn’t i t ? by 1950!” But how shall this simple ideal bcst For onc, I’m glad we havc both be realized? Often a question, that. conservatives and enthusiasts. They We have, for examplc, the kind of teach us much. The conscrvativc will AA who is for simplicity. Terrified of surely see to it that thc AA movement anything organized, hc tells us that ncver gets overly organizcd. But thc AA is getting too complicated. He promoter will continue to rcniind us of thinks moncy only makes trouble, our terrific obligation to the ncwconicommittees only make dissension, er and to thosc hundrcds of thousands elections only make politics, paid of alcoholics still waiting all over the workers only make professionals, and clubs only coddle slippers. Says he, world to hear of AA. Wc shall, naturally, takc thc firm – r- * vwc – T.rm, – -T ~r.~wg-ww- I .

“AA, iis such, mat outlining how to conduct a meetlet’s get back to coffce and cakes by and safe middle coursc. AA has ought never be or- ing, and we put it between two sheets cozy firesides. If any alcoholics stray always violcntly resistcd the idea of ganitcd . . .” I n of clear plastic. Along with that, we our way, let’s look after them. But any general organization. Yet, para- fact, AA at lhc havc the Twclvc Steps and Twclvc that’s enough. Simplicity is our doxically, we have ever stoutly insisted group level rc\isrs Traditions cach cncawd in plastic. All answer. upon organizing certain spccicrl w r – o r g a 11 i a t i o n . oL’this is in a I’dc loldcr which is givcn Quite oppvicd to such 1i;rlcyon siai- vicxv; mostly thosc absolutely ncces- There is something at AA’s corc which to whocvcr is chairing the meeting. plicity is the AA promoter. Lcft to him- sary to effective and plentiful Twclfth Ovcr the coursc of timc, thesc . kceps it simplc and truc. In my homc self, he would “bang thc cannon and Step work. group, we have typed up a siniplc for- shccts become worn and coffee-

it was the willingness to help onc an- that humility (rather than power- and within all the Traditions. Those The Ninth T d i – other, the love I saw in action, which served as the real glue that held us tobuilding) was at the center of our ef- holding service positions are the custodians of our AA Traditions; because forts. We learned that even though it twn . . . stun* gether. At first, 1 thought that the group secretary or GSR or Grapevine was more difficult to rotate and con- they do not govern, they do not derive stantly have to move through a period authority from their titles. selflss sem’ce in . representative must be the real bosses of necessary learning, this was good I found some of these lessons rather the group. But then I began to see the cause ofAA unity. ofrotation in action, and I learned the I for the individuals involved and for AA. The service committees learned, easy to learn, but some quite difficult. For those of us raised in a tradition difference between ruling and serving. stained. And eventually some new Rotation is one of the ways we use to member attempts to clean them up, re- make sure we serve and don’t rule, 1 through hard knocks, to do their job well, and they also learned that no one person, or small group of people, which suggests that more and more organization is good-and that authority increases as one’s title gets longer type, organize!-and in the course of and that we don’t get overly orga- needed to stay in particular serving on the door-AA’s tradition of the organization, perhaps add some new nized. I learned that AA on the group positions. Our service structure start- “least possible organization” and rotaideas. But it doesn’t work for long. level might seem disorganized or even ed to hum along with few difficulties, tion (even if this permits some inexpe- Eventually, the new, clean and “orga- chaotic to a newcomer, but this was a and what is perhaps best of all, many rience and even ignorance) was a bit nized” sheets become as wrinkled and temporary condition. If the newcomer people got a chance to serve rather shocking. Could such a structure stay coffee-stained as the old, and the kept coming back. he or she was soon than just a few. intact’? Wouldn’t it finally fall apart? group reverts to its traditional a member of the group chorus saying, This same experience proved true The answer, I discovered, was this: manner-keeping it simple. “Let’s keep it simple,” and “Remem- as I served on the area level. Here we AA is unified and strong, it seems to How attractive and wise did this ber that we are but trusted servants.” needed an effective area newsletter, so me, because we are not organized. We seem to me when I gathered my cour- In such individual freedom is our great we could communicate information of have, first of all, always focused on age to attend my first AA meeting. I strength. importance about recovery. And we the importance, the dignity of the inhad expected some kind of formal ini- Whcn I began serving as GSK and needed working committees: Grape- dividual, and second, we’ve insisted tiation rite-perhaps religious-and then DCM, my education continued. vine and literature, cooperation with that all those serving AA derive their instead I found a group of relaxed peo- Here 1 saw the need for certain kinds the professional community, archives, authority from a loving God expressple sitting in a circle sipping coffee, of service structures. We organized an public information, hospitals and in- ing himself within the informed group actually asking if anyone had an idea intergroup office and needed a part- stitutions, and finance. How could we conscience. or topic. This lack of formal organiza- time paid worker, as well as numerous get those various jobs done so that AA The Ninth Tradition, in summary, tion appealed strongly to me, because volunteers. We set up a Twelfth Step in our part of the country could be stands for selfless service in the cause I felt right away that AA was going to answering service to make sure that an available and unified to those still suf- of AA unity. To move along comfortallow me to be me-in my own crazy AA contact was always available. It , fering under the lash of alcoholism? ably in the Ninth Tradition is to serve way-and was not going to insist that was vital that all this should work The answer again was to create ser- in a spirit of love and knowledge, rec- I accept any views or rules or regula- well: We wanted the hand of AA out vice boards and conimittees directly ognizing that wc need not fear, as Bill tions about drinking or not drinking. to all those who still suffered. responsible to all members in our W. put it, “. . . blighting organization I didn’t know it at the time, but In setting up these services and area. The strong tradition of rotation or hazardous wealth.” AA does in- Tradition Nine was working its spell making sure they worked well, it was serves as a basic spiritual principle, deed have a unique character, and the on me, allowing me to find my own tempting to forget about the principles and the work gets done in a spirit of Ninth Tradition, which appears so way, through sh;~retlexperience and of rotation and just find some good grateful volunteerism. The “organiza- paradoxical at first, is one of the prilove to acceptance and then enthusi- pcople and lcavc thcm alone to do the tion” in the committees is free and mary guarantees of that unique and asm for our AA program. job. How much more difficult it was easy; the idea is to do what is neces- precious character. I discovered that on the group level, to hold on to rotation and make sure sary in a way that seems comfortable Jun I?, Spokane, Wash.

September 1992

y business recently callcd for mc I was truly uplifted by seeing this. to travel to Jakarta in Indonesia. It was like a voice from home. I t re- I checked into one of the town’s top minded me that the Fellowship of hotels. Next morning I found an Alcoholics Anonymous spans thc English newspaper had been slipped earth, that whercvcr I go there arc under the door for me to read before people ready to reach out and share starting the day. their sobriety, and by doing so to give The paper was a sliln thing, eight strength to mine. pilges and a half-page of classificd Thank you, anonylnous twclfthads. 1 looked over the classified ads to stepper in the Jakarta English ncwspasee what the English community was per. Whoever you are, my prayers of selling . . . or buying. thanksgiving go with you for comfbrt- And what do you know? There in ing this tired, lonely, and hungry ulcothe personal announcements I found holic 12,000 miles from honle. this notice: Don A.. Pcoritr. 111.

– . ,September 1992

Responses to May Grapevine From E. Hartford, Conn. : From Lakeview, Ark.: vutside issues? It was great seeing a woman of I read with interest “Are We I went back out there to do more re- From Evanston, Ill. : color on the front page of the May Locked In?” by E. L. of Council search, and my findings were that I By the time I was four )t$larsold, I ‘ 1992 Grapevine. I also truly enjoyed Bluffs. About those “noisy, wet a m an alcoholic and I do belong in was being regularly sexualb mothe article, “When Outside Issues drunks” that come to our meetings, AA and I am so very grateful I was lested. Often, it was don$ vlolently. Creep In.” because 1 can definitely the First Tradition as written in “The given the opportunity to begin recov- During one terrible incident, 1 was identify. While being enrolled in col- Twelve Traditions Illustrated” spclls ering in this program! D. Y. forced to watch another child be molege during my six to eight year peri- out the answer. For E. L., I quotc, lested, murdered, then disflembered. od of recovery, I became embroilcd “Our brother the noisy drunk affords From Korea: I have spent most of my life with no in outside issues. the simplest illustration of this I really appreciated Bill K.’s arti- memory of those events. This overflowed into my AA pro- ,Tradition. If he insists on disrupfing cle, “No Matter How Far Down the One day after one of PY usual, gram. Resentments against institu- the meeting, we ‘invite’ him to leave Scale.” I, too, question if I am a sexually degrading, druoken epltions, people, and places festered. I and we bring him back when he’s in “real” alcoholic. This article helped sodcs, I talkcd with two rccovcring was on an emotional roller coaster. better shape to hear the message. We me see that once again I have the alcoholics and cndcd up an Wen My intellect was stimulated and pro- are putting the ‘common welfare (of lenses of my glasses in backwards, house of thc New Town Alan0 Club duced a vehement self-righteous the group)’ first. But it is his welfare, for I saw the low bottom side only. in Chicago. I have been sober ever anger. too; if he’s ever going to get sober. the Once again your magazine and a fel- since that day. When I was an active wino living group must go on funct&ning, ready low alcoholic has shown me another About six to nine tnodhs aft& 1 in the streets for a period of years, for him.” point of light in sobriety. My story is got sober, my memories began to re- Caucasian, Black, Indian, and During my twenty-one years in the important because nothing of great turn. I hurt, I cried, I wa~tedto run Hispanic all drank from the same bot- Fellowship, I have been a part of significance and catastrophe hap- away, but there was nowhere to go extle of wine to ease our emotional and groups that have asked “noisy, wet pened. But I am still an alcoholic ccpt my meetings. When 1 at spiritual pain. 1 c a m into the rooms drunks” to leave, but as the First and, as I’ve heard and seen, the meetings, somc AA peoplC were very of AA in July 1977 and was greeted Tradition suggests, in most every in- “yets” are still out there if I choose to supportive. Others just eecame siby Hispanics, Blacks, Indians and stance some of us in the group hung drink. K. K. Icnt, and didn’t say anything- Some on to him (followed up) and, if still even visibly took two stcps from Caucasians. We carried the message together of love, hope, and mutual interested, we “brought him back” From Nashville, Tenn.: n1c. respect. when he was in better shape to grasp I found the comments in “Are We Today, things arc much better. I am To regain my sanity during that pc- the message. D. A. Locked In?’in the May issue to be much bcttcr. I cvcn wcnt 10 fhc police r i d of confusion blistering with self- very helpful. I, too, find it very easy about the forty-year-old murder- 1 righteous anger, I got back to the From Chicago, Ill.: to criticize the actions of other mem- was really scared that day? but with basics and let go and let God. 1 again Thank you for the article, “No bers of our Fellowship. thc hclp of an AA meeting. G0d.iWe applaud the person who wrote the in- Matter How Far Down the Scale,” in Perhaps what you and I should do mc courage to do it without taking a spiring article, for we do not walk the May issuc of the Grapevine. I had if a live drunk comes into the meet- drink. alone in AA. I am sober now for a pe- what many people would consider a ing again in the future, is take this I think AA is fantastic. If’s a liferiod of fourteen years, based on a lov- high bottom. I heard some harrowing drunk to the side and twelfth step saver, my lifesaver. I’ve re’f!ized a ing God and loving people of all leads when I first came around, and I him. very important thing call~d singleraces, nationalities, and religious be- rationalized that I didn’t belong be- What are the benefits? I) It will ncss of purpose.” I have a ~ c e ~ f e thed liefs. c. 0. cause I hadn’t had such “adventures.” help me stay sober; 2) It may help the fact that AA is great for keeping me suffering alcoholic; and 3) Everyone sober and for my day to day livingelse can have an uninterrupted meet- but it is not the place I need to 60 for ing. PI F! incest recovery. There are other types of meetings for that.

But don’t get me wrong, if I think I’m having a problem staying sober. I want to be at an AA meeting. If I need to talk about being raped, molested, incested, or whatever at an AA meeting to stay sober, 1’11 do it. I will bc glad to hear whatever anyone clse has to say if it will help to keep them sober, too. But for my all around incest recovery, I need the singlcncss of purpose of an inccst rccovery group or meeting. 11. J

October 1992

Being like other men and women, ue to live, or else many of us and how can we expect to remain forever many of our fellow alcoholics throughimmune from these perils? Probably opt the world will surely resume the we shall not. At length, we must meet bpeless journey to oblivion. That them all. We cannot flee from them, must never be. nor ought we try. If these challenges As though by some deep and comdo come, we shall, I am sure, go out pelling instinct, we have thus far to meet them gladly and unafraid. avoided serious controversies. Save That will be the acid test ofour worth. minor and healthy growing pains, we By Bill W. Our best defense? This surely lies are at peace among ourselves. And (from the September 1948 Grapevine) in the formation of aTradition respect- because we have thus far adhered to ing serious controversy so powerful our sole aim, the whole world regards that neither the weakness of persons us favorably. To most of us, Al- as a movement, a long life and a use- nor the strain and strife of our troubled May God grant us the wisdom and coholics Anony- ful one. ‘lo this end, none could be times can harm Alcoholics Anony- fortitude ever to sustain an unbreakmous has become more vital than our Tenth Tradition, mous. We know that AA must contin- able unity. as solid as the for it deals with the subject of con- Rock of Gibraltar. troversy – serious controversy. We like to believe On the other side of the world, milthat it will soon be as well-known lions have died even recently in religand just as enduring as that historic ious dissension. Other millions have landmark. We enjoy this pleasant con- died in political controversy. The end viction because nothing has yet occur- is not yet. Nearly everybody in the red to disturb it; we reason that we world has turned reformer. Each group, must hang together or die. Hence we society and nation is saying to the take for granted our continued unity other, “You must do as we say, or else.” Some months ago, name out of public controversy? as a movement. Political controversy and reform by a chairperson closed One of the most reassuring things But should we? Though God has compulsion havl reached an all-time the meeting by ask- for me about, being newly sober in bestowed upon us great favors, and high. And eternal, seemingly, are the ing everyone to AA was the sense that my private life though we are bound by stronger ties “remember our was protected. Nobody cared how I of love and necessity than most socie- troops in the Mid- felt about the Vietnam War, or the ties, is it prudent to suppose that au- dle East.” If this had been an open Catholic Church, or anything. All that tomatically these great gifts and attri- meeting, nonalcoholics would have mattered was that I wanted sobriety. butes shall be ours forever? If we are gotten the idea that AA supported the At the same time, AA itself had no worthy, we shall probably continue Gulf War. opinion on any of these things. to enjoy them. So the real question This incident of remembering the Several AA Traditions support this is, how shall we always be worthy of troops during the Lord’s Prayer made sense of privacy. Tradition Three our present blessings? me ask myself: What does Tradition states that the only requirement for , seen from this point of view, our Ten have to do with my personal so- AA membership is a desire to stop AA ‘Ttaditions are those attitudes and briety and what is my responsibility drinking. Tradition Five says our practices by which we may deserve, as an AA member to keep the AA primary purpose is to stay sober.

a Other Traditions support the concept advertisers had a bad influence on the back in the early seventies, we de- older AA member, well versed in of AA staying out of public con- country’s youth by connecting sports cided we wanted AA’s International Traditions, advised the vigilante , troversy. For myself, I can only under- with alcohol. She finally got worked Conference of Young People to be group in this manner: “What if, in stand %adition Ten by seeing how it up enough to say, “It’s up to us to let held in Springfield. To present a bid, trying to stop this group, you accidenis related to the other Traditions. the world know there is a better way we needed to go to Memphis where ,tally involve AA in a public con- In most other societies there are to live and that this alcohol is really the Conference would next be held. troversy?’The people trying to close beliefs, mores, codes of ethics, and evil.” The next speaker picked up the To finance the trip we held dances, down the meeting backed off and the allegiances that the candidate for same theme and developed it further. raffles, and car washes. A few of the meeting itself folded because we saw membership is required to accept as Now, no one for a minute believes elders grumbled. Most were suppor- that we would be breaking AA Trada condition of belonging. Sometimes that Alcoholics Anonymous is going tive. Some experienced service peo- itions if we tied ourselves to the unithese good movements seek public to go on record against alcohol. But ple, including two Trustees, gave us versity. attention and their members receive if we aren’t united about that within invaluable guidance on the ‘helve Around the same time, some of us notoriety. In AA we shun all such AA itself, how can we hope to stay Traditions. were visiting universities as public inpersonal attention; we stay anony- united about it with the general pub- Selling raffle tickets at an AA meet- formation people to inform college mous. What this does for the new lic? ing is one thing. But what if we had students about AA. As it happens, in person in AA (as well as for the whole At another recent meeting, the invited the press to help us promote those days Western Massachusetts , Fellowship) is to give the assurance speaker made an appeal to the audi- our trip? We were all pretty fired up AA took a rather stiff line against that the society he or she has joined ence to support MADD – Mothers at the time and it could have hap- drinking in general, even for nonalwill never be a source of embarrass- Against Drunk Driving. Bill W. says pened. AA members have done more coholic~.Some of the students conment or ever pose a threat to personal in connection with civic responsibil- controversial things in the past. But fronted us with what they saw as a privacy. ity that we have every right to get as because we had the guidance of older one-track attitude toward alcohol and It is comforting for me to know involved with social causes as any and wiser heads, no such foolishness the feeling that AA was trying to that the society to which I have en- nonalcoholic. As a private person 1 , ensued. brainwash them on the subject of trusted my life would never ask me can support any cause I like. But Back in the early seventies a few drinking. to pledge allegiance to anything but when speaking as an AA nrenrher, 1 of us tried to start a young peoples Because we felt unwelcome and bemy own sobriety. Tradition Ten have no business taking a position on group at a local university. One of cause we didn’t want to risk ridicule guarantees my right to think, act, and an outside issue, no matter how noble the conditions for our using the facil- in college journals, we stopped makbelieve any way I choose. It also ex- the cause. ity was that we had to register as a ing this commitment. It would have tends to others the right to live as they What if someone at this open AA student activity and we had to accept been better if we had approached the choose. We don’t want to dry up the meeting had gone away thinking that the university’s coffee, free. Both of drinking issue in a less aggressive world or change other peoples’ at- Alcoholics Anonymous supported these conditions violated several AA manner. But all the same, we knew titudes about drinking or – anything MADD? That person, not knowing Traditions: Seven, which says we are almost instinctively that it was better else. We are not in the business of of our Tenth Tradition, might have self-supporting; Six, which says we to avoid creating a campus conalcohol education or social reform. gone to the papers and in all sincerity do not lend our name to any facility troversy, mindful that college cam- Here are some other examples said that Alcoholics Anonymous was or enterprise. We cooperate with puses are places where debate and which show how easily we can forget promoting this cause. everyone, but affiliate with no one. controversy are encouraged anyway. the importance of AA Traditions. Ar- If AA took a stand for or against Within Western Massachusetts AA All things considered, we felt it wiser riving late at a discussion meeting re- MADD or any other issue, our single- a few service people got upset about to avoid the risk of controversy. cently, I heard the speaker talking ness of purpose would be lost. this and there was talk of approaching The list of possible controversial about the amount of alcohol advertis- When 1 was active with the the university to try to block the at- topics that could be addressed from ing on TV. She was complaining that Springfield Young Peoples Group tempt to start this meeting. But an the AA podium is virtually endless.

d ” It happens now and then that a create a fatal distraction for cvcry speaker will try to tie AA directly to member, new and old.

inion Christianity and to suggest that Al- The fact is that as soon as a new coholics Anonymous itself is a Chris- person comes to AA, he comes smack tian movement. But AA asserts that into direct contact with Tradition Ten. religious belief is a matter of personal It is his guarantee that his private life choice. It’s in the Big Book. It’s in and beliefs are nobody else’s business the Twelve Steps and Twelve Tradi- and that our Society protects these as tions. And like politics and social re- sacred and crucial to AA unity. One of the things often helped to clarify things, both in form, religion is an outside issue that All the same. being human, we I have noticed over my personal and my Fellowship life. could divide AA. now and then get a little off the Tradi- the last few years A few years ago I told a new friend Recently at a meeting a young new- tions track. Occasionally a speaker a – and see as sign about my alcoholism and my memcomer approached me with his Bible will start to wax Christian, or vegetar- of growth – is that bership in AA. She was most inand other religious literature. He told ian, or whole-earth-all-natural. Once I do not have to terested. At one point she asked me that he didn’t need AA because the topic at a meeting was: “What have an opinion on every issue there whether AA lobbied Parliament for he had his Bible. It seems to me that can we do about the ozone layer, now IS in the world. Earlier in recovery 1 things like higher penalties for drunk the first half of Radition Ten works that we’re sober and globally aware?” was quick to have answers for every- driving, and I explained that we did together here with Traditions Three Thank God there were enough experi- thing and was pretty sure what the not and why we did not. Through that and Five. We don’t engage in ques- enced members in the room to get the right course of action would be in any conversation I realized that my distions of a person’s religious or politi- meeting back to AA. situation. I think this attitude was ease and my recovery are not about cal affiliation. And because we don’t, By neither backing nor attacking based on insecurity and on fear alcohol and its availability, but about it wasn’t necessary for me to argue others either personally or in their be- masked as arrogance. It was inipossi- a sick soul that needs healing by a with this fellow about his. Tradition liefs, we are not likely to be attacked ble to say, “I don’t know where I power greater than any human power, Ten gave me the flexibility I needed in return. By not endorsing or oppos- stand on this issue” or “Why would including my own. This recovery is to be a more effective sponsor. Bill ing anyone or anything, we are free 1 have an opinion on this?’As I have available regardless of outside cir- W. says that real tolerance of other to concentrate on the one thing we niellowed as a result of working the cumstances, and that is the only mespeople’s beliefs and lifestyles makes do best, which is to fix drunks. By Steps, I have a less urgent need to sage I can carry to another person us more effective in what we’re trying not promoting schools of alcoholism take a stand on things that don’t con- with a drinking problem. to do, which is just to stay sober and theory or encouraging education cern me, of which there are plenty. It must have been this knowledge carry the message. through church groups or civic’or- It is nice not to have to be God. that prevented the Fellowship in Great What if AA were Catholic, Protes- ganizations, we stay out of alliances AA’s early menibers were aware of Britain from stepping into a debate tant, or Hindu? What if we had dif- and out of the paper. The public the value of impartiality in outside that we had a couple of years ago. In ferent schoolsof AA?The new person doesn’t get confused. And more in)- matters. They knew about the Wash- England, the availability of alcohol would first have to decide where he portant, we don’t get confused. ingtonian Society which, in the has always been governed by strict fit into all this tangle of different Mindful of the “no public con- nineteenth century, started out as a laws – where and when you can buy brands of AA. Then he would have troversy” Tradition, 1 am supported self-help group for alcoholics, had it and where and when it can be to measure up or down to expecta- in my personal recovery and all of us more than 100,000 members at its served. Until recently, pubs had to tions that have nothing to do with are supported two million strong and peak, and perished quickly after get- close every day from 3 P.M. to 5 3 0 staying sober. At the same time, if growing daily in service and recovery ting involved in political issues such P.M. and close for the night at eleven. Alcoholics Anonymous took a posi- because we are united. as temperance and abolition. Then the British government decided tion on any of these things, it would Jim N.,Denver, Cob. In my own time, Tradition Ten has to loosen the restrictions and for

months a debate raged through the one instance, the author, a qualified national press whether alcoholism psychologist, described the benefits and aicohol consumption would in- of the program as “limited” and decrease if pubs were allowed to be open clared that additional therapy (his parall day. Absolutely everyone in the ticular brand, of course) was needed field was interviewed and quoted – for full recovery. except Alcoholics Anonymous. (In any Equally, 1 believe that religion is event, we know that no licensing laws an outside issue. I remember a group could have aggravated or could have where the Bible was read. When I stopped our drinking.) queried this, 1 was told, “Oh, it’s all There are plenty of outside issues. the same thing.” Not to me. I don’t Therapy is my pet hate. To me, speak- like the little that 1 know about Chrisers who share how they stopped drink- tianity, and 1 certainly would not uning by attending meetings and go on derstand my God the way God is deabout how they get well through scribed in the Bible. If a member or therapists or counselors, never even group insisted on reading the Koran mentioning God and the Steps, are in a meeting, 1 am sure that conbreaking Tradition Ten. Also, I have troversy would be inevitable. Our seen books which mentioned the au- unity would be endangered and Alcothor’s membership in AA on the dust holics Anonymous would stop getting covers while the contents described drunks sober. the program in a distorted way. In Eva M . , London, Englatd

October 1992

Forum brought the question sharply newcomer other than create more coninto focus for my group. Of the $212 fusion for him or her. it cost him to attend the two-and-a- Even when we can’t meet our rent half day conference, $150 went to the on time, the AA message is carried hotel hosting the event. at the local meetings, from one al- It takes our group eight to ten coholic to another: not through reweeks to raise that amount of money gional conferences, state convenfrom our contributions, and ours is tions, national gatherings; not through one of the better-off meetings in one projects enabling overseas populaof the country’s poorest states. So we tions to develop programs that are have to seriously question: Whose supposed to be “self-supporting”; and sobriety is served by our paying $150 certainly not through renting rooms to a hotel? As a rule, we would be from hotel chains to insure the comdonating portions of that money to fort of our trusted servants. the local phone service, the state cen- All those big events do contribute ith the national economy in de- Never have I heard anyone suggest cline, I am looking and listen- tral service office, the district, and to carrying the message of AA. But that AA needs to evaluate the ways GSO in New York. with the present squeeze for funding ing more carefully to some of the re- it is spending the voluntary contribu- Our group’s limited funds force us getting tighter, I will vote every time quests for “financial responsibility” tions of its members, with an eye to- ( to make a choice. Where do we put for keeping the money at home, in . coming from the AA service boards. ward cotzserving this limited re- our money? the local group and the state central ‘Escalating rent, printing, mailing, source. Alcoholics seem able to con- Returning from the large regional servicc office, where the resource is and transportation costs. rising taxes. ceive of ever more grandiose ways to ( events staged by upper levcl service corwcrved and meted out in small, and increased use of services are carry the message to every corner of boards, sober AAs carry a visible concrete, countable ways. My vote reasons cited by the AA program to the world, with these schemes predi- glow acquired in contact with other goes to local use – where one alcoholsanction requests for more money. cated on other people – in the mem- hopeful, farsighted, sober people like ic can shake the hand of another. sit This comes at a time when most bership – picking up the tab. This themselves. But 1 have yet to hear a down, and share experience, strength wages are frozen. the value of money strikes a clear resonance with that report about one of these events that and hope. That’s what I call putting is declining, and many people are rehab a bunch of AAs once opened has changed the way a meeting oper- my money where my mouth is. without income altogether. in Middleton that we read about in ates or that has done anything for a Ernie S . , York, Me. During business meetings and dis- Tradition Four. cussions of our Seventh Tradition, One of the lessons of that chapter I’ve heard members propose the two- of AA history was that too many dollar donation and suggest that the drunks were focused entirely on sowell-heeled among us might come up bering up other drunks and ignored with a five or a ten, maybe even write proper care of their own sobriety. The a check now and then – anonymously intentions were good. But the means of course – to balance the books. The were not suited to people addicted to ‘ message is always single track: A A ego-feeding propositions. needs more money to carry the mes- An after-the-fact request from our sage. In other words: We don’t have group’s GSR to repay his expenses enough. We need more. for attending the Northeast Regional

October 1992′

Risking displeasure From Los Angeles, Calif.: Many, many thanks for the May issue and for addressing alcoholism. I personally know many members who are of a mind to make AA stand for “Anything Anonymous.” I have been present at meetings (both open and closed) where nonalcoholics are even encouraged to share whatever they like, such as marital or financial problems, having nothing to do with the disease of alcoholism. It is very confusing to newcomers who are thus deprived of their time to share, and who lcavc a mccting with no more hope or untlcrstanding than when they cntcrcd. Whcn thcsc situations arise, I try to remind thc secretary of Bill W.’s warning against our becoming all things to all people. The secretary usually tells me to “go to another meeting.” But I still continue to risk displeasure, and I do so because I don’t want to go to Anything Anonymous – I want and need Alcoholics Anonymous. A. M.

October 1992

There are no Mdances ally dilute our singleness of purpose. From Eureka, Calif.: I’d like to see the Grapevine as a As a long-time reader and fan of leader in maintaining the message of the Grapevine, it saddens me to have our Traditions rather than allowing to write with a complaint about a re- them to be subtly eroded. B. M. cent article. I am referring to “The Girl in the Red Dress” in the June 1992 issue. When it was previewed in the “Coming Attractions” section in the May issue, I was concerned, but decided to wait and read the article before commenting. While the message that the Higher Power can speak to anyone at anytime and in any place is a message certainly worth sharing, it was the reference in the article to “an AA dance” that troubled me. I was eminded of the Traditions Play and its references to “AA poker.” While it is true that dances are held at many conferences, conventions, round-ups, and other AA gatherings, referring to “an AA dance” seems to me to be one more way that we casu-

October 1992

Outside issues? From Oyster Bay, N.Y.: A few years back, during a plan- From Portsmouth, Va. : ning meeting for the annual South I have been sober in AA for over in the program. His full name and East New York (SENY) Convention, 33 years. I attended my first AA con- picture were used in the flyer put out ference at Meridian, Mississippi in to make him the “draw” for the conthe chairperson read a letter from a 1958. I attended the first Louisiana ference. No surprise, the attendance member who wanted SENY’s permis- State Conference in 1959. Over the at his presentation broke all previous sion to run a booth at the convention. years I have attended state, regional, records for this state’s conference. At the booth, the member wanted to national and international confer- Both men made no secret of their stasell an assortment of bumper stickers, ences. I have participated in putting tus as far as recovery or sobriety is t-shirts, coffee mugs, coins, and the on conferences and on one occasion concerned. like. A very heated discussion folserved as chairman for a state confer- My questions about this type of aclowed. The committee was very much in favor of replying with a letter citing ence in a large midwestern state. tivity related to our AA sponsored functhe Sixth Tradition and rejecting the Some time ago I attended a state tion would be related to the Traditions, request. Before that could be put to conference that had one thing that I concerning anonymity and lending the a motion, however, a member of the had never experienced in any of the AA name to outside enterprise. L. R. committee reminded us of the Fifth conferences I attended! and Tenth Traditions. We were re- There were two items on the pro- From Islip Terrace, N.Y.: minded that a group’s primary pur- gram that were different. One was the There have always been many opinpose is to carry the message to the fact that one of the speakers was a ions in AA – from herbal tea to alcoholic who still suffers. Every- fairly well-known local physician. He twenty-minute meditation before and thing else is an outside issue. The is connected with the field of chemi- during meetings – and there have alcommittee then decided to form no cally dependent treatment and em- ways been different factions in AA. opinion on this issue and no formal ployee assistance programs. They had It has been my experience, howresponse was issued. this man’s full name listed in the pro- ever, that outside issues can be reason- As a positive footnote to this story, gram. The other unusual thing was ably settled without a policy or docthe member who wanted an “official” that the main speaker on Friday night trine, but with love and compassion, booth at the convention instead sold was a nationally known minister as- when a group of alcoholics sit down his merchandise from a privately sociated with a very well-known treat- sober together. M. O. rented room at the convention site ment facility to which he lends his hotel. P. c. name and time. His full title, name, and address of the facility were listed

November 1992

praise, that it is better to let our friends recommend us, and that our whole public relations policy, contrary to usual customs, should be based upon the principle of attracttion rather than promotion. Shot-inthe-arm methods are not for us – no press agents, no promotional devices, k no big names. The hazards are too . great. Immediate results will always 2.. I ‘

By Bill W. be illusive because easy shortcuts to L – .:. Cfrom the October 1948 Grapevine) notoriety can generate permanent and *- smothering liabilities. .t- Providence has want his liberation enough. Hence, More and more, therefore, are we :. U’

7; . been the looking public after our messages through public channels rela- have never been seriously discolored, emphasizing the principle of personal anonymity as it applies to our public 6 tions of Alcoholics nor has the searingbreath of prejudice relations. We ask of each other the g 5 Anonymous. It ever issued from anywhere. highest degree of personal responsi- 6′ can scarcelv have Good public relations are AA bility in this respect. As a movement \%een t. otherwise. Though we a k more lifelines reaching out to the alcoholic we have been, before now, tempted &than a dozennyearsold, hardly a syl- who still does not know us. For years to exploit the names of our wellh 4 -1able of criticism or ridicule has ever to come, our growth is sure to depend known public characters. We have been spoken pf AA. Somehow we upon the strength and number of these rationalized that other societies, even <-havebeen’spared all the pains of meda lifelines. One serious public relations the best, do the same. As individuals, i c a l or religious controversv and we calamitv could alwavs turn thousands we have sometimes believed that the of us could easily transfer the valui * have good-fiends both wei and dry, away fiom us to pehsh – a matter of public use of our names could de- able name of Alcoholics Anonymous {.*right and left. Like most societies, life and death indeed! monstrate our personal courage in the over onto any enterprise or into the ? we are sometimes scandalous – but The future poses no greater prob- face of stigma, so lending power and midst of any controversy. ;$. never yet in public. From all over the lem or challenge to AA than how best conviction to news stories and So it is becoming our code that , .-world, naught comes but keen svm- to preserve a friendly and vital rela- magazine articles. there are things that no AA ever does”, ‘ :. pathy and downright admiration. our tion to all the world about us. Success But these are not the allures they lest he divert AA from its sole purpose T* :-friends of the press and radio have will rest heavily upon right princi- once were:Vividly, we are becoming and injure our public relations. And > $outdone ,themselves. Anyone can see i ples, a wise vigilance, and the deepest aware that no member ought to de- thereby the chances of those sick on& . $.that we in a fair way to be spoiled. personal responsibility on the part of yet to come. ‘9,, 1 scribe himself in full view of the gen- $r.%Ourreputation is already so much bet- every one of us. Nothing less will do. eral public as an AA, even for the To the million alcoholics who ha& : ter than our actud character! Else our brother may again turn his most worthy purpose, lest a perilous not yet heard our AA story, we shouldb,’1 %.’. S w l y these phenomenal blessings face to the wall because we did not precedent be set which would tempt ever say, “Greetings and welcomei :-must have a deep purpose. Who care enough. others to do likewise for purposes not Be assured that we shallnever weaken %doubtsthat this DU&& wishes to let So the Eleventh Ttadition stands so worthy. the lifelines which we float out to ‘ k every alcoholic-inathe world know sentinel over the lifelines, announc- We see that on breaking anonymity you. In our public relations, we shall: . that AA is truly for him, can he only ing that there is no need for self- , by press, radio, or pictures, any one God willing, keep the faith.” b

ing silver name-tag was obviously so clean and neat, and for doing’su running the meeting, and she was ver- a good job of keeping our mess bally beating up a guy who was sitting focused on AA principles and speak*

raction Rather ip the center of a circle of thirty ing within our own experience. He? people. She did all of the talking – also told us that we made him fed; about this poor guy’s problems and proud to be an AA member. Then he?, what he should do. I didn’t like it, went on to relate some of the prob-i. and told her after the meeting that lems he’s had with other visiting AAsb I’ve never attended such a weird AA trying to sound like experts on al-A meeting and that I wouldn’t be back. coholism and recovery, looking like. She explained that the meeting wasn’t hobos, using foul language, and hus$ intended for outsiders but only tling his clients. This experience con* When I called AA our egos and personal ambitions out for patients. Certainly, the meeting firmed the need for some simplej for help I was for- of the process? Are we familiar with should not have been included in our guidelines regarding our appearance; tunate to get a all three of our legacies? Do we speak directory, and whoever listed it was language, and sharing of experience,j classic Big Book the language of the heart – simply obviously uninformed about our ?fa- strength, and hope when doing this$ Tbelfth Step call and honestly sharing our experience, ditions. Lucky for me, I knew some- type of lbelfth Step work. 24 — Erom Floyd 0. and strength, and hope, or do we get car- thing about AA because I had a good I got more insight into how AA is: S ~ o Bb~ T h e ydid it by the &k; there ried away and act like self-appointed sponsor who helped me to understand perceived by others a few summers’: $ w q no lecturing or asking me ques- AA spokespersons, counselors, or what AA was and what it wasn’t. In ago after our International Conven-; :. tions about my drinking – no pressure teachers determined to “give it to addition, my home group was a good tion, as my wife and I stood in line: ,.,to get me to do anything. They simply ’em” whether they want it or not. It solid Big Book AA meeting, and we on Seattle’s waterfront waiting for! :and hdnestly shared their stories with may be good for us to think again also discussed our lbelve Tkaditions. our harbor cruise boat. We were chat4 ;.me without trying to impress me: about our Eleventh Tkadition of attrac- I knew what a good AA meeting was, ting with a vacationing couple from3 sharing how their lives had changed tion rather than promotion, and how so I didn’t have to make a decision Michigan about why we wen! in* % for t h e h t t e r since being in AA, and it affects our unity. for or against joining AA based on town, and they told us how impmsedj g&how : withoutthey were getting along now How critical is a newcomer’s first my experience at that institution’s they were with the big crowd of P A ! drinking. I was also told why exposure to AA? When I was about meeting that day – as some other and Al-Anon members visiting from’ they were there – to help themselves six months sober, I was looking for newly sober persons there may have all over the world. They asked us iG i@stay . sober. I was, hooked; I wanted a daytime meeting and found one had to do. some of the special name badges the$ a5.what they had. Their lbelfth Step call listed in our intergroup directory. It I recently heard someone at a meet- saw, adorned with pins, medals, and$: was a .’good example of attraction was a meeting held in a local hospital, ing say that we may be the only copy ribbons, officially designated our 4″ rather:than promotion, and it really and it didn’t take me long to realize of the Big Book that many people officers: Was it something like dis4 worked for me. that this was not the kind of meeting will ever see, and it reminded me of playing our rank and length of s e w i d ;. :.Are,,we,-as members of Alcoholics I was used to attending. First of all, an experience 1had one evening after by chevrons and hash marks as in t h d : Anonymous, as attractive as we could nobody welcomed me; they didn’t three members of my home group and military? We briefly shared with t h e d be to newcomers and to the outside read the Preamble or “How it Works,” I had finished sharing about our AA about our Traditions, and tried to ex; . community? How do they perceive and most people there didn’t intro- experience at a local treatment center. plain that our structure consisted only! ourl’kelfth Step efforts – as attraction duce themselves as alcoholics. Sec- The facility’s director asked for us to of trusted servants with equal status; or as pmmotion? Do we carry the AA ond, a big domineering-looking nurse meet with him in his office. First, he as c o m p k d to the conventional ty* message of hope to them and keep in a starched white uniform and shin- warmly commended us for looking of hierarchy in most other organiza;

$p. :- -,t~ons’–and besides, the “special” em- members who want it. And the com- : bellished name tags only indicated a munity, for the most part, views AA : member’s home state and possibly as an attractive and well respected Felother conventions they’ve attended. lowship with a long and successful The experience made us aware how track record for helping drunks. Howeasy it is for others to erroneously ever, we can always do better, and it perceive AA by the seemingly inno- has to begin with me. I can become cent actions of a few of us. We are more informed about all three of our reminded in our Twelve Steps and legacies, admit that I don’t know it Our Eleventh Tra- was approved. Is it provocative withllvelve Paditions that “it is more than all, talk less and do more, be more dition is as humb- out being inflammatory?Can the recia denial of self-seeking.This tradition open minded, be a better listener, ling as the Seventh pient relate the information to their is a constant and practical reminder more honest and unselfish, more will- Step is. Designed profession, or will the letter end up that personal ambition has no place ing, grateful, patient, tolerant, and with the future of in the circular file along with the rest in AA.” loving. And it is most important for AA in mind, this of the junk mail? Does it say what Most of us know that there are no me to keep trying to carry the message Tradition is what keeps us from over- AA is and is not, without making such things as professional AA speak- to the suffering alcoholic. stepping our bounds and jeopardizing claims or judgmental statements? ers, counselors, teachers or managers, And if I do these things more often, the Fellowship with flights of ego. These and other questions were mulled but the average person unfamiliar I’ll be doing my part in practicing the Much has been said about the fine over and changes were made until at with AA doesn’t know it – including Eleventh Tradition of attraction rather line we as AAs walk when speaking last we had a letter we could send. some of our uninformed AA mem- than promotion. Finally, if I re- before agencies that request informa- Then of course came the debate bers. So, I’ve got to remember not member to keep it simple, and try to tion about AA. When I was involved about even sending letters at all. The to give them reasons to believe we practice all of our Traditions every with the Cooperation with the Profes- point was made that we shouldn’t are something,thatwe’re not. It seems day, I’ll be a better person and a more sional Community (CPC) committee send any letters to agencies that deal easier and more attractive to just keep attractive AA member without the for Eastern Massachusetts, we had a with alcoholics as a third party. it simple and do what I know how to need to promote. Our co-founder, Dr. practice session at each monthly Wouldn’t that be promotion? The o p do best – to share my experience, Bob, talked about the simplicity of meeting to help committee members posing argument was that no, it would strength, and hope, and to learn as the program. He said, “Let’s not know what to say and how, or how not be promotion as long as we let much as I can about all three of our louse it all up with Freudian com- not, to say it. the agency reach out to us after receivlegacies, but also to admit that I don’t plexes and things that are interesting Great care was taken not to cross ing the letter. In other words, no folhave all the answers. And perhaps it to the scientific mind, but have very the fine line between attraction and low-up phone calls or other mailings would be good for me to try and put little to do with our actual AA work. promotion. Sometimes, it’s hard to were to be made. We had to let who- I’ the brakes on my overachieving Our %elve Steps, when simmered tell. For example, our CPC commit- ever was interested in learning . more ways, relax and try to be just an ordi- down to the last, resolve themselves tee did an informational mailing to about AA come to us. nary AA member without the need to into the words ‘love’ and ‘service.’ emergency room nurses. The purpose In my personal life, I’ve learned – impress others with how much I’m We understand what love is, and we of the letter was to give a brief synop- what not to do when speaking to the doing for AA. understand what service is. So let’s sis of AA and explain how to contact public – via the mistakes I’ve made Alcoholics Anonoymous is still bear those two things in mind.” us. We spent almost a year’s worth doing it. Besides being a recovering attractive to newcomers and to all Ken Y., Minneapolis, Minn. of monthly meetings debating the alcoholic, I am also a Person With tone of the letter. Every word, every AIDS (PWA), and I am active with sentence was examined carefully, and the local AIDS service organization changes were made until the letter here in Boston. I go on speaking com-

k – .J * !$liitmeits~for the organization in draw the line? . so much. I had to explain the lladi- message are the ones that are least. much the same way as I do for AA I solved my problem with my tions to her and why they were so expected. I was hospitalized recentlx commitments. But I try to keep the speech by simply stating that I was a important, and why what I had done with an AIDS-related condition. The: two messages separate from each Person With AIDS and also a recover- was such a mistake. I’m not sure she nurses were intrigued by how I had other. When I do a commitment for ing alcoholic. That’s all. Since there really understood, but at least I got stayed sober for seven years in spite AA, I stick to AA. When I do a com- is, after all, more than one way to her to delete what I said. I wanted to of an AIDS diagnosis. I pulled out mitment for the AIDS service organi- recover, I figured that was enough be sure that if the tape was used to my meeting list and gave it to one of zation, I stick to living with AIDS statement to make. It was important train other PWA speakers (many of the nurses. “Here,” I said as I put the and what that’s about. Yes, the lines to me that people knew I was in recov- whom are in recovery), I would be list in her hands, “This is how I stay get blurry sometimes, because my re- ery; how I recovered was not the setting a good example. sober. One day at a time.” covery from alcoholism and my sur- issue. For good measure, I checked My favorite ways of carrying the Consuelo F., Weymouth, Mass. viving with AIDS are closely in- my speech over with the secretary of tertwined, but usually I am able to the Public Information committee. As keep the focus on what I’m there for, far as I can tell, I didn’t break any 5 nothing more, nothing less. This summer I had the privilege of Traditions when the big day came. I’ve also paid the price for some speaking before a crowd of 25,000 blunders I’ve made while making my people at the annual AIDS fundrais- AIDS commitments. One time in par- The Message, : ing walkathon. When writing my ticular was especially embarrassing. speech, I couldn’t decide how to in- I was speaking before a group from troduce myself. I knew enough not city hall, and the event was being to say, “Hi, my name is Connie and videotaped as a training tool for t h ~ I’m a Person With AIDS and a AIDS service organization I was rep- Not Me member of Alcoholics Anonymous.” resenting. The tape was not for broad- “No! Not me!” levels. But I wasn’t sure how to say what I cast to the public at large, but it was was my instant re- True, “No! Not me!” was (and am without being obvious. I re- a video film nonetheless. The audi- action to hearing often is) my reaction to much about member reading a letter in the ence knew my last name. I must have the message on my my experience in Alcoholics Anony: Grapevine some time ago that said been out to lunch that day because phone machine mous – to much about my alcoholism that even if a member says “I’m in a my opening statement, on camera, from our local in- itself: I wasn’t an alcoholic (never twelve-step program for alcoholics,” was that I was a Person With AIDS tergroup: a writer for a national mind that both of my parents were, then that member might as well be and a grateful member of Alcoholics women’s magazine was looking for that I’d been having blackouts for saying they’re in AA. And merely not Anonymous! (Teflon brain: nothing AA women to interview -if I wanted years, etc.); I could control my drinkusing one’s last name is not enough sticks). Of course I realized my mis- to talk with her, here was the number ing, with just a little mon? will power justification, either. There are those take immediately, but it was too late. to call. I just automatically decided (except that I couldn’t). I didn’t need celebrities (of which there are more I had to wait until the event was over to refuse because I’d gotten so sick AA! Until I did. and more these days) who, when on to talk to the person doing the tape of what has become the “recovery in- I knew about AA because I wrote camera or in print, don’t specifically about the huge blunder I had made. dustry” and the media attention to it; books and articles that dealt with it. say they’re in AA, but imply that they It took me a bit of haggling back and of the silly, inaccurate articles and I knew it worked: it had worked for are by using the slogans or other forth to get her to erase !he error from self-serving books; and of the big and my father. But a lot of it didn’t apply clues. Sometimes it works, but some- the master tape. She obliged me, but not-so-big shots who broke their to me. I wasn’t crazy, or sick; I had times it doesn’t. Again, where do we she didn’t understand why it mattered anonymity consistently at very public my teeth and a place to live; I had

always taken good care of myself. I my, skills available. (‘The fact that promote. If possible, one does that to say. At their suggestion I read about understood, of course, that there were what brought me to AA was the immi- subtly, by making it look like “attrac- the Eleventh Tradition. a lot of things yo11 needed: you needed nent loss of that profession escapcd tion” – by, for instance, putting a tes- Bill wrote that “100 percent perto keep it simple, to take it easy, to me temporarily.) timonial for one’s product or service sonal anonymity before the public is work your way slowly through recov- So you see that by the tiliie the in the mouth of somebody famous. just as vital to the life of AA as 100 ery. I could manage my life quite well. years had rolled around to thc nio- It’s the opposite of anonymity. percent sobriety is to the life of each thank you. All 1 had was this drinking ment when I heard that phone rnes- On the other hand, as time went and every member.” Serious stuff. He problem that had gotten out of con- sage, “No, Not me!” was actually a on, I realized that these celebrities also wrote that “nothing can matter. trol. I knew that AA could help me sign of progress: Because, fortu- didn’t only get sober – they some- more to the future welfare of AA than stop drinking (though 1 had no idea nately for me and for AA, 1 had set- times got drunk. That’s what PR the manner in which we use this colhow) – and that was all I wanted. tled into a Traditions-minded home people call bad press. Not only that, ossus of communication. Used un- I gave no thought to wanting to be group with a Traditions-conscious, but as I got more sophisticated in so- selfishly and well, the results can surhappy: that was okay for you, too. service-oriented sponsor. And whcri briety, it began to occur to me that pass our present imagination.” Un- Maybe I didn’t even know I was un- after a few years I became a GSR and there might even be a connection be- selfishly and well: could I do that? happy. but I was – miserable, in fact. read (in one of those “inadequate” tween their public anonymity breaks When all else fails, read the instruc- In agony. pamphlets) that I was a “guardian of and their subsequent slips. After all, tions. Tradition Eleven itself says, And though I was happy not to be the Traditions,” I really took thcrn I know my own reaction to getting “Our public relations policy is based drinking any more. 1 wasn’t happy seriously, and decided that perhaps I praise from outsiders for my on attraction rather than promotion; with a lot about AA. The Steps I didn’t have to fix something that ob- “strength” and “willpower” in staying we need always maintain persona! would follow well enough to pass viously wasn’t broken. sober. What an invitation to grandios- anonymity at the level of press, radio, your tests. The Traditions made little Before the twelve-step recovery ity! One might almost feel cured. and films” sense, but I could scc that they were programs of all sorts becan~ebig busi- And, when other writers have – in There are’two parts there, and it important to yoic, so I would be polite ness and hot news a while back, my view – begun using their sobriety seems to me they add up to more than about them. As for your “literature” though. I was of two minds about AA to get best-sellers, I’ve been startled the whole. To “attract,” the message and publicity materials – well, to be publicity. On the one hand I don’t by my rage. Only part of that right- must be carried. To protect me. AA, polite, they didn’t ring any bells for know if I would have found my way eous indignation derived from envy; a d the suffering alcoholic, the mesme. to my first AA mecting if the fi)lks the rest, I honestly feel, was a sign sage must be carried anonymously. Then something did ring a bell loud who pushed my dad into the program of progress as to how precious had In carrying it “unselfishly and well,” enough to awaken me to the fact that hadn’t read about it in the press, or become the program and its princi- I become not “me,” but a “power of AA meant something more to me than if famous people hadn’t made public ples. Challenge tradition? Not me. example”: I can not only spread the a self-improvement project. This was testimonials. Whatever the sources of my mo- word about the program and about hearing someone explain: The Steps Sure, I could understand that tives, of course I shouldn’t talk to anonymity, but 1 can also demot~strate were there to protect me from booze; anonymity was the foundation of the that reporter! Not me. Or should I’? the principle of anonymity by practicthe Traditions were there to protect program – that’s what helped people Think think think (those slogans ing it. I need to keep the “me” out AA from me. That rang bells because feel safe enough to conic in. Easy to apply to me now, too). In another of the message. I’m the type of drunk who, from her see that. (The “spiritirul foundation” sign of progress, I didn’t just act on Who, me? Yes, me. I could – and first meeting, knew some better ways only began to make sense much later.) my initial urge. Instead, I did some I probably should, especially because for AA to operate. Tale thosc publica- 13ut this kind of press attention was other things I’ve learned to do (often of what I do in my life “outside” AA, tions: I already had plans to improve such ;I good draw! Public relations is despite myself): I talked to my spon- which has providcd rcgular expcrithem. After all, that was my profes- one of the ways I’ve pieced together sor and others with experience to ence in both interviewing and being sion, right? You were lucky to have a living, ‘and in PR, one wants to share – and listened to what they had interviewed. Is that being what Bill

. called a “power-driver”? Not if I fol- context – is conversation. From the December 1948 Grapevine low the guidelines of the lladition And how did her article on “women and just say no if the writer presses in A X turn out? Okay. I guess – but beyond its boundaries. “Anonymity is humility at work,” Bill wrote. Besides, if I didn’t talk with this reporter, I could never again justifithat’s really none of my business. And because I kept “my business” out of it, it was a success in terms of AA and the Traditions. on ‘Statement ably complain about the poor quality It was also a success for me be- By The Trustees of The Alcoholic ~oundation,Inc. of press coverage of AA! cause, like every other kind of AA So I called, and I’m glad I did, service, it brought an unsought gift. Meeting in regular to disregard the wishes of the movebecause the interview was a success: In the midst of some miscellaneous session, the trus- ment as a whole. In some of these not a success as in bigshotism, but questions, the reporter suddenly tees of the Alco- instances the general public does not an AA-style success. I kept my asked, “Are you happy?” holic Foundation realize that the alluring temporary anonymity, for one thing. The writer And I, just as suddenly, answered, [now the General benefits of personal publicity must be seemed to completely understand this “Yes .” Service Board of ignored by us in favor of the longnadirion, and respected it. She didn’t I surprised myself because, you Alcoholics Anonymous] issued to term benefits of anonymity. even ask me what 1 did for a living, see, I’m the kind of glass-half-empty whom it may concern the following “So, if you are an AA member, or and she asked me how – and if – I’d drunk who’ll tell you everything statement regarding “Anonymity,” a friend of Alcohdics Anonymous, like to be identified. (I also had a that’s wrong with my health, love and the use of the name Alcoholics we earnestly request your personal chance to practice my humility by not life, work, finances – and forget the Anonymous: cooperation in helping to maintain a suggesting better ways for her to con- important part: I’m sober. Just as, in “The practice of anonymity in our worldwide policy of anonymity at the duct her interview!) I was able to help the beginning (and sometimes today), public relations already has had a pro- public level as expressed in the “Itadione of what Bill called “our friends I’d tell you everything that’s wrong found effect upon us, and in the years tions of Alcoholics Anonymous. in the press” to tell our story for us with the program and the people in to come it will undoubtedly remain “Our relations with the general and to clear up some aspects of it it and take for granted the most impor- one of our vital Traditions. public should be characterized by perwhich she didn’t understand and tant fact: It works. The rest is, indeed, “We would like to take this oppor- sonal anonymity. We think AA ought which (because of what I had learned conversation. tunity of thanking the press, radio and to avoid sensational advertising. Our from my group, my sponsor, and my When the interview ended, the re- motion picture companies of the na- names and pictures as AA members service experience) I was able to porter thanked me. “Thank you,” I tion for the splendid job they have ought not to be broadcast, filmed, or explain. responded, as my sponsor had ex- done and are doing to respect our printed publicly. Our public relations It also seemed that in researching plained early on was the appropriate Tradition of anonymity. should be guided by the principle of “women in AA,” her focus was more thing to say to anyone who had al- “Occasionally, there occurs a break attraction rather than promotion. on “women” than on “AA,” more on lowed me to perform a service. in this Tradition; the name or picture There never is need to praise ourfeminist issues, self-improvement, For it was a service, to AA, and of an AA member may be publicly selves. We feel that it is better to let and relationships than on freedom to me. And alone in my kitchen, I printed, or he may speak or be spoken our friends recommend us! from the agony of alcoholism. As a felt the flow of what Bill called “the of by name in a radio interview. The “Finally, no person is authorized woman in AA, I could tell her that spiritual energy that moves us along responsibility for these regrettable, to speak for Alcoholics Anonymous, what’s important about the program the road to full liberation.” Energy, sometimes sensational, situations nor, obviously, should anyone introis that it keeps me sober. The rest – yes; freedom, yes. And with it – hap- may rest with the AA himself. There duce, publicly, the AA name into his be it personal growth or personal pro- piness. Yes, me. are no rules or regulations that can own personal affairs or controversy nouns removed from their historical Sara G . , New York, N.Y. bind him to the “Itadition if he chooses at the public level.”

November 1 9 9 2

What’s an open meeting? From West Germany: If you would please ask your readers (and writers) their thoughts and feelings concerning open meetings. The pamphlet says open meetings are open to anyone interested in alcoholism and AA, and that sharing should be confined to recovery from alcoholism. Some people think that open nicetings should be open to alcoholics and other “twelve steppers,” and subject matter can be anything as long as recovery through the Nelve Steps is part of their program. C. G .

December 1992

amateur status. Tradition Nine asks to other causes. that we give up all idea of expensive Tradition ‘helve, in its mood of organization; enough is needed to per- humble anonymity, plainly enough mit effective work by our special ser- comprehends the preceding eleven. reminding us to place principles before personalities. vices – and no more. This Tradition The ‘helve Points of Tradition are breathes democracy; our leadership little else than a specific application is one of service and it is rotating; of the spirit of the ‘helve Steps of our few titles never clothe their hold- recovery to our group life and to our ers with arbitrary personal authority; relations with society in general. The By Bill W. they hold authorizations to serve, recovery Steps would make each indi- (from the November 1948 Grapevine) never to govern. Tradition Ten is an vidual AA whole and one with God; emphatic restraint of serious con- the ‘helve Points of Tradition would1 One may say that he may speak in the group con- troversy; it implores each of us to take make us one: with each other and anonymity is the science. Tradition Three requires that care against committing AA to the whole with thC world about us. Unity spiritual base, the we exclude no alcoholic from AA fires of reform, political or religious is our aim. sure key to all the membership. Tradition Four implies dissension. lladition Eleven asks, in Our AA Traditions are, we trust, rest of our Tradi- that we abandon all idea of cen- our public relations, that we be alert securely anchored in those wise pretions. It has come tralized human authority or govern- against sensationalism and it declares cepts: charity, gratitude, and humilto stand for prudence and, most im- ment. But each group is’enjoined;to there is never need to praise our- ity. Nor have we forgotten prudence. portantly, for self-effacement. True consult widely in matters affecting us selves. Personal anonymity at the May these virtues ever stand clear beconsideration for the newcomer if he all. Tradition Five restricts the AA level of press, radio, and film is fore us in our meditations; may Aldesires’ to be nameless; vital protec- group to a single purpose, carrying urgently required, thus avoiding the coholics Anonymous serve God in tion against misuse of the name Al- our message to other alcoholics. pitfall of vanity, and the temptation happy unison for so long as he may coholics Anonymous at the public Tradition Six points at the corrod- through broken anonymity to link AA need us. level; and to each of us a cdnstant ing influence of money, property, and reminder that principles come before personal authority; it begs that we personal interest – such is the wide keep these influences at a minimum scope of this all-embracing principle. by separate incorporation and man- In it we see the cornerstone of our agement of our special services. It security as a movement; at a deeper also warns against the natural temptaspiritual level it points us to still great- tion to make alliancesor give endorseer self-renunciation. ments. Tradition Seven states that we A glance at the ‘helve Traditions had best pay our own bills; that large will instantly assure anyone that “giv- contributions or those canying obliing up” is the essential idea of them gations ought not be received; that all. In each Tradition, the individual public solicitation using the name Alor the group is asked to give up some- coholics Anonymous is positively thing for our general welfare. Tradi- dangerous. Tradition Eight forswears tion One asks us to place the common professionalizing our ‘helfth Step good ahead of personal desire. Tradi- work but it does guarantee our few tion l b o asks us to listen to God as paid service workers an unquestioned

reading and discussion of the Tradi- fix it” got marked results in my retions, and seemed a pleasant enough lationships, on my job, and with my academic exercise. From the text slowly recouping fortunes. Giving we’d ferret out the AA solutions to the program that saved my life half getting people to communicate and a chance to work without getting my work together toward a common eternally finagling mind mixed up in goal. Most of the Traditions appear it seemed both fair and firmly resultsto address this end very practically, oriented (the suggestion was from my though I had doubts for years about sponsor). limitink our finances solely to the sup- Much against the deep strain of my port of people like myself. self-will, I kept most of my sharing The very word – Tradition – sug- at meetjngs short and supportive of “Anonymity is the fine on problem number one – the gested to my defiant mind something the parts of the program that I underspiritual founda- fact that I could not control or stop long overdue for reconstruction, like stood. I kept to myself the criticisms tionofallour’lkad- my drinking by my unaided will “religion,” “public education,” or and suggestions for change I knew itions.” Always the Monday-morn- – power. I accepted that all those veovle at meetings didn’t want me td drink “Christmas.” Having had some schooling in group process, I was the meetings and internal structure of AA would greatly benefit from, inn quarterback, I again, any more than they wanted to pretty sure I’d be able to diagnose though I occasionally shared them ‘ often wonder that &eSlast isn’t the themselv&, and that this made it pos- and remedy the hidden reefs on which with my bemused, monomaniacal first of our, Traditions. Others point sible for me to not pick up a drink local meetings had run aground over sponsor. In response, he would out frequently that the ‘helve Steps one day at a time. issues of drug use, specialized mostly shake his head and remind me and ‘helve Tfaditions were put in a The mental obsession with drink- groups, distribution of funds, sale of to just keep coming back. I definitely particular order intentionally and ing haunted my quirky brain waves non-program books. My agenda was qualified for lifetime membership, he cmfully. But the question returns to for a solid two years. During this time taking shape. told me many times; I’d have plenty this self-and-head-centered sober al- I discovered – in several moral inven- However, two things my mind of time to change things. coholic: to suit whom? tories – that what had come easy to couldn’t quite get hold of: this busi- So I watched from the sidelines for I So I replay my acquaintance with me I had never dearly cherished. My ness about one ultimate authority for a few years. I saw decisions being the Paditions – think the quibble Higher Power was not about to make our group purpose (Tradition ‘ho), made by the three, four, or five people through, so to speak. As with the the same mistake again – squandering and the rather obscure allusion to our willing to stay for a business meeting , American political system or the bank sobriety on me the way he had a few spiritual foundation of anonymity after a regular meeting attended by where I parked the little savings and talents (fun but unprofitable) and (Tradition Tbelve). That stuff fifty. And then see that that handful large debt I had left at the end of my some narrowly focused intelligence. sounded about as clear and concrete was mostly talked through a voting drinking, I saw many ways AA could My Higher Power made certain that as finding a pot of gold at the end of process by one informed, but somebe made more effective. I knew that sobriety came hard, and that I the rainbow. I would have just as soon times willful and angry, person. it would be my job some day to prop- noticed. I invested all my money – if I had had Sometimes that person was me. erly apply the scalpel of constructive I attended a Step and Tradition any – in a firm of novice astrologers. What, maybe God could find only criticism. That had always been my study group at least once a week from But my sobriety was invested en- three, four, or five people tuned in to job. That I was self-employed and the beginning of my recovery (eight- tirely in the AA program and the Fel- the higher frequencies that night? Was largely out of work at the time didn’t and-a-half years ago, for any of you lowship, from which I’d learned a everybody else home watching) the dent my assurance. fellow quantifiers out there). The first little bit of patience, if only by faking playoffs? Maybe God didn’t go in for But I had to admit AA worked just part of the meeting was devoted to it until making it. “If it works, don’t mandatory ,attendance, like in gym

class? Maybe a few of us did the chin- Walkmans. My daily reflections book hold on to understanding. I’d not yet the local level, I am astounded at my ups, push-ups, and four laps for the and revised edition of the Big Book begun to hear or hum along with the former desire to be a mover and rest of the group? (with socially-politically aware and language of the heart that is more shaker. That was a time, I see now, I mean, so where’s the group con- gender-neutral grammar) would often the medium of exchange at that anything beyond staying away science? And without that, where’s abide, well-thumbed, next to the tra- meetings, sometimes even at business from a drink for one day was mostly I the loving God? And with God at the ditional war horses churned out in the meetings. Getting goosebumps and a pipe dream. I may have needed playoffs or driving home the babysit- good old days of white, middle-class, feeling chills running up and down some sort of fantasy to buoy the realter or on vacation, what do you get male presumption. There was a future my spine while listening to my story ity of my daily struggle with my disinstead? for me and AA. I intended to leave being told through someone else’s ex- ease. You get me. I have lots of ways of my signature somewhere before soar- perience was not yet a measure of my Mindful of that, I am grateful that fixing things so they run better. Only ing off to the great intergalactic own reality. My feelings, my consci- the founders of AA were guided to I’m not as naturally disposed to cloak- roundup in the sky. ence, and my sense of serenity had protect the program from the influing my handiwork in mystery or coin- I know you will be relieved to learn no voice, no vocabulary, no trust. ence of the individual, particularly incidence. that I’ve changed my mind and my This changed too – with time, con- dividuals like me. At a recent meet- TI\Ho or three years of sobriety ways about a few things since then. tinued sobriety, service work, others’ . ing, a person shared a relevant quote hadn’t nudged my sense of grandios- I credit myself at least with clutching patience with me, and the will of a that, naturally enough, he’d heard ity one whit closer to remission. some slight perception of hope, how- loving God as it is expressed through somewhere else: “The lladitions pro- Some day, I knew, I’d be a big-time ever badly distorted it was by infantile our group conscience. tect you from me.” I wrote this down AA circuit fpeaker like the ones I’d imagination. Today I see that, given I’ve been a GSR for over a year, immediately on the blank page oppoheard at the sports arena meetings. a clear mind, an old attitude, and the a job in which I find myself both site Tradition One in my Step book. My first name would be up there too best of intentions, I could be very bad singularly ill-suited and ill-tempered. And then I added, “They also protect – in the breathless reverent corona of for your health and welfare. I Monthly district meetings are an unre- me from me.” every newcomer’s pink cloud. My re- My first mistake – one I grapple mitting test of what maturity I’ve At inventory time, I admit that I covery tapes would be wedged perma- with still – was assuming that only gained from the program. Being in a would still like to tailor the Traditions nently in auto cassette players and through my mind could I absorb and practical position to effect change at to my own neuroses by rearranging

the ‘Ibelfth Tradition as the First – work better for me than anything I’ve today – and as it did in the early years about my drinking career. Sixteen the one I need to be reminded of right been able to come up with. of Alcoholics Anonymous. years of sobriety, excellent recomat the outset of every encounter with Hope springs eternal from the ad- In my early years in AA, I read a mendations, and training to the docthe AA program. This admission mission of my ignorance and incom- lot. I read “Why Alcoholics Anony- torate level did not convince the board floods my heart with laughter and petence. I’ve surrendered to the re- mous Is Anonymous” by Bill W. and to reconsider my application. I was gratitude for the fact that, together, sults I see all around the program Harry Tiebout’s “When the Big I Be- still a drunk in their eyes. It hurt, but members of AA have been wise and from other people simply letting go comes Nobody” from early Grape- I tried to keep one foot in front of the vigilant and providential enough to and trusting what has worked so well vines. Both articles helped me to see other – spiritually. ensure that this will never be left up so far. the need for “ego deflation at depth.” Today, I am superintendent of to me. One more thing. Anybody out there I was aware of the dangers of egocen- schools in my community. During the However mysterious the decision- looking for a service job with power trism, the bondage of self. I began to interview with my present board, I making process was among that odd and status? As soon as I get somebody feel the need to mix in, to be one tried to sell myself as a professional collection of oversensitive, childish, to take mine, I’m going back to mak- among many. educator first. Thereafter, I revealed grandiose, and sometimes angry egos ing coffee and shaking hands. I was a schoolteacher when I came my history and my membership in that put the ‘Raditions together, they Anonymous, York Harbor, Maine to AA. It didn’t take too long for my AA. With this board, it worked to my principal to see the beginning of credit, but I still remembered the sting change in my life. He became curi- of “Something has come up.” ous, and when he asked what I was My anonymity continues to be an doing, I told him I was going to AA. important check on my character de- He was cautiously enthusiastic. He fects. I share my sobriety willingly remembered how often he had given as my Higher Power leads me. I have his “the-next-time-your-name-is-in-enjoyed helping colleagues who have the-papers” warning. lost their licenses come to AA and My professional career has im- regain their professional standing. proved as I have been restored to san- (My name,got on a list of helpers ity, though it didn’t happen without through a break of my anonymity.) soul pain and ups and downs. I look forward to the day when my ‘ I have also felt the lash of stigma. two business friends see each other In a recent profes- his anonymity at the public level. My feelings were hurt when I lost out at a meeting and the three of us can sional training That evening, as I was reviewing in the last stage of an interview proc- enjoy coffee and laughter in the meeting, I had my day and feeling grateful, I decided ess. I entered the room for my final “meeting after the meeting.” goosebump-rais- to reflect on my personal experiences interview with the school board and It will come in their time, not mine, ing emotions when with anonymity andTraditions Eleven the chairman said, “Something has as the spiritual foundation allows. I realized that of and Tbelve. come up.” I knew they had learned Jim H., Coquille, Ore. the six people in the room, three of Early in my sobriety, my personal us were members of Alcoholics anonymity was very important. Even Anonymous – but the other two AAs though my name had been in the paper didn’t know it. They know each other a number of times for alcohol-related in the business world – but not in offenses, the fear of stigma and dis- AA. As it happens, they go to differ- crimination still worked in my mind, ent meetings and each man protects just as it works in newcomers’ minds

Detour – – – – – -. —

Whenever I hear the newspaper and TV reporters. of a public ano- Presently, every few weeks, there nymity break I re- began to appear features, with picmember the man tures, about the young police officer I’ll call Dack. It is who was trying so hard to help these . my.d e e ~conviction that Dack’s death was, to a great unfortunates. All the articles showed photographs extent, the result of breaking our of Dack, in uniform, reaching out a Eleventh Ifadition. There’s no way hand to an agedlperson, or squatting to prove this – that Dack might have on his heels in conversation with a been alive today, still loving and giv- group of homeless. Each time, proming in AA, had he observed the Tra- inently mentioned, was the fact that dition – but I believe it. Dack was a recovering alcoholic. And I never knew Dack, except in the always, always, the Gories stated that level of press and television, surely an essential part of a story that can way all alcoholics in AA know one he was a member of AA. , there were people in his group to ex- help the people he wants to help, and another, knowing that we have the All this was wonderful human1- plain it. therefore justified. I’m also consame fears and despairs and hopes. interest material. Dack became some- Although I didn’t know Dack per- cerned about the effect of all this . He didn’t visit my group nor I his. thing of a celebrity, was asked to sonally, it was not hard to find AA celebrity on Dack. On the Eleventh But I knew about him, as everyone speak at civic clubs, and was prob- members who did. I talked to a ten- Tradition thing, we’re still trying to ‘ did who could read the newspaper or ably the most widely recognized I

years-sober member of Dack’s home convince him, but Dack’s pretty busy watch the local news programs on officer on the force. Soon he was hon- group. now, and isn’t making many rneettelevision. ored as Police Officer of the Year. “You’re not the only one who’s ings.” He was a man in his thirties, a uni- As a long-time member of AA who womed about Dack!” he exclaimed. ~t was nbt so very long after this formed police officer, and a recover- profoundly believes that observing “I’ve talked to him about the ano- that I caught the first rumor that Dack ing alcoholic. To the homeless, the the Traditions is of vital importance nymity Padition. His sponsor has was drinking again. As always, when alcoholics, and the derelicts in the to AA and to every AA member, I too. He’s only been sober about three such a rumor reaches me, I hope with shabbier sections of our city Dack worried about the situation. If Dack years, you know, and doesn’t grasp a sick dread that it isn’t true. In the , showed endless compassion and con- himself did not pnderstand why he the importance of Traditions as we case of Dack I hoped with unprececern. “These are my people!” he told should not break his anonymity at the do. He sees his AA membership as dented fervor. All that publicity, all

that celebrity, the recognition, and the drove his patrol car into the police is to conceal and protect its members. One day my friend burst out, “HOW honors were entirely built on the prem- garage and parked it. He sat there, If I am reasonably sure that they do you deal with this ‘no secrets’ busise that Dack was a recovered alco- thinking, for a while. No one knows will not broadcast the information to iness?” holic who stayed sober – a member for how long. Then he took his service the media in violation of our Tradi- I had to ask her what she meant. of Alcoholics Anonymous. If Dack revolver from its holster, turned it to tions, I have told the people I mingle “Oh, you know, all this ‘You can’t didn’t stay sober, everythingcollapsed. his chest, pulled the trigger. He died with frequently that I belong to Al- have secrets. You have to come out And how bitterly, cruelly hard it instantly. coholics Anonymous. Recently one with everything.”‘ would be for Dack, after all the pub- As I said, I cannot prove that of these people was drawn into the “In Alcoholics Anonymous,” I licity, to go back to his AA group and Dack’s breaking of the Eleventh Tra- counseling sessions of an alcohol- said, “I’ve never had to deal with anyaccept the help he had to have. Espe- dition had any direct bearing on his abuse treatment program for a family thing like that.” cially when he must feel he had let death. Perhaps, under any circum- member. She talked to me rather freely “Don’t you have to get up and tell AA down doubly, first by breaking stances, he could not have handled about her reactions to what went on all – about what you did when you nadition Eleven, then by drinking what must have seemed to him the in group therapy at the hospital. were drinking?” again. In the turmoil of his mind, utter disgrace of drinking again. But I was interested in the reactions of I laughed. “Not all, if I don’t care would he realize how very much they I think he might have had a chance my nonalcoholic, intelligent, and to. In fact, not anything – if I don’t wanted to help him? of making his way back to a long, only minimally neurotic friend to the want to. Only what I’m ready to tell, , A few days later the answer came, full, and useful life if he hadn’t loaded kind of psychological therapy being when I’m ready.” in the daily paper and on the televi- the scales against himself with the administered to her relative. I had “What about that Fourth Step – and sion news. Dack had indeed been anonymity break that seemed to him missed getting any professional help ‘admitting to yourselves, to God, and drinking again, for some days. Quite so harmless – even so desirable – at by simply plunking myself down in to another human being the exact naa few people knew about it. The night the time. an AA meeting and not taking the ture of your wrongs’?” before, wearing his uniform, Dack Elizabeth E., Tulsa, Okla. first drink. “It doesn’t say anything about a She had naively assumed that be- whole bunch of human beings. Of cause I was an ardent AA member, course, if you like spilling your guts and since the treatment center, they to an audience, it’s OK. We’ll listen,

I Our said, was AA-oriented, I must be fa- probably with avid fascination. But , miliar with the type of emotional and the ‘other human being’ can be anymental education going on there. She body you choose, even someone you mentioned confrontations, for in- will never see again.” My friend’s resentment of this “no

Protective Mantl stance, where you come right out and tell your loved ones – in front of other secrets” approach lingered in the people! – how they have really made wings of the stage that is my mind you feel. I had to admit to her that I until one day it connected in a flare have, once or twice in small meetings, of recognition with what I knew about witnessed somebody break down and the reasons for our becoming anony- My thoughts about psychological handicaps as egotism tearfully or angrily tell somebody else mous in ‘the first place. It was worse anonymity have and greed. I have occasionally been off. But ordinarily we AAs just sit fifty-seven years ago when Bill and usually empha- surprised to find that in the minds of there with calm but intent faces, lis- Bob started AA; but even now the L ‘5 1 sized – its thera- many members of Alcoholics tening without interruption to what- people who come to us for help are. peutic value in ~ n o n ~ m o uthe s chief function of ever wisdom or nonsense a given ashamed, afraid, asking the same old contrdling such anonymity – nay, its only purpose – speaker is lavishing upon us. questions: How could this have h a p

pened to me? What must other people are facts about yourself which you =I think of me? deliberately keep “secret,” nobody in I

Today, as then, we invite those new- AA really cares. That’s your business. comers to crawl under the warm tent And it’s better that bay. With all of anonymity with us where they can your secrets safely shrouded in ano- , be seen only by the eyes of those who nymity, we get to know who you have felt the same incomprehensible really are – aside from your worldlv demoralization that they are feeling accomplishments or faiiures, your ~- I We don’t even ask their names. If they nancial status, your checkered past. wish, they can make one up, just so We get a chance to get acquainted we’ll have something to call them by. with what, for lack of a better word. Most of us are basically courteous I’ll call your soul. people. In my twenty-five-plus years Let usguard against too much leak- I am a recovered when I got out. I was demoted at in AA I have rarely had my privacy age in our protective covering of ano- alcoholic with work and transferred to a beginning violated. We seem to know by instinct nymity. There are only two words in five-plus years of job on a closed ward of a psychiatric that prying into one another’s per- the name of this Fellowship to which better living in this hospital. I had no staff, no title, sonal lives is taboo. We accept that we belong. The second word, “anony- program. Ano- nothing but a day-to-day job to do. if you want us to learn more of the mous,” defines us. No other method nymity is the But I had my sobriety. I healed and details of your private affairs you will of treatment for our disease uses this spiritual foundation of the program I did good work with the patients. tell us. rigorous discipline. It is part of what and in order for me to live without Anonymity was important to me be- It can be a matter of days, weeks, gets and keeps us well. Please don’t the degradation, fear, pain, broken cause my ego is a !arge part of my months, or even years before we di- play fast and loose with this magnifi- 1 relationships, and suicidal ideation I character defects, and I was tempted vulge our surnames, addresses, job cent weapon against our disease. have to live by the program that you to tell those court-committed alstatus, or family affiliations. If there Bernice M . , Los Gatos, Calif. people and the Big Book give me. I coholics’ how I was doing so well in am licensed to practice my profession AA. But I did not. in this state, nationally certified, and The director of a treatment prowas deputy director of a mental health gram asked me to come to work as a center when I was lying on my front clinical director to get the program step at 2:00 AM, desperately sick and certified and on a sound basis. I listrying to die. It was then that I did tened to my sponsor before accepting what was absolutely the most unlikely a supervisory position. I decided if I thing in the world, something that could stay in my clinical role and not seemed more painful than dying: I allow my ego to get into control istold myself that I would go to AA sues, then I could do the job. and just listen. I didn’t know then Not long after I took that job, my that I had taken the First Step. anonymity was broken by some pai I did go to AA and I did listen. I tients who had seen me at meetings did the things that were asked of me. and told other patients. The word I was so physically debilitated that I spread and sometimes when I was in wound up in a hospital-based treat- a position to address large numbers ment program but came back to A.4 of patients, someone would ask me

{< ‘

to tell “my story” – how did it work the field of alcoholism. for me and what could they do. As I am a hopeless drunk and nothing honesty is a part of the program as good comes of my life when I drink. well as anonymity, I would admit that I was an alcoholic and would share my experience, strength, and hope. But it was not long before I told my sponsor that this was no good. To stay sober I have to make that 180 degree turn in my life and live by the R e l v e Steps. I admire those who have grown enough that they can work in the field of alcoholism, who 3 ore My ego was getting me into “hot-dog- can go to meetings and wear their ging” stories and I was inflating name tag from the hospital, but this myself with what a good boy I was is not for me. I need the spiritual foun- – Mr. AA. So, I made plans to leave dation of anonymity to keep me humthat agency and I went to work in an ble, to keep me from getting off on “My best thinking ing, accepting, and being honest, alcohol and drug treatment center in telling of a “personal victory” over got me where I open, and willing – regardless of a metropolitan area. I hoped that my alcohol. I am here as a human failure, was.” How many whether or not I was kindly or pleasanonymity would be easier to keep. one who had not learned to live, who times, I wonder, antly disposed toward other people’s Indeed it did work better. I could turned gold into lead as I slowly de- have I heard that? personalities. I would sometimes, in work and do my clinical thing, could stroyed all relationships with the Being a twenty- difficult or uncomfortable situations deal with clients, deal with business destruction of my brain and my soul. four-year-old, less-than-two-years- with a fellow AA, remind myself that people and other professionals. This Today I work as executive director sober college student, every time I I needn’t like people to accept them; world was not a part of my recovery. of a family service agency that does heard it was too many. However, this I should give them the same respect I would go to the meetings for me, not have an alcohol or drug program. AA pseudo-slogan has led me to be- and courtesy that I would want. I not the company. I would work and I am able to be my clinical self, to come very skeptical of my own “best should be willing to overlook any perdo my thing but AA was my wellness, do my job and do it well since I am thinking.” Today I must think about sonality conflicts I might have with my spiritual base that allowed the sober. I need AA, AA does not need things in depth and discuss them with an individual and work the Steps of . work to go well. Again, however, my me. I have to live better to stay sober, someone else – usually, though not this wonderful program – unbiased. anonymity was broken by clients who and living better for me is not getting exclusively, with one of my sponsors However, as I continued to add reported seeing me in meetings. At off on ego trips by being Mr. AA. So – before I can act with any degree of days to the sum of my sobriety, I 1 one level I understand the need of the I guard my anonymity as a spiritual confidence. One of the greatest gifts found it increasingly difficult to put sick to identify someone who seems foundation of my program. AA has given me is the ability to principles before personalities. I was to have power and a position, and I Blessings on my fellows who can think before I act. This was no door having all sorts of conflicts with never denied the request to talk, nor work and stay sober with their ano- prize, mind you. I had to work very people. It*became apparent that this did I ever deny that I was an al- nymity hanging out. My hat is off to hard to earn this gift (though unfortu- was going to be one of those things coholic. But the word spread and them. I am happy with my simple nately, I don’t always use it). I could not afford to ignore much once more I found myself in the same program that has allowed me to live When I thought of the lkelfth P a – longer. position of being Mr. AA. Although with some grace and dignity and large dition, if I thought of it at all, I usually I began by seeking one of my spon- I was making good money, I once again chunks of peace of mind. concentrated on the word “person- sors’ counsel. (When all else fails, I sent out resumes. I quit working in Donald A., Moore, Okla. alities.” I mainly thought of other follow the instructions.) He told me people’s personalities and how I that the only way to successfully deal should practice the principles of AA with a problem is to confront it, to as I saw them – sharing, caring, listen- own it, and to change it. He has been

trying to help tell me to get off my ‘. . . the very people –

high horse, stop lecturing, lighten up, and stop being so arrogant! I really I am trying to help don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.” tell me t o g e t o f Right about then, a little fifteenwatt lightbulb went off over my head. my high horse, stop What was happening was really pretty simple. It was as if when sharing, in lectarinyj, lhhten the group or one-on-one with my sponsors or sponsees, I was unable ap, andstop being to convey my true feelings and meanso arrogant!’ ings. They seemed to be getting losf or distorted between their places of origin and their destinations. The fact sober over eighteen years, so I thought was, I was not practicing and placing I had best take his word on this. These the principles before my personality. ideas were not at all attractive to me Every time I got ready to share somebut I had t w ~ choices: deal with the thing I was polishing and packaging problem and grow, or continue to sup- what I would say to sound as good press the problem and possibly drink and grammatically correct, as spirituas i~ result. I chose to deal with it. ally on target, as possible. What this ultimately involved was Now I could see why people said sitting in meeting rooms and openly I sounded like some lecturing college admitting that I was having trouble professor. I could see why they saw accepting the rest of the alcoholics in me as conceited. “So that’s why they the group. I was afraid to look into all think I’m a smart aleck!” I said anyone else’s eyes so I spoke only to with a great sigh of relief. My pride the chairpeople. I said that I felt I was injured, of course, but at least was losing my ability to communi- now I could see what I was doing cate, that I could not talk to another wrong and what I needed to do to alcoholic – anyone for that matter – change it. I needed to apply the without conflict arising. I told the spiritual principle of anonymity to me group, “I always have the best of in- when I tried to help and share. This tentions. I never want to hurt or hin- personal facet of the lbelfth Tradition der anyone. I want to help people. is the one I must practice daily to stay Whenever I talk to other people in in rpcovery. In working the AA prothis program, I only want to make gram, I need to be a recovering althem feel better. I want to make some- coholic first and an individual, with one laugh or smile, be happy. Yet, a personality, second. more and more, the very people I am Mark C . , Laurel, Miss.

December 1992

with one another. sound a trumpet before thee as the People of those times were ad- hypocrites do in the synagogues and vised, for example, to “be a tail in the streets that they may have glory among lions rather than the head of men . . . and when thou prayest among foxes.” They were reminded enter into thy closet and when thou also that “envy . . . and vainglory hast shut thy door pray to thy Father shorten a man’s life.” In addition, which is in secret and thy father which they were urged: “Do not seek great- seeth in secret shall reward thee ness for yourself and do not crave openly.” honors . . . do not desire the table of It’s a long way in time and space Fragments of AA History kings for your table is greater than and atmosphere from the Mount of I theirs, your crown is more glorious Olives early in the first century A.D. Exploring Anonymity than theirs.” to the second day of April, 1840, and (from a presentation to the 39th General Service Conference) Still further they were advised that Chase’s Tavern on Liberty Street in here are many in Alcoholics All public offices were opdn to “he who seeks greater reputation Baltimore, Maryland. A big differ- T Anonymous today who are of every citizen of the state. But the this opinion concerning anonymity: terms of thpse offices were limited to loses his reputation; he who makes ence in specific purpose, too – though unworthy use of learning shall the spirit of the event was one cif that we urge upon each other the prac- one year, or two years at the most. perish.” It, was also taught and prac- mutuality. tice of anonymity not as an act of This was the ancient Athenians’ way ticed by the faithful that “nothing (is) For on that date, six drinking hiding or humility but as a route to of providing equal opportunity for all better for a person than silence . . . friends met to launch a series of one of life’s most elusive rewards – and, at the same time, guarding and whoever talks too much brings nightly meetings, made a decision to a genuine and well-deserved content- against anyone from the general popu- about sin.” stop their drinking, and took a pledge ment with oneself. However, we are lation rising too far above the crowd, As evidence of how strongly the to do so. not the first in history to do so. becoming a big shot and big mouth ancient Hebrews believed in the re- They called themselves the Wash- The Greeks had a word for it almost and attempting to take over. wards of anonymity, a commandment ingtonians and in a year’s time they four thousand years ago: anonymos, In the Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalom, the of the Sukkah reads: “Him that hum- had reformed 1,000 drunks and had or “without name.” daily prayer book of Judaism, it is bles himself the Holv One raises uv 5,000 other members and supportive- But though they had a word for it, revealed most eloquently and some- and him who exalts 6imself the HOG they didn’t have a way with it. Ac- times graphically that the Hebrew One humbles” and “from him who cording to today’s authorities on people of more than two thousand seeks greatness, greatness flees those ancient times – particularly that years ago praised anonymity as a vir- [while] him who flees from greatness, period when Athens was in its glory tue and strove to practice it for its greatness follows.” – the Gre’eks were justifiably too spiritual as well as its material gains. Several hundred years after the boastful a bunch even to consider In the ancient Mishnah of the Tal- time of the “Ethics of the Fathers,” anonymity, much less to practice it. mud, excerpts from the chapter en- Christ spoke in praise of the humility These same Athenians, however, titled “Ethics of the Fathers” show that fosters anonymity when he said created and nurtured a democracy in how strongly it was urged upon the “blessed are the meek for they shall a form so pure that it was in fact, as people of those times to recognize the inherit the earth.” In his Sermon on well as in spirit, a recognition of at danger of seeking self-greatness and the Mount, he went on to say: “‘We least some of the protectiveness and acknowledging the greater good of heed that ye do not your alms before reward of anonymity. being one of the crowd and working men to be seen by them . . . do not

friends. On their second anniversary, campaigns for funds, and eager pubone of their groups in the Midwest lic searches for support, endorse- Bill said, “Anonymity was not born another “yes” or “no” decision about was addressed by a young United ment, and even group participation of confidence; the bare hint of public- anonymity. And this one was not so States Congressman from Illinois of well-known personalities. ity shocked us . . . we were afraid of easy to solve. The year was 1941 and named Abraham Lincoln. AA’s earliest members, chief developing erratic public characters the subject was the Jack Alexander So rapid was its rise that it soon among them co-founders Bill W. and who . . . might get drunk in public article scheduled to appear in a forthhad 600,000 members. Along the Dr. Bob, were associated with the Ox- and so destroy confidence in us. . . .” coming edition of the Saturday Eveway, however, it became so involved ford Group and were on hand, it is . There was also a practical side for ning Post. All had gone just as – even concentrated – on promotion reported, for a gathering in New York this early need for anonymity. With planned during preparation of the of its aims and success that its main City where Buchman revealed for the so few members in the beginning piece. Jack Alexander had exhibited and original purpose began to evapo- first time his personal hopes for deal- years, with no office staff or printed grkat enthusiasm and also unusual unrate. Still further, many of its mem- ing with the problem of alcoholism. matter to explain or describe the AA derstanding of the program. Members became embroiled in public con- “I’m all for alcoholics getting program, there was a fear that indi- bers’ names had been changed. No troversies, giving voice to and taking changed,” he announced, “but we viduals would be overwhelmed with pictures had been taken. Everyone sides in such outside matters as abo- have drunken nations on our hands a flood of requests for information concerned was overjoyed with the oplition of slavery and temperance. as well.” and a chorus of urgent pleas for help portunity to let the whole nation -the By the end of 1847,just seven years It was 1938, and before long the – all beyond the ability of that small world in fact – know about AA, its after it began its original noble ven- Oxford Group was transformed into membership to handle. So AA ano- purpose and progress. ture, the Washingtonian movement what was called Moral Rearmament, nymity at that time was not a cover- Then came a message from editors had faded out of existence and ceased with Frank Buchman still at the head up; it was a necessity. at the Post: Pictures would now be activity except in Boston where, in of it – now with the purpose of bring- Was there ever any thought, how- taken to go along with the article. all too brief a time, it vanished al- ing the nations of the world together ever, that there might be exceptions Back went a message from the AA together. by strictly peaceful means. concerning certain individuals or cer- office to the Post: “Because of About seventy years later, another By 1939, a changing AA and a tain circumstances, when the urgency anonymity – sorry, no pictures.” movement surfaced that was to be re- changing Oxford Group had drifted of anonymity need not apply and In quick return came the reply from markably effective for a couple of apart. But in talking later about AA’s could be dropped? Bill himself had the Post: “No pictures? Sorry, no ardecades. This was the Oxford Group infancy in that fellowship, Bill said to struggle with just that question in ticle.” (whose purpose was not primarily to of the Oxford Group members: “They the early days. In responding to a Now a decision – and a hard one sober up drunks – though some did had clearly shown us what to do” . friend who asked, “Is there ever a – had to be made, and quickly. Would sober up using their principles). (and) “we also learned from them time when anonymity could or even the expected positive effect of the ar- Interestingly, its founder, Frank what not to do so far as alcoholics should be dropped?’Bill wrote: ticle ,- especially that of carrying the Buchman, saw great virtue in ano- were concerned – too authoritarian, “Just before publication of the message of hope to the still-active alnymity; for a considerable length of aggressive evangelism, absolute con- book, I toyed with the idea of signing coholic – outweigh the possible negatime he preferred to be known only cepts which were frequently too much my name to it. I even thought of call- tive effect of the anonymity break and as “Frank B.” This was to change, for drunks, dependence upon the use ing AA ‘The Wilson Movement.’ Had therefore justify that break? however, along with the overall tone of prominent names (mighty hazard- I then dropped my anonymity it is AA’s answer was “yes” and Jack of the original Oxford Group move- ous for us).” And, because of the entirely possible that you and Alexander’s article ran with pictures. ment. Before too long, ordinary mem- stigma at that time of alcoholism, thousands of others might not be alive (One picture in the Saturday Evening bership purposes were shunted aside “most alcoholics wanted to be today. This movement would have Post article showed full faces of AA and eventually overwhelmed by in- anonymous.” gotten off to a false start entirely.” members; however, they were not creasing cases of personal ambition, Commenting on this still further, Another time, Bill (along with the identified by name.) His report is recentire AA office) was faced with ognized to this day as a major turning

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1. discouraged any Nobel Prize When Bill died, his anonymity was So, there is indeed such a thing as possibility for himself; broken in the press (as was Dr. Bob’s an AA member being “too anonym- 2. declined awards from several at the time of his earlier death). But ous”: (1) where it can mean failure colleges (suggesting they be offered both Bill and Dr. Bob were buried, to extend the helping hand when the instead to the Fellowship itself); years and miles apart, without fanfare need arises; (2) where it can mean 3. turned down inclusion of his and there is no mention on their tombfailure to correct misconceptions name and a brief personal history in stones of their great and lasting conabout AA, both inside and outside Who’s Who in America (his mother tributions to Alcoholics Anonymous. the Fellowship; and (3) where it can did the same); Clearly, in the manner in which stifle – even stop – the flow of AA 4. said thank you but no thanks to they both lived their anonymity, Dr. knowledge and subsequent sobriety an honorary degree from Yale Univer- Bob and Bill acted on the same ideas from one person to another. sity in New Haven; as the advice given in the ethics of This is anonymity at the personal 5. rejected a Erne magazine story the fathers more than 2,300 years ago: level and,can indeed be – and some- that would have included his full-face “that it is better to be a tail among times is – carried too far, even as Bill picture on the cover of that national lions than the head among foxes.” says to “the point of real absurdity.” publication; And just as clearly, their lives have Anonymity at the public level, how- 6. refused the Lasker Award demonstrated how sure are the reever, is another matter, and no (which was then given to Alcoholics wards of humility promised those member of the AA Fellowship has Anonymous instead); same many centuries ago, to wit: shown the genuine humility to prac- 7. and posthumously (through his “from him who seeks greatness, greatpoint in the strength and growth of tice anonymity at the public level wife Lois) declined an honorary de- ness flees [while] him who flees great- AA as a Fellowship looked upon with more dramatically and in a more truly gree from his old school, Vermont’s ness, greatness follows.” respect, admiration, and even honor self-sacrificing manner than Bill him- Norwich University. Anonymous, New York, N. Y. around the world. self. No look at anonymity as practiced Considering the size of today’s AA , by AA can be truly complete, how- population, the number of public ever, without including the question: anonymity breaks – though most dis- Is it possible for an AA member to comforting when they do occur and be too anonymous – too anonymous sometimes potentially dangerous for the good of the individual and the are comparatively few and in- Fellowship? The answer is “yes.” frequent. This may be because as AA And there are more than a few exam- matures, its members more fully unples of this. For example, there are derstand the value to themselves for members who feel they must not tell anonymity at the public level. It may their families or their friends or co- be also because of Bill’s remarkably workers or doctors or ministers or powerful example of personal saclawyers that they are members of AA. rifice – his consistent backing away There have even been instances when from personal honor for the good of members have sent requests for infor- all. mation to GSO and not included a What a demonstration of anonymlast name or have sent checks – hard ity in action this is for all to follow. to believe – unsigned. Over a period of years, Bill:

January 1993 J, – – – Medallions pro .. FromWe Virginia Beach, Va.: are members of the Old Time Chips .and medallions are of little or no importance to anyone but the medallions and how they represent the material and its temptations dur- — That’s what I call a “we need” purpose. Producing and selling medallions Big Book Study Group. Our group alcoholic trying to stay sober. They ing a time when it is important that I call an “I want” purpose. “We need” of 21 members awards attendees symbolize equity in sobriety recog- we in AA continue to practice our the literature, workbooks and service chips and medallions to denote their nized in fellowship. They are evi- traditional spiritual principle of per- pieces to help the groups and commitsuccessful completion of various. dence not only to the recipients, but sonal sacrifice. tees cany our message. “I want” a terms of sobriety and has done so’ also to the still practicing alcoholic Personally, I like medallions. I re- medallion for recognition of an acsince the group’s inception in 1981. that an alternate way of life imbued member getting my first one at 90 complishment which. though I may These chips and medallions are with hope is possible. We feel a re- ,days of sobriety and being very want to take credit for it, is really a viewed by their recipients as impor- sponsibilty for carrying this message. moved by the whole experience. —- I gift from God. tant recognitions by their fellow al- Chips and medallions are but a tool gave it away to another newcomer on Another great rationalizathn I’ve coholics – each a recognition of suc- to do so. their 90th day of sobriety. I think it’s heard for medallions: why cessful efforts over time in trudging Stressing proprietary interest at the important to celebrate these mile- should we buy from outsiders what “the Road of Happy Destiny.” As expense of AA’s spiritual message is stones in some way, and medallions we can do ourselves? We can keep such, they serve as additional incen- detrimental to AA as a whole. That are as acceptable a way to me as any. the money for AA and cany the mestives to resist euphoric recall and to others profit from AA’s trademarks is Leaving aside the really big prob- sage to a lot more people. Why should remember past successful struggles insignificant if the message of the pos- lems of trademark protection, litiga- others get rich on AA? when relapse beckons. sibility of recovery is further dissemi- tion both by and against AA, viola- This seems reasonable and even al- We were saddened when chips with nated and encouraged. tion of our Warranties on Excessive truistic. However, as a Fellowship, ”AX engraved in gold lettering and Accordingly, we feel that chips and Wealth, punitive actions and public we have no opinion on outside issues medallions embossed with the AA medallions engraved and embossed controversy, what bothers me is a fun- – and others producing items for sale logo and other copyrighted material with AA’s trademarks should again damental underlying attitude about to AA members is an outside issue. were no longer available. We were be made available to the AAcommun- medallions that is symptomatic of an Second. the potentially large cash confused when we learned that this I attitude of “I want what I want the ity. If AA World Services, Inc. does flow generated by producing medal- – unavailability was due to legal actions not wish to produce such chips and way I want it.” There are many. lions ourselves could undermine the taken by AA World Services, Inc. for medallions, then they should enter perhaps even a substantial majority. groups’ spiritual responsibility of copyright infringement. Our confu- into appropriate licensing agreements of AAs who want sobriety tokens and self-support and ultimate authority sion ‘stemmed from our belief that AA with competent manufacturers andlor who want them produced by AA. through use of the purse strings. The was a spiritual fellowship, not a pro- distributors for their production However, the spiritual conse- sobriety medallion business totals six prietary organization. and distribution with any royalties quences of AA producing and selling to eight million dollars annually. In We do not understand or appreciate realized being credited to literature sobriety tokens are deep and far reach- 1991, group contributions reached the position that the use of AA’s income. P. N. ing. To go down this path opens the just over 4 million. How effective trademarks on chips and medallions door to a fundamental change in AA’s would the groups’ purse strings be would not serve AA’s primary pur- Medallions – con primary purpose. Up until now. every then? Third, licensing an outside ven- . pose and would further trivialize AA’s From Wailuku, Hi.: single book, pamphlet. service piece dor to produce these items could trademarks to the detriment of AA as I am a sober member of Alcoholics or special item produced from. AA’s create questions of affiliation, ena whole. Anonymous. I would like to title this headquarters has served a direct need dorsement, and problems of money, Our primary purpose is to carry the letter, “Living AA’s Spiritual Pro- – to help the group or to help our property, and prestige. AA message to the alcoholic who still gram in a Material World.” Sounds friends cany the message so that more When I reflect on the years of exsuffers. lofty, but I’m going to talk about alcoholics may find their way to us perimentation and great suffering that and share our hope of a bcttcr life. went into the formulation of our Tra-

I ditions, the spiritual principle of sac- look unfavorably on the airing of con- From Grants Pass. OR.: rifice seems crucial. Personal sac- troversial issues, usually claiming s Regarding “An Eye Toward Conserrifice of the individual’s wants for the that such airings undermine the spirit vation” in the October issue, I can survival of the group, sacrifices of of unity in our Fellowship. I disagree. understand the writer’s objection to the group for the survival of AA as I believe that no group or community the $150 paid to a hotel chain but I a whole, and the sacrifices of AA can survive and grow if it does not must disagree with the inclusion of today to be there for the suffering examine itself and come to terms with “developing overseas programs” with drunk of tomorrow. the differences of its various mem- other events he cited as not canying I believe it’s time we sacrifice our bers. The opinions you publish are the AA message. “I want” AA-produced sobriety to- .. well balanced and usually fairly civil Being a retired merchant mariner I kens for the “we need” spirituality of and avoid hysterical rhetoric. So, I was twelfth-stepped by a native AA as a whole. encourage you to encourage the AA Argentino in Buenos Aires, Argen- Whatever answer we find, I’ve community to continue to think about tina when 1 reached my bottom. Also, been taught that seeking God’s will who we are and where we stand in a list of places where many of my for us and asking for the power to the world. J. N. friends have sobered up would read carry it out is living AA’s spiritual like a worldwide travelogue. The program amidst the temptations of the Consewation of funds writer should also be reminded of the material world. D. E. From Rochester, N.Y.: adventures of Fran and Jan P. in I Thank you for the October Grape- Rumania. Editor’s note: In a floor action of the vine. Ernie S . of York, Maine pointed Perhaps the writer has overlooked 1992 General Service Conference, it out an issue that has also galled me. our responsibilty: When anyone, unywas recommended that a feasibility The practice of a group paying a rep- where .reaches out for help. I want study be undertaken by the General resentative’s lunch, paying for gaso- the hand of AA always to bc then: Service Board of all possible methods line, even car mileage had to me and for that I am responsible. A. M. by which sobriety chips/medallions seemed an abuse on the part of the may be made available to the Fellow- representatives. Ernie’s example of ship; and that the results of such a his group’s GSR even checking into study be made available to all 1993 a hotel at AA expense seems to be Conference members, with an ad hoc ‘such a flagrant abuse of funds as to committee of delegates to bring for- be almost humorous. Ernie S. is right; ward to the Conference a recommen- I’ve heard of lots of delegates traveldation reporting on their conclusions. ing to various conferences, but am hard pressed to give an example of Undermining unlty? how I have personally benefited from From Indianapolis. Ind.: any of these gatherings. I have bene- I’d like to make a comment on a fited when someone picked up the feature you’ve run periodically the phone at our LA office, or a coffeelast few years. I find the forum “Is maker showed up early so coffee AA Changing?” to be a welcome ad- would be ready for the meeting. So dition to your regular articles. I ob- thank you, Ernie, for helping me put serve that a number of AA members words to a vague feeling of discomfort I’ve also had about this. D. F.

March 1993

Don’t pass it on1 From Brooklyn, N.Y..: There were some references in the November and December 1992 issues on anonymity about celebrity members breaking their anonymity at the public level. I’ve experienced quite a bit of another form of celebrity anonymity-breaking, a type that’s done by ,ordinary members. Many, many times I’ve been told by fellow members that such-and-such a celebrity is in the program, or was seen at a meeting. I don’t know if this is a technical violation of any Tradition, but it doesn’t feel right to me. I try not to pass this information on to other people, even other AA members (although it’s very tempting at times), partly because I don’t know how careful the member I tell will be about disclosing the information to nonmembers, or how careful the other members that member tells will be about passing the information on to non-members, etc., etc. I figure if these celebrity members are expected to refrain from using the AA membership for profit, I can try to refrain from profiting from it by using it to spice up a conversation. ANONYMOUS

April 1993

More on anonymity From Los Angeles, Calif.: I enjoyed your December issue concerning lkadition Eleven. Here in Hollywood, public anonymity is particularly important. I know of many famous celebrities who are AA members, and while the occasional newcomer will break his or her anonymity to the press, for the most part these people keep their AA membership a private matter. While it is often difficult to retain that privacy in the face of ambitious or aggressive journalists looking for a story, on a positive note, I must say that I’m proud of other AA members, who, from what I’ve witnessed, treat the famous AA members as equal to everyone else and don’t become giddy and flustered in their presence. I feel it’s important for everyone to be afforded the same unconditional love and caring at meetings, and to realize that we’re all just drunks trying to stay sober and to help each other achieve sobriety. J. F.

May 1993

I Getting cg Unity

One through Twelve. We would go to to help find the next speaker you the next Step every week unless a need. If you can, list your tentative first-time alcoholic was present; then speakers for the next month in the we’d talk on the First Step. Then the district announcements or in your next week, we wouldn’t start over at area’s local newsletter; this will en- Step One as we had in the past but courage you to find the best person would go to the Step listed for that you can to cany the message, besides week. Our meeting has now grown helping you to keep organized. Are to a healthy Step discussion group. the speakers giving all the same type I rccommcnd to any group that is of AA talk? Variety is the spice of life. struggling to do a group inventory. Concerning beginners or newcom- Just as the Fourth Step helps individu- ers, ask yourself if your group makes als, the inventory shows groups what people feel needed when they join they need to work on. If your group your group. Are you overloading is small. ask your district rcprescnta- them with too much, t m soon so that tive (DCM) to meet with members of they leave instead of telling someone your group to go over the inventory what’s on their mind? or help you do one. Sometimes we These are only a few examples of need a third party to help us. someone what group inventory can bring out. who can look objectively at the prob- It is usually the simplest suggestions lem and not take it personally. Most that work best and are easiest to imlikely the outsider will be able to give plement. No single person can fix a you some new suggestion or confirm group problem, but a group working How one group rediscovered its primary purpose that you have found the right path to for the good of AA can succeed. effectively carry the message. I think it is always in the best inwas told recently about a speaker If your group has an open speaker ierest of AA as a whole that our 0 meeting in our area that was having a h a d time making a go of it. and also asked at several other local meetings. It helped a little but we were not able to keep up the attenmeeting, take a look at the speakers you’ve been getting. An: they all from groups continue to grow. By continuing to do group inventories, we make The norm in our area has been for the same area or clique? Maybe you sure that when someone reaches out dance. struggling groups to go to the district need to ask other people outside of for the hand of AA it will always be Our group’s greatest help came there. business meeting and ask for support from, I believe. the group inventory your group or area to help find some from other groups. without really sit- good speakers. Ask your last speaker P. G.,St. Thomas, Ontario suggested by GSO (in the pamphlet ting down and assessing what the The AA Group). aided by an article problem is. This is similar to what I I read in the Grapevine. This helped did when I came into AA: “Here I us to define our group’s purpose. It am. fix me!” seemed that besides our financial When I first joined the group I’m problems. we somehow always ended presently with, we were struggling to up talking on the First Step in our survive. As the newly elected GSR. meeting. We decided to adopt the idea I went to the district to ask for support of writing the Steps on the calendar,

– I ~ –

May 1993 Does just anyone have the right to attend an AA meeting? I’m not sure of the answer except that if there is a Tradition break such as a disruption to the group or AA as a whole, then action needs be taken. The most obvious lesson 1have had about the Third Tradition concerns Frank (not his real name). Frank attended my home group regularly for several months. He had a hard time . staying clean and sober. He had lost his driver’s license (and his job) because of his drinking. His relapses included alcohol and drugs other than alcohol. He attended other twelvestep meetings along with AA. Our group made sure he had a Rig Book, greeted him, took him out for fellow-

– – ship and to activities other than meetings, gave him rides, phone numbers, for themselves.” Well, the mother talked to him on the phone and in he only requirement for mem- (mostly, because these other sub- chose to stay and after the meeting person. In general, we shared our exbership is a desire to stop stances scared me). drinking.” This simple statement Several recent stories of my home she let me know she was glad she perience, strength, and hope. Frank clarifies who is an AA member. had because she herself “used to be died as a direct result of his continued group come to mind in reference to an alcoholic.” I was suddenly struck use of a substance other than alcohol. In reading the Third Tradition in the Third Tradition. One is of a with how easily I could have inter- I don’t know if we did everything we the “fielve and fielve,” two things woman who attended our closed dis-t fered with what her Higher Power could have done for this man. But, I stand out in my mind: first, that we cussion meeting with her son. She may have had in mind for her that know we did all that I have learned do not discriminate, and second, that drove him to the meeting – he had evening. thus far from my sponsor and other this Tradition came about as a means been court-ordered and had lost his of inclusion not exclusion. The next week two women from a members of AA. license due to his drinking. Did either nearby seminary appeared at our Frank gave me gifts far greater than In my six years in this program, I mother or son qualify? The mother mteting. They were taking a course I was able to give him. The explicit have yet to figure out who has the asked if it was okay for her to stay. about alcoholism. They, too, asked if reminder that I have a fatal disease. job of deciding who qualifies for our I wanted to say, “Go to the Al-Anon they were welcome at our meeting. I The reminder that if I choose to make program. Fortunately for me, I was meeting across the hall.” It was obvimy own judge. It seems that 1 drank thanked them for asking and gave my myself the judge of other people’s ous to me that she needed Al-Anon sponsor’s response, ending with, “It’s purpose and place in life, I may take enough, long enough that I heard no and her son needed to have his own up to you.” They chose the Al-Anon on a role that could alter their life in other judgments from AAs except, AA meeting. But I repeated what I meeting. They were given a meeting a way I had never intended. And for “Keep coming back.” It may have had heard my sponsor say: “You are helped also that I didn’t use a lot of schedule and open meetings were that I do not want to be responsible. an alcoholic if you say you are. ~ t ‘ s pointed out. Karen A., Columbus, Ohio substances other than alcohol up to individuals to determine that

July 1993

because I believed that someday I’d stamps, and hopes that one of several have mone3 to do whatever I wanted. dozen dcspcrate job applications Alcoholic logic convinced me I prob- would yield a paycheck. I passed the — -.. Contribution ably wouldn’t need to drink so much then, when I was wealthy enough to be really free. I lived the illusion long collection baskct. trying not to look at it with too much shanic or covctousness. ‘vc never thought of lilyself as l poor. But in recent ycars the nunihcrs on my I040 EZ tax form fit the the Stcps kept me from picking up a drink through those losses. So the give and take of the equation seemed enough to make greed part of my moral inventory. Why the AA Fellowdefinition. By American standards. clear cnough: I worked the Steps and Still, Tradition Seven baffled me I’m living in povcrty. Choosing work in return I got sobriety, an asset I’d for a long time. Choosing to stay ship chose to remain 1 ~ V C .but which r i ~ r ~ l y piiys. has ncvcr managed on my own. Accord- poor? I didn’t see anybody in the grounded me o n a no-frills cxpcnsc ing to Step Seven I was learning about program wanting to do that. And Step forever poor was account and iniprudcnt rescrvc. Some Seven was incomprehensible beyond wccks I fish around for change that humility. I’ve been much happier in my so- my desperate willingness to do any- baffling to me. “clinks thinly” among thc dollar hills briety since that first year, but also tthing to keep my life from getting at nicctings. Sonictinics I just pass resentful and depressed sometimes worse. In asking God to remove my I’ve never clnsidered my shaky fithe basket. I’ve bccn hcre before. about my finances. I’ve never forgot- shortcomings – especially the ones nances to be a charactcr dcfcct. But By the end of my first year sobcr. ten, however, how much more desper- that landed me broke – I did it expect- I have asked God to remove them – I’d lost a ten-year marriage. most of ate I was when I’d run out of money ing a payoff. If I was willing to do many times in fact, and in thc samc my money. all my property. a small drinking and was relegated to low- this bit of work on my knees every needy spirit 1 ask for my intolcrancc business. and any prcstigc I may have wage labor when I couldn’t bam- day, shouldn’t 1 cvpually get somc- and anger to be rcmoved. had. Decisions I made while drinking boozle my way into an assistant man- thing in return from the Big Guy? But, whilc thc debit side of my brought this on me. The chickens sim- ager position somewhere. I thought that after I’d done enough moral inventory continues to slowly ply came home to roost a little lrtter In AA’s Seventh Tradition I read labor to balance the debit side of my decline, my financcs do not proporthan with others whosc stories I’d that money, property, and prestige fearless and thorough moral inven- tionally incrcasc. Rathcr. the sanic heard. But nobody ever claimcd the were legitimate means that, used in ,tory, I’d receive the grace of God in sober decision to invcst in my own TL*lclvc Stcps guaranteed financial proper proportion, contribute to a return – the big holiday bonus along abilities and intcrcsts that landed me sccurity. spiritual way of life. But they were with the workaday wage of daily so- broke last winter, has kept my net While losing most of my material the means, not the ends, of life. briety. worth flatlincd at basic living cxpossessions, I studied the Steps with Step Seven taught me that, while Five years ago, after nearly five pcnses, with a distinctly imprudent thc sanic question in mind thc drunk- drinking. 1confused means and ends. sober years of rebuilding my cash re- reserve in a chccking account. cn Irishman dcscrihcd in Tradition I certainly did bclicve that material serve, I thought my prayers had born The gratitude taught mc in AA Fivc askcd Bill W.: For all this work conlfort was the end toward which fruit. I tossed crisp bills into the col- keeps my fits of resentment and dcyou do. what do you get out of it? my hard work was aimed. That and lection basket at every meeting. A pression about my finances to a Thc answcr was simple cnough at frccdom. The emotional comfort prudent reserve, below which I de- minimum. But regardless of mood I first. I got to not pick up that first booze and drugs provided in the be- cided I would never allow my savings can’t help thinking how much more drink one day at a time when what I ginning were part of the package. I to fall, was $10,000. effective a servant I’d bc if God saw most wanted was to be numb. I was paid the price for the daily reprieve By last wintcr, with the local fit to grant me somc modest financial losing almost everything and I didn’t from thc stress of pushing myself to economy deep in recession, that fig- sccurity for the work I invest in the want to feel it. I wanted out. Working the limit and stuffing my feelings ure was a long-gone fantasy. I was gifts he’s granted me. Wouldn’t a living on borrowed money, food grateful, comfortable spokcspcrson

who tossed fivers into the basket grace of God is not the end – the big makc a more convincing power of payoff – of working thelkelve Steps. example for the grace of God (strictly It is the means by which I work them. in thc spirit of attraction, of course) It is the sustenance for my aspirations than someone fishing for quarters and and labor and hopes for a better, grumbling about fears of financial in- healthier world. How much spiritualsecurity? ity I get in return for a contribution You see. I still confuse means with toward making AA self-supporting ends -the same way I did with booze, does not trouble me when I’m at money. property, and prestige. So, peace with my Higher Power. Money naturally, why the AA Fellowship comes and goes like breathing. Somechose to remain forever poor was times I breathe deep, sometimes not. baffling to me. Where was the The big payoff is in having right payoff? now; it’s being alive and bursting with Nevertheless, the example set by’ possibility (if not prosperity) when, the founders and carried out in the without AA, I would likely be dead. spirit of local groups has profoundly That’s the end -today, right now, one affected decisions I’ve made in regard more day sober, one day at a time. to money, and without my ever con- The means is the grace of God and sciously deciding to change my mind has always been available to me. All about the matter. The man who I’ve needed is to be willing to receive chooses to work hard at what he loves it . . . and to be grateful. for little pay today is not the same The Seventh ‘Radition tells me, to man who ten years ago drank away whom so much has been freely given, the substantial comforts for which to give what I can in return to keep he’d set aside his dreams and moral our Fellowship self-supporting. values. These thoughts aren’t something I Today I have frequent moments of can toss in the hat at the end of a happiness in sharing my experience meeting. They aren’t folding money with others; I havc long walks around and won’t pay the rent. But they arc the beautiful coastal town where I’ve what’s kept me alive long enough to lived all my sobcr life; I havc good pay my own way. And they give me health and high vitality, and the love hope of giving more again some day. I sharc with a long-time sobcr com- So I’m tossing them in the hat panion; and I have enthralling work through the Grapevine. They may bcforc me, rcgardlcss of monetary re- “clink thinly” among the other conward. How could I think that the tributions. But that won’t stop the grace of God has not made my life flood of gratitude in my heart for richer’? being part of our self-supporting Fel- What I learn again and again from lowship in whatever way I’m able. Step and Tradition Seven is that the Anonymous, Maine

August 1993

Singleness ot purpose centered this position was. It is not a drug addict friends. And I have a right From New Medford, N.J. : question of what is fair or whether to do this because all drugs arc the I recently completed the Eighth alcohol is just another drug. The Tra- same and I don’t care what the rules Step and have decided that my first ditions and primary purpose of AA or customs of your home are.” amends should be to Alcoholics are what they are whether I agrce with Such a gross abuse of hospitality Anonymous itself, which I believe I them or not. sounds preposterous, but that is essenhave harmed to some extent by violat- In the past. when I was active, I tially what I was doing by insisting ing its singleness of purpose. often had dinner at the homes of that I had a right ot violate AA’s sin- I used to identify myself as an alco- people who did not use drugs, but gleness of prupose. I was abusing the holic and an addict. I do not anymore who did drink. I never considered in- hospitality of this Fellowship. because I now believe other addic- sisting that I had the right to smoke This is not an apology. I was too tions are irrelevant at AA meetings. a joint at their dinner table because sick to realize how selfishly I was But. aside from that, I also used to they were drinking wine. And imag- acting, and a mere apology is not insist on talking about my other addic- ine if I had, and then added insult to necessarily an amends. I am hoping tions beyond what was necessary to injury by saying: “And not only do I to amend the harm I did by stating relate them to alcohol. I justified this have a right to use any drug I want clcarly what I did, for the benefit of by saying that alcohol was just to around herc if you’re going to othcrs, and. further, by not doing it another drug and so it was unfair to drink, but I’m going to keep coming again. H . D. expect me not to talk about all my back and I’m going to keep using any addictions. And refused to attend any drug I want to in your home because other fellowship because I claimed to I like the food you serve and your prefer the wisdom arld sobriety in AA. company better than the food and I realize now how rude and self- company I find in the homes of my

September 1 9 9 3

AA in the ’90s As long as I had to run my group A little humility would have allike a tyrant and boss people around, lowed me to, share my experience, Welve I1Anonymity-is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to I didn’t make a very effective channel for grace or much of an example of what AA can do. As long as I insisted on asking and answering all the questions at the beginners meetings I strength, and hope with others in the spirit of service. It would have allowed me to take part without feeling I had to take over. I remember how my sponsor Tom I place principles before personalities. chaired, I placed undue stress on my- – whom we called Coach because he self and deprived others of a chance coached football – would stand by to give a more varied and interesting the meeting door with a cigar stub in The Deeper Dimension expression of what AA experience can mean to the new person. the comer of his mouth. The meeting was big and full of young people. I As long as I knew exactly what the was trying to become indispensable he more I think about the Tradi- Most people associate the fielfth and worked very hard at winning T tions and reflect on my experi- Tradition with anonymity breaks at ence in Alcoholics Anonymous, the the public level. But I think that this person I was sponsoring needed to know, feel, think, and do, I wasn’t allowing him much of a chance to friends and influencing people. Tom was quietly by himself and I remore amazed I am at how beautifully Tradition has a deeper and a more learn to get to know the most impor- member feeling sorry for him. He was interconnected the Traditions are, and interesting dimension that sometimes tant person he would ever meet, him- old and alone. He seemed to be out how the last of the R e l v e Traditions gets overlooked, because it’s not as self. In all these instances, personal of the “action.” But after the Lord’s points almost dramatically straight glaring as the anonymity breaks on ambition undercut my spiritual Prayer, I remember he always had his back to the first: “Our common wel- national TV. Bill W. had a lot to say growth and service was set to one hand out to the newcomer. I liked fare should come first; personal recov- about the spirit that informs this Tra- side. “Our common welfare” took a Tom but he didn’t seem to have any ery depends upon AA unity.” dition and it’s the spirit of service. back seat to my personal ambition. real influence in AA. He was not a

AA in the ’90s . AA in the ’90s part of the power structure as I saw it. in the “Relve and lbelve”: “To live charge. It’s about the wonderful free- How can I be different if I don’t know People who had power, I imagined, usefully and walk humbly under the dom from the bondage of grandiosity, what I’m being different from? And ran the show and got all the important Grace of God.” These people weren’t which is a heavy load. to discover that, I have to join AA in jobs in AA. They got to go on TV getting any glory. They were the most These days when I go to a meeting the spirit of service and set aside perand speak at all the prestigious occa- down-to-earth people I had ever met. and get a cup of coffee and sit down, sonal delusions and foolish dreams sions. They weren’t serving AA, – I I felt outside of AA for so long. I I can relax and enjoy the meeting. I of power and importance. We are all said; they were serving themselves to felt I was bad and didn’t “have the remember the Coach and how he important, but usually not for the a big helping of ego-pie. Sure I felt program.” That’s why I believed ,I quietly went around meeting people reasons we think. resentful. And it didn’t go away in a had to make up with a false front of and making them feel welcome. He There is probably no final cure for week either. perfectionism and over-achieving. It had a lot of unpopular opinions and the ego’s remarkable recuperative What about all the people who got wasn’t enough to help; I had to rescue he was a real character. But as a powers. But the Welfth Tradition their picture in the paper and received people. It wasn’t enough to care; I member of AA he didn’t want to stand stands as a constant reminder. and plaques and had dinners thrown in had to lay down my life and give away out. It is a paradox that before I can warning of the perils of personal amtheir honor and all that stuff? Where my dignity and self-respect. It was find my true individuality I have to bition in AA. was the humility in that? Who were never enough just to be there. I al- surrender the impulse to be different. Jim N.,Denver, Colo. they kidding? But as my sponsor once ways had to earn my seat all over said, “Who are you to judge all these again by being outstanding. Feeling people?” But I didn’t trust their mo- I had to be someone other than me tives. Not for a minute. Sure they was one of the “old ideas” that would were serving AA and there was a big have to be abandoned, even if only fat pay-off. Humility, my Big Book! a little at a time. No one particular thing happened It has been my experience that to change my thinking on this, but a humility makes it possible for me to 1 lot of little things did. A few years ago there was a Northeast Regional Forum in Maine where I got to see make a connection with my own humanity. It enables me to trust my human responses. It positions me for the real “big shots” from all over the sober connections with others so that Northeast talk about what was hap- we can nourish each other’s spirit pening in AA. All weekend long the through sharing. I had been running important people on the panel at the from myself toward some imaginary raised platform in front of the room idea that I thought you had of me. said the same thing over and over. All I had to do was stop running long “You asked us to do this . . . and this enough to let myself catch up to is what we did.” where I was so I could start to find By the end of the weekend I was out what it felt like to be me. It didn’t moved. Whether the bottom had been feel that bad. I

raised or the top lowered, I don’t But, to my way of thinking, humilknow; but what I learned was we an: ity doesn’t just mean blending in, AA. This is it. The buck stops here. either. That’s what some people do , There are no big shots. I thought of who do nothing. To me it means takthe definition of true ambition given ing part without feeling I have to take

December 1993

can it he when thew valuable older not to givc in to the soul sickncss that I’ve sometimes found that it’s mcnibcrs stop showing up. feeling these fcvcred fantasies producc. Yes, casier to figure out who’s not my boss

Who’s they arc bcing “trashed” by the ncwcr oncs instead of being rcspcctccl’? Somchow, though, many of us havc never thought of quitting. In fact. wc arc saddcncd by AA meetings in than to put my finger on who is. I which psychobabble and other diver- know it’s not my checkbook, alsions such as wholesale parcnt-blam- though it huffs and puffs a lot and ing and gcncrational self-pity take the tries to be very controlling. It’s not

the quite a few of us with long-term sobriety havc fclt that wh;itcvcr contributions we arc capablc of making , placc of the real AA message. my family, although they take a lot Howcvcr. in the past couple of years of my time. It’s not my doctor, who a nunibcr of old-timers have set up seems to be fond of putting limits on

Boss? could bc more important now than brand-new groups whose statcd ob- what I may or may not do. Nor is it ‘ evcr, So. we’rc here ‘to stay. And to jcctivcs arc to adhcre to AA’s single- my church. makc clarity and simplicity ant1 sin- ness of purposc. Our posturc is not It’s not my mailman, my favorite glencss cif purpose our objcctivcs. to fight anyonc or anything, cvcn service station, the tax collector, my Oh yes. wc know firsthand how dif- thosc who sccm to abhor thc vcry life insurance agent, my restaurant An old-timer speaks our ficult it is to listen to somc of thc idea of old-timers. We mcrcly wish waiter, or the network newscaster about AA’s singleness currcnt philosophies. cspccially thosc to obscrvc the Stcps, Traditions, and although each of these can spoil or of purposi that ~llandiltcthat since all addictions Concepts. And to hope that others make my day. arc the same. therc should bc no closed will fdlow on their own paths to ma- Is AA my boss? No, again! Witness meetings, that anonymity is now out- turc sobriety. the f i e l v e suggested Steps and Tradated. that AA should havc multiple So. with AA undergoing changes ditions: they are not the l’belve Comy heart goes out to those long- purposes, that AA is “evolving” into and with me approaching my thirty- mandments. M term AAs who have let some of the newer people coming into the a world society of linkcd twclvc-stcppers who will march off to glory in fifth AA birthday, it scems important And so, as to who’s the boss, we’ve – vital perhaps – to determine who already got one – a Higher Power. program, fresh from the drying-out- the sunsct. really is thc boss in my sobriety, in Others need not apply. studios, become their boss. What else Indccd. it is difficult for old-timers my lifc. John R., Santa Barbara, Calif.

December 1993

Whatever Happened to the Circle and Triangle?

Have you noticed that t h e z l e and triangle sym- Denying the use of the symbol to outside en- ety chipdmedallions is a matter of local autonbol no longer appears at the top of the tities raised other problems, however. By early omy and not one on which the Conference should Grapevine’s lhble of Contents? The decision to 1990, it was clear that some AA members very recod a definite position; and 2) that it is not remove it has its roots in recent events: actions much wanted to be able to obtain medallions appropriate for AA World Services or the of the 1993 General Service Conference, and with “our” circle and triangle. Both the AAWS Grapevine to produce or license the production subsequent actions by the Board of lh~steesand and Grapevine Corporate boards began receiving of sobriety chips/medallions. – In substance, the ad hoc committee report said: the directors of AA World Services. requests to produce sobriety chips and medal- Adopted at the 20th Anniversary International lions, and the matter was discussed at a joint “W began to see that the issue is ‘What is Convention in St. Louis, the circle and triangle meeting of the two boards in October 1990. Their best for AA as a whole’ and not ‘Does the Fellowsymbol was registered as an official AA mark in consensus was that production of tokens and ship want AA sobriety chipdmedallions?’ or 1955, and has been widely used by various AA medallions was unrelated to our primary purpose ‘Can AA produce sobriety chips/medallions?’ entities. By the mid-1980s. however, it had also of carrying the AA message, and they suggested The committee did not focus on the use of sobribegun to be used by outside organizations, such that the matter be given a thorough airing at the ety chips/medallions – groups and individuals as novelty manufacturers, publishers, and occa- General Service Conference in order to seek a are free to use them if they wish. The question sionally aatment facilities. There was growing group conscience from the Fellowship. is whether it is best for AA as a whole to have concern in the membership of AA about this At the 1992 Conference, there were presenta- a sobriety chip/medallion with the AA name on situation. Some AA members were saying “we tions on why we should or should not produce it authorized andlor issued by an AA entity. don’t want our circle and triangle aligned with medallions, and on the responsibility of AAWS “Some of the comments made during the %anon-AA purposes.” In keeping with the Sixth to protect our trademarks and copyrights.The re- ditions part of the discussion included: hdition, that AA “. . . ought never endorse, sult was a Conference Advisory Action asking “The First lhfition-At the heart of the matter finance or lend the AA name to any related facil- the General Service Board of trustees to under- is unity . . . ity or outside enterprise . . .”, the AA World take a feasibility study on the possible methods “The Second M i t i o n -Therein lies our solu- Services board began in 1986 to contact outside by which sobriety chips and medallions might tion. Where is our ultimate authority and where entities that were using the circle and triangle in be made availableto the Fellowship. and to report is our center? Is it internal or external – principles an unauthorized manner, and to take action to its findingsto an ad hoc committee of delegates. arising from a power greater than people, or valprevent such use of the symbol. AAWS imple- The ad hoc committee met prior to the 1993 ues of the world? W must keep in mind that this mented this policy with restraint, and did not Conference, for several full days of discussion is also the place where Bill W. points out that resort to legal remedies until all attempts at per- and deliberation, and in turn presented its report ‘. . . the good is sometimes the enemy of the best. ‘ suasion and conciliation had been unsuccessful. and recommendations on the Conference floor. “The Third Tradition – We were reminded that Of about 170 unauthorized users contacted, two After discussion, the Conference approved two we are a self-correcting Fellowship . . . We felt suits were filed, and both were settled in the very of five recommendations: 1) that the use of sobri- that it is time for the whole Fellowship to get early stages. back to the simplicity and basis of our message.

_- ^. – 1 – tion (see ‘hadition ‘belve). . “The Fourth M i t i o n makes it clear that we “‘Ractically all societies and governments “The committee felt that the desire to protect must separate the spiritual from the material. feel it necessary to inflict personal punishment the unique meaning of AA’s s:rinbol is at the Keeping in mind that any action we take could upon individual members for violations of their foundation of litigation. as well as the fear of affect AA as a whole . .. beliefs, principles or laws. Because of its special the trivialization of the mark. But despite the “The F@h W i t i o n – The Big Book, Al- situation, Alcoholics Anonymous finds this prac- vehemence with which we feel ‘ownership’ of coholics Anonymous. The livelve Steps and tice unnecessary. When we of AA fail to follow the symbol, we suspect that the belief that we livelve Paditions, AA Comes of Age, and ‘The sound spiritual principles. alcohol cuts US down. (or anyone) can ‘possess’ the symbol is a fallacy. Welve Concepts for %rid Service’ arc the – Therefore, no humanly administered system of “it actually works against the foundation of basic message, the core message of AA. Every- penalties is oeeded. This unique condition is an the Steps that lead us to sobriety. Ownership thing else is commentary on the basic message: enormous advantage to us all, one on which we necessarily involves control and to argue over all literam published, comments and sharing at can fully rely and one which we should never that control through litigation takes the focus meetings, even the Grapevine. is a sort of na- abandon by a mort to the methods of personal away from the fact that we are ultimately powertional commentary. Could chips/medallions be attack and-punishment. . . . less. We can own the meaning of the symbol, another form of commentary, another form of a ” ‘In case the AA name should be misapplied and if someone uses the graphic, our meaning pamphlet? .. . it would of course be the duty of our General will not be diminished. as long as we keep the “The Sixth W i t i o n calls on us to ‘divide the Service Conftreace to pess for the discon- principles it represents in sight. spiritual from the material.’ Money is not a valid tinuance of such a paCtia always short. how- T h e committee finally questioned the goals consideration in the question of whether or not ever of public quarreling about the matter. .. . of litigation, what would actually be gained from litigation should be brought against misusers of It was ncognized that a public lawsuit is a public a lawsuit. We suspect that the harm done interour logo since AA is not in the business of making controversy, something in which our aadition nally as a result of litigation would be far worse money. Similarly, the fear that others would be says we may not engage.’ than the harm others could do to our ‘property’ making money off our logo does not hurt the “The chips/modallions and trademark ques- from the outside. At the base of this approach is Fellowship on a fundamental level. How do we tions wen dealt with as separately as possible. the trust that is the foundation of AA. It is our let go of this tiger we have by the tail? . . Vk . The committee felt that a distinction could be trust that AA principles will work to protect our are at the tip of the iceberg of litigation right drawn between the two in t e r n of their respec- name, just as our trust in God is the foundation now . . . We went many, many years without tive significance to AA. The trademark (logo) is of our program and of our lives. Warranty Five lawsuits. To continue on this path threatens to keep our focus on money and property instead the embodiment of the AA name. The significance of its shape is described in AA Comes of . says that we can ‘. . confidently trust AA opinion. public opinion. and God Himself to take of allowing our view to widen spiritually. “The Seventh Tradition reminds us ‘Experience Age, page 139: ‘The circle stands for the whole world of AA, and the triangle stands for AA’s care of Alcoholics Anonymous. . .’ . “Concept Seven states ‘ m e Conference] has often warned us that nothing can so surely ‘Ihrce Legacies of Recovery, Unity, and Service Charter itself is not a legal document . . .it relies destroy our spiritual heritage as futile disputes . . . The priests and seers of antiquity regarded instead upon the force of tradition … for its over property, money and authority.’ the circle enclosing the triangle as a means of final effectiveness.’ “The Eleventh Padition – explicitly warns warding off spirits of evil. and AA’s circle and “To us, the fear that the incorporation of the against the sensationalism that follows litigation. triangle of Recovery, Unity, and Service has cer- symbol by others outside the Fellowship would It is essentially negative attention and puts the tainly meant all of that to us and much more.’ somehow detract from the significance of the Fellowship at risk. “Medallions, on the other hand. are not univer- symbol is really unfounded. No one outside the “The Zbelfih W i t i o n – Humility is the key, sally considend an embodiment of the Fellow- Fellowship can detract from AA’s strength if we working from the internal to the external, from ship as such. Many stories are told about the role stick to the Steps.lhditions and Concepts, which the smaller to the larger. from ‘I’ to ‘We,’ in a that the coins play in an individual’s continuing unite us. spirit of humility and trust. What course of action sobriety: the coins act as symbolic recognition ‘”The registered trademarks, service marks and will keep us on the path of spirituality? . . . of the length of sobriety. They are not the sobriety logos are symbols of our spiritual Fellowship, ‘The committee spent a great length of time itself and any attempt to make medallions more Alcoholics Anonymous, and should be treated in the discussion of the Warranties. Warranty Five than a symbol may lead perilously towards egostates: as such. inflation, self-glorification, rather than ego-defla-

‘The General Service Confe~enceis a living entity. From the group conscience will eventually emerge an expression of the will of a loving Power greater than ourselves proven to be fumly linked to the Traditions and Warranties. keeping us safe for as long as we are needed.” The ad hoc committee report was debated on Tbesday and Thursday of Conference week, and the subject of chips and medallions came up again during a final sharing session on rid&. The chairperson of the AAWS Board made the following statement at that time: ‘The AAWS Board will immediately begin a thorough review of its policies regarding our marks, will do everything possible to avoid initiating litigation. and will prepare a revised policy statemeot to be ready for next year’s Conference.” Immediately after the Conference, the General Service Board accepted AAWS’s recommendation to discontinue protecting the circle and triangle symbol as one of AA’s registered marks. And by early June, the trustees reached substantial unanimity in support of AAWS’s statement that, to avoid the suggestion of association or affiliation with outside g d s and services, AA World Services, Inc. would phase out the “official” or “legal” use of the circle and triangle. If you’re wondering how to identify Conference-approved literature in the future. it will carry the words ‘This is AA General Service Conference-approved literature.” As pieces of literature are due for reprinting. the symbol will be deleted; and new materials will cany only the Conferenceapproved wording. Like the Serenity Prayer arid the slogans. which have never had official recognition, the circle and triangle will most likely continue to be used widely for many AA purposes. The difference from earlier ~racticeis that its official use to denote Alcoholics Anonymous materials will be phased out. (This material is adaptedfrom the August-September issue of the GSO newsletter Box 4-5-9; portions of the ad hoc committee report are taken from the Final Report of the 1993General Service Conference.)

January 1994

of those first AAs I met certainly cial. Better. Unique. That’s an isostruck a mighty blow against my lated spot, with room for only one. One drinking and gave me a huge shove Maudlin hours later, sloppy drunk or toward recovery. It is, I believe, a trying to sober up, I had felt just as manifestation of our First Tradition, alone. A special bastard, worse than and it goes considerably deeper than anyone else, uniquely loathsome and simply identifying. We go on to im- not worth caring about. Alone again itate good examples of sobriety. And – ostracized, undesired, and undesirin twelfth-stepping, we put ourselves able. in another person’s place in order to Now, surely it takes an acrobatic, Each Other2 help. The empathy around me seemed to if not an alcoholic, egotism to flipflop continually in order to retain a elicit some in me, which was the first distinction like that – to be either an genuine concern for someone else’s unappreciated, Christlike genius or a If the first words I lief. So I mutely followed that won- welfare I had ever felt. And it had uniquely horrible specimen. But pracheard in AA eased derful woman into another room, to another benign effect on me. Like tice had made me good at it, and I me into the First talk it,over. At that moment, I would some other alcoholics, I had felt the was almost never as conscious of any- Step, it was the have followed her to Hades, of most outcast, lonely person on the one or anything else as I was continusecond statement course, hooked by her unashamed earth a long time before I came to ously aware of me and my specialthat gave me in- revelation that she was a . . . well, AA. In the rosy glow of first drinks, ness. Even when I was not conscious stant hope, making mi feel better what she said. I had felt set apart, above others. Spe- of it, it permeated all I did and said. right away. Now, thirty-one years “Drunk” was a word 1 rescntcd, as later, I believe that second sentence adjective or noun. It had always dis- I heard contained the healing idea of gusted me, until she said it about herour then-unwritten First Tradition. self as simply as she might have said The first words were: “Are you hav- she was a woman or a citizen or on ing trouble with your drinking?” a diet. Totally unprepared for that ques- She said, “There are lots of us who tion, before I knew what I was doing have alcoholism, and we’re now get- I had nodded a truthful “Yes.” It was ting over it.” a wobbly lurch toward Step One. I was not alone! A sob of relief (Later, I slipped off, but finally welled up. climbed back.) My friend then told me, unemo- My new friend smiled and said tionally, about her drinking, and carecalmly, “Well, I’m a drunk myself; fully asked no questions about me or come on in, and let’s talk it over.” In mine. effect she invited me to participate in In that wonderful book Thirst for Badition One: “Our common welfare Freedom David Stewart points out should come first; personal recovery the tremendous helping power of emdepends upon AA unity.” pathy. I wonder why it is not talked Her description of herself struck about more, either by professional obme dumb with amazement, even re- servers of AA or by us. The empathy

r. My first AA greeter’s second state- 1935 in Akron, Ohio, when he realment, “I’m a drunk myself,” shat- ized he urgently needed to talk to tered a lot of my claim to being so another alcoholic to keep himself specially different. It was exactly sober.’ what my sick ego needed to hear. On that long-ago day of my own Then her tale of alcoholism and recov- ‘ entry into AA, as soon as I heard the ery in the company of other alcoholics implied invitation to join, I longed to quickly demonstrated that I was far be in that company. I’ll always be less powerful than the AAs staying grateful that I soon was, and I have sober together. Thus, it seems to me been so ever since. that the principle of anonymity is Our togetherness, our common rooted in these words: “Our common welfare, our Fellowship mean so welfare should come first; personal much to me that I am puzzled when recovery depends upon AA unity.” someone fliply remarks, “The Tradi- I The Lifeboat 1 Does this mean I must put the wel- tions are for groups, of course, not fare of AA before my own? To an- members. They are there to hold the swer, I ask myself another question: movement together.” Not the mem- I went to ameeting last week that like a lifeboat. If everyone in the lifeboat is to survive, then everyone Would I have any welfare of my own bers? “The Steps, not the Traditions, taught me the im- needs to stick together. I carried the at all if it were not for AA? are for recovery.” vortance of the analogy further. If a group follows Does thisTradition mean we should Did any of us recover on our own? ~ i r s t Tradition. the experiences of o& Fellowstifle unpopular or dissenting voices Didn’t unity with other alcoholics in Some time ago this ship (the Steps and the Traditions), it among us? I think it means the oppo- AA help a bit? Does anyone in AA group had decided to discuss one Step will be following in the wake of other site. Suppose you and I have opinions believe he or she was not helped to every month. They were on the Tenth boats. It will have a smoother ride. poles apart about psychiatry, religion, recover by the knowledge that we are Step that month, and I was looking The chairperson of that meeting AA public information activity, or the all afloat on the same life raft? Isn’t forward to hearing everyone’s experi- was steering the boat. When he intro- Steps. Must each of us not respect that the First Tradition? j ence, strength, and hope. duced his own topic, it was as if he the other’s opinion if we want to stand Ego deflation is important in my , The chairperson started the meet- took out a chainsaw and cut off his together in sobriety? I don’t mean tol- recovery, and this Tradition bears on ing in the usual way, but then intro- portion of the boat. He set the boat erate; I mean really respect. Learning that, too, it seems to me. To the extent duced his own topic. I asked him adrift. The next person talked about to work together amicably despite dif- that I have experienced anonymity in about the group’s decision to discuss her concern for the way her daughterferences is a part of becoming mature, the spiritual sense, it grows from Tra- a Step every month. He said he knew in-law was raising the grandchildren. I suspect, and something I had no dition One, our unity. It seems to me about that, but he wanted to talk about She took out another chainsaw and clue to before AA. worth sacrificing some ego satisfac- something else. The rest of the people cut off her portion of the boat. The The words of our First Tradition tions for, such as those of being rec- in the meeting didn’t seem to care, boat continued to break up as people had not been written the first day I ognized as some kind of Alcoholics and it wasn’t my home group, so I brought up topics that had little to do walked into AA. But when my AA Anonymous committee member or didn’t feel in a position to argue. The with the common welfare of the friends assured me we could all stay officer or speaker or Grapevine con- chairperson went on to talk about a group. As a group, they not only lost sober together, although we had not tributor. The bonds that hold us to- relative who had checked into a treat- their ability to stay afloat, but they been able to do it alone, I believe gether seem to me greatly worth cher- ment center. As I sat there pouting, also lost their effectiveness in pulling they were acting out the Tradition. ishing. I began to think about Bill W.’s anal- in others who were still suffering. The Tradition also seems to me an B . L., Manhattac, N.Y. ogy in Twelve Steps and Twelve Trad- After the meeting, I talked with a echo of what Bill W. discovered in (from the July 1976 Grapevine) itions. He said that the AA group is lady who had been sober and coming

to meetings for nine months, but was about to check herself into an Practice These outpatient treatment program. Apparently Principles she wcasn’t getting what she needed to Dadition One: Our common welfare should stay sober in Al- come first; personal recovery depends upon coholics Anonymous. AA unity. My home group has 1. Am I in my group a healing, mending, a group conscience integrating person, or am I divisive? What statement that’s read at about gossip and taking other members’ inthe beginning of every ventories? meeting. Part of it 2. Am I a peacemaker? Or do I, with pious reads, “The format for preludes such as “just for the sake of discusour meeting tonight sion,” plunge into argument? will be the discussion of a Step or Tradition 3. Am I gentle with those who rub me the of Alcoholics Anon- wrong way, or am I abrasive? ymous. In keeping 4. Do I make competitive AA remarks, such with AA’s First Tradi- as comparing one group with another or contion, we respectfully trasting AA in one place with AA in another? ask , that you confine 5. Do I put down some AA activities as if I your remarks to only were superior for not participating in this or the Step or Tradition that aspect of AA? being discussed. Other 6. Am I informed about AA as a whole? Do problems may be dis- I support, in every way 1 can, AA as a whole, cussed after the meet- orjust the parts I understand and approve of? ing if you wish.” 7. Am I as considerate of AA members as I When I first started want them to be of me? attending my home group, that statement 8. Do I spout platitudes about love while inreally bothered me – dulging in and secretly justifying behavior because I wanted to that bristles with hostility? talk about ‘ whatever 9. Do I go to enough AA meetings or read moved me. enough AA literature to really keep in touch’! Today I see that 10. Do I share with AA all of me, the bad statement as saying, and the good, accepting as well as giving the “Please check your help of fellowship’? chainsaw at the door.” (Traditions Checklist from the Grapevine) Brian H., Eau Claire, Wsc.

January 1994

Dollars and sense From Sioux Falls, S.D.: Perhaps the AATradition most con- can should increase their donations sistently ignored these days is the in order to offset the free riders. To Seventh: “Every AA group ought to me this is not a healthy situation. I be fully self-supporting, declining once belonged to a group where two outside contributions.” or three of the more affluent members Doubtless the founders of AA had customarily made up the deficit each good intentions, but sad to say this month. This caused some additional policy has become universally weak problems as might be expected. It is in practice. not surprising that this group eventu- One forgets that a certain level of ally folded and no longer exists. incomc is nccdcd to operatc an AA An AA friend of mine usually group. Such things as coffee, litera- drops a twenty dollar bill into the basture, vyious supplies, utilities, and I ket when it comes around. Most imrent or building upkeep must be taken pressive! The trouble is, he comes to care of to remain viable and to “carry only two or three meetings a year. the message,” so to speak. Also to Most of us could do the same’thing ‘ be remembered are obligations to if we came only once a month or less. GSO, intergroup, and district and Let us hope that AA continues on state assemblies. regardless. But if or when it dies, its Over the years, I’ve attended count- demise may well be caused by lack less meetings when less than half the of financial support! P. P. members contributed anything at all. To me this is most disturbing. Surely anyone who ever drank must have spent more than a dollar a night to support his or her expensive habit. There are some hardship and wclfarc cases to be sure, but most of the people I know have incomes well above a living wage. We hear it suggested that those who

January 1994

– The circle and the triangle From Narcoossee, Fla.: A flag, a skull and crossbones, a When our delegate to the Conferstar, and a triangle within a circle. ence gave his report to the area assembly, I was stunned at the lack of reac- All of these symbols represent some-, tion from those in attendance. Was it thing of importance to a certain group shock or was it apathy? of individuals, and those of us who In the society we live in, it is not have received the grace which ena great surprise that some would wish abled us to find Alcoholics Anonyto appear affiliated with Alcoholics mous can easily recognize the triangle Anonymous, but it saddens me no within the circle. When this symbol end to consider that the abuse of our is displayed on any literature we can symbol could only have been be assured that it was generated by achieved through the support of the Alcoholics Anonynmous. very people who make up the wonder- However, as of April 29, 1993, Alful Fellowship the symbol represents. coholics Anonymous World Services, If AA members didn’t buy the items Inc. issued a statement to the effect produced by outside manufacturers, that AA will no longer use the circle they might even cease to exist. and triangle on its literature, let- So I ask, about all your jewelry, terhead, and other material. This is T-shirts, and trinkets with the circle being done in an effort to avoid the and triangle: what do they represent suggestion of association or affilia- now that this symbol no longer stands tion with outside organizations or in- for AA? And, what will you be lookdividuals who have used this symbol on materials they have produced. ing to buy next? D. C.

F e b r u a r y 1994

Welfare. Those three For our group purpose there is but one bodies became identified with one another, ultimate authority – a loving God as He and I distrusted them Practice These may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted all. I was convinced that the “upper eche- Principles. .. lons” of Alcoholics servants; they do not govern. Anonymous were out Zkadition Dvo: For our group purpose there to undo me. is but one ultimate authority – a loving God Today, I am inclined as He may express Himself in our group

Governed by Love to believe that my lack of trust – my fear often took the form of conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. 1. Do I criticize or do I trust and support my physical illness, pre- group officers, AA committees, and office venting me from ac- workers? Newcomers? Old-timers? There are no lowed logically that if there were ser- cepting AA commitbosses in Alco- vapts. there had to be masters. Quite 2. Am I absolutely trustworthy, even in secret, ments that would have holics Anony- a lot later, the fog lifted just enough with AA ‘helfth Step jobs or other responinvolved me with our mous. Not even for me to begin to understand that sibilities? general service strucstraw bosses. Who there is only one master, “a loving ture or our local inter- 3. Do I look for credit in my AA jobs? Praise ever heard of such God as He may express Himself in group. for my AA ideas? a thing? Everybody knew (so I used our group conscience.” I used to feel more 4. Do I have to save face in group discussion, to think) that without bosses, hateful It took fifteen AA years before I at home visiting locked or can I yield in good spirit to the group as they were, no operation could pos- could open my mind and heart suffi- wards and correctional conscience and work cheerfully along with it? sibly succeed. ciently to identify the chief principle facilities than I did It is twenty years since I had my governing us and holding us together in my home group. My 5. Although I have been sober a few years, last drink and came into AA. I am in unity. It is simply love, based first attitude was that I did am I still willing to serve my turn at AA still not overfond of bosses. And that on our common need for survival and not have to trust chores? is fine, because, thanks to the Second then on our common experience of patients and inmates, 6. In group discussions, do I sound off about ‘Ifadition, there are still no bosses suffering and rebirth. I had heard AA but by the very nature matters on which I have no experience and around. love talked about, of course, and I of things, they had little knowledge? ; Early on, I started hearing about had read about it, but it was beyond to trust me. I was our “trusted servants.” If they did not my understanding. Therefore, I did quite unaware of my (Traditions Checklist from the Grapevine) run things, who did? It was terribly not trust it. peculiar brand of bosimportant that I find out so I could What I wanted to hear was that the sism. At my home flatter and con my way into sobriety, board of trustees governed us, aided group, I distrusted the very process signal for my mind to close down just as I had flattered and conned my and abetted by GSO (the General by which I was elected to office many tight? To pay attention to the Tradiway in the saloons. Even after many Service Office). I knew absolutely times; I even suspected the group of tions – to say nothing of the Steps months of not drinking and of attend- nothing about those AA bodies but ballot-tampering when others were would have meant looking more ing AA meetings, I was still trying was convinced that they were similar elected. closely at myself, and that was , to discover which meetings the “mas- to the Federal government’s Depart- Is it any wonder that the mere men- frightening. When the subject was ters” went to. What masters? It fol- ment of Health, Education, and tion of the Traditions used to be the “trusted servants,” it was too painful,

since I already had to work so hard fallen through. “Each chairman,” he and weren’t listening. “I told her to sonal guidelines for me in the Second to believe that God (as I understood continued, “would have his own steer- get a big sign,” he said, with sincerity, Tradition. I should try to keep my him) would not let me down. ing committee, and one could check “like a cue card, that would read outlook clear so that I can remain in It is only within the last five years up on the other. In that way, we’d ‘SHUT UP, PLEASE.’ But she touch with myself. I ought to rethat my distrust has been forced to really get things done in this group.” thought the group conscience would member that I am not my own ultiyield to the grace of a loving God. (Can you imagine your home group not go along with it. What does group mate authority. I ought also be aware (the healing grace of AA). Did I do with two steering committees? Mine conscience have to do with it?” that when I am too hard on myself, anything special to gain my freedom has its hands full with just one.) Good question. Group conscience I am practicing a form of bossism, at long last? Yes. 1 kept as close as With the increasing visibility of our t I was first defined for me as the in- and bossism doesn’t work for me. possible to AA (as I understood it) Fellowship, more pressures are formed opinion of the majority of the Finally, it is a proved-good idea to and prayed like the dickens for the brought to bear, and the cry to profes- membership. We are all familiar with keep my own doors open, two of them gift of faith. And I stayed away from sionalize seems to grow louder. A the workings of group conscience at in particular. My fellow alcoholics one drink for one day at a time, so well-intentioned, nonalcoholic busi- the level of the local group. Its most have a right to know that my experithat when the door finally opened, I nessman cornered me at a party one elemental form is expressed when the ence and sanity (such as it is) are was ready to step through into the evening. He wanted to know why AA group opens the doors of its meeting available for sharing. And I am light of trust and unity. did not affiliate with national agen- place. Just about all progress starts responsible for making my sobriety What about practial application? cies so that it could be of more help with the opening of doors, doesn’t it? accessible, to them. As Alcoholics Anonymous approaches to more people. I attempted to explain That same definition would also Let me share my newfound trust a half century of wisdom and experi- our principle of cooperation without apply to the group conscience of area with you. It will help me toward ence, why do we still need the Second affiliation (SixthTradition), but he in- or district committees, of the AA another day’s sobriety and perhaps Tradition? sisted on pointing out what he called Grapevine, of the General Service lead you into a new understanding of The fact that our membership has a “fringe benefit.” According to him, Board (trustees), and of the AA Gen- our Second Tradition. grown to its present one million plus it would enable us to do away with eral Service Conference. W H . , Manhattan, N.Y. inspires me every now and then with our “unprofessional” elections. “Hav- There are also some important per- (from the September 1981 Grapevine) the notion that the time has come for ing God as your ultimate authority is a more formalized governing struc- all very good,” he declared, “and I ture. I am especially grateful to our am not saying that Alcoholics newer, younger members who never Anonymous should be any the less fail to encourage me to think twice. religious. But your elections ought to Two In my area, there is a continuing in- be more businesslike. Honestly now, flux of younger people whose eager- how much longer can you go on tellness to get on with life I take as a ing your membership that their bosses personal challenge. They bring a don’t run the show!” natural impetuousness. too. that God bless our non-AA friends. Wc One Among Many sometimes prompts them to push for would never have gotten this far withchange for the sake of change. (And out their help. But we do need to When I first came bers arguing back and forth, hashing why not? I had the same urgings as listen carefully. We also need to listen into the Fellow- and rehashing the tiniest bit of trivia a newcomer.) to one another with the same care.’ ship, I fell in love and expounding on why and why not , “I think our group should have two For instance, a young member canic not only with AA, something should change or stay the overall chairmen.” That statement to me once with a complaint that but with the busi- same. I heard some members say they was made to me by a newcomer whose members of his group got restless dur- ness meetings. I didn’t like business meetings and bid for chairmanship of his group had ing the secretary’s announcements loved to sit there and watch the mem- didn’t like to see the members’dis-

agreeing. I couldn’t identify with “according to Traditions.” Without this. Why, I thought, it added an ex- even realizing it, 1 was breaking our citing dimension to meetings! First Tradition. Unity went out the In the beginning I was made aware door when I walked in. This was the of my inflated alcoholic ego by work- beginning of the realization of just ing the Steps. What I didn’t know at’ how deep my defects of character went. the time was that I would get in touch As I trudged this happy road of with other defects I didn’t even know service, many challenges surfaced. I had – little things like power driv- Could I become one among many ing, tunnel vision, and numerous who are also in service positions? other lovable traits. Humility, self- Could I see there is no “chief’ drunk, sacrifice, principles before per- and no “peon” positions, either?That sonalities, and anonymity were not we are all an important part of the my favorite words. To begin with, I whole -that any position I might hold didn’t really know what they meant. is in direct rclationship with the posi- After my first Fourth Step, I thought tions others hold? Could I realize, I had discovered all there was to know when needing to voice my opinions about me – oh, boy! With each addi- and make sure all hear, that I have tional Fourth Step, I found I was only lost my ability tollisten? Could I see scratching the surface. The lhelfth that tunnel vision isn’t practical when ‘Step told me that after having a I need to see the whole? spiritual awakening as the result of Could I do what I was trusted to these Steps, I would try to carry this do and let others do what they were message to alcoholics and I was to trusted to do without making sure it practice these principles in all my af- was done and self-righteously picking , fairs. So far, so good. Little did I up the slack (all for the good of AA, know, when I started out in service, don’t you know)? Could I put any that these principles would become a position I might hold in proper reality I couldn’t have imagined. perspective to its relationship with It happened that I moved from my AA as a whole? If I don’t do these old home group, which had nurtured things, my job either gets escalated me for five years, to a group that was in my mind and I end up with an overentirely different in the way they did rated ego, or I see my job as not that things (or so I thought). No one told big a deal and do half a job or none me to grab a club when I started tell- at all. ing this group about the Traditions After a while, I began not to take and how they were breaking them all, myself so seriously. I am developing but I did. God help the alcoholic who the ability to laugh at myself when I discovers a bit of truth and needs to get off the beam in these areas. Like tell others about it, come hell or high I said, AA is a journey that takes a water. I became the group’s watch lifetime. dog, making sure they did everything Anonymous, Winthrop, Maine

March 1994

the sharing of our experience, to me that this final stage perfected strength and hope – but only sugges- my tailor-made gutter. The AA people tions. It is my belief, based upon my were so completely kind, understandown experience, that so long as the ing and forgiving, despite this moralcoholic keeps exposing himself to tifying insult to them on my part, that The only requirement for 4 membership AA, we should not dismiss him from I loved them as I had never loved 1

our most alert attention, o i withhold before. And their advice, suggestions is a desire to stop drinking. any effort we might make to help him, and requests became commands for simulv because we state to ourselves me which I followed with great eagerand-each other, rather easily too, that When Are We Ready2 “he is not ready.” To begin with, who among us feels Our Fellowship has only suggestions. . . ness until finally I absorbed enough truth and knowledge to understand that I was here with these wonderful people because I belonged here, and that I was fighting for this sobriety to save myself alone. My point here is that the sincere desire to stop drinking is an absolute qualification, but it is an element that may be developed as an alcoholic goes along in his early days in this Fellowship, and many might be saved by our refusal to dismiss them easily as “not being ready.” I was so saved many years ago when the Fellowship was much younger and smaller, collectively much less wise, perhaps, and surely less able from the standpoint of numbers to give as much dedicated personal attention. Yet through the understanding, love and alert attention of a half-dozen dedicated emissaries of God’s grace, my enjoyment of this sobriety was made to stick. Anonymous, Cleveland, Ohio @om the August 1961 Grapevine)

What finally made the difference Group and, for the first time in my when I discovered the Lambda Group life, found other people with blue Three I was not any special magic I found there. It was what was taken from eyes. And those eyes were clear and bright and happy to see me! Third Eye me: the last excuse I had for drinking. My life had become such a drunken I am overjoyed to report that, if God as I understand him sees fit to nightmare of despair that I had run keep me sober for three more days, out of all other excuses, but I could I will have two years of continuous always fall back on the old standby sobriety. My life is rich and full in My name is Larry than any other single thing toward my that the other people in my first group ways that I could not have imagined T., and I’m an al- drinking: I am homosexual. Lacking didn’t understand – couldn’t under- during the black despair of my drinkcoholic. I am also the strength and courage that I have stand – what I was going through in ing days. My profession, my health, many other things, since seen other gay alcoholics my struggle with my sexuality. This my family and so much more have including a mem- exhibit, I was determined that this was one form of uniqueness that I felt been returned to me, and I have exber of the Ft. was the one secret that I would take justified my continuing slips. When perienced a joyous freedom that I Worth Lambda AA Group. Three to my grave. So I sat in meetings day I got to Lambda, I saw something never dreamed could be mine. This years ago I wouldn’t have been able after day and listened to other AAs that I had never seen before – other was all made possible by a willingto say that to anyone, but by the grace unload about problems with wives gay alcoholics who were staying ness to follow the l’belve Steps of of God and the acceptance I have and girlfriends ,and get some relief sober and leading happy and produc- Alcoholics Anonymous, not by the found at my home group, I’ve been from their burdens, while I sat silently tive lives devoid of the self-loathing Ft. Worth Lambda Group. But it was able to face the secret that was keep- and felt more and more apart. I have and self-pity I had wallowed in for the acceptance and understanding that ing me sick. since learned that the sexual orienta- so many years. My last excuse was I found there that allowed me to face My sobriety date is July 10, 1991, tion I think I was born with didn’t gone. I was home at last! the truth about myself, and so to begin but the first time I walked through matter to the overwhelming majority Recently, I realized that, like most recovery at last. the doors of an AA group was June of my fellow AAs; they just wanted alcoholics, I had always felt some- Alcoholics, probably more than 12, 1987. There were many sobriety me to get the program and find the how different from the people around most people, have a need to fit in and dates between those two, but those happiness that they had found. But I me. It was as though I had been born feel a part of things. Special-interest are the only ones I remember: the first was too damaged when I got here to with a third eye in the middle of my groups can fill that need. If even one one, and, I pray God, the last one. risk sharing the truth about myself. forehead. I could comb my hair down alcoholic can find the road to recovery My first four years in the program Please don’t misunderstand: I be- and cover it up and pretend to be like in a special-interest group, then such were characterized by an honest de- lieve that anyone, despite race, educa- everyone else, but I always knew that a group is justified. I am one alcoholic sire to stop drinking and a total inabil- tional or economic background, sex- my third eye was there, and that it who did, and I’m eternally grateful ity to do so. During those years, I ual orientation or any other factor, made me different. When I walked for having had the opportunity for a was attending meetings almost daily can recover from alcoholism in any nervously into my first AA meeting, new life that my particular specialat an extremely loving and Big-Book- group in the world that adheres to the I was thrilled to find a roomful of interest group afforded me. Indeed, based “straight” group. I tried my best l’belve Steps as outlined in the Big people with third eyes in the middle I am sure that I owe my very life to to work the Steps and do what the Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I of their foreheads, just like me. But having found Lambda, for it was old-timers suggested, but I was never also know that gaining that recovery after the fog had lifted and a little there that I found AA, and it was in able to string together more than foul depends absolutely on facing the truth reality set in, 1 began to notice that AA that I found God, and it has been months, one day at a time. At thirty- about who and what we are, and that everyone else in the group had brown through the grace of God that I have five years of age, I still hadn’t faced I was unable to do so in the group third eyes while mine was blue. I was found a new way of living. I the truth that had contributed more that I attended when I first found AA. still apart. Then, I found the Lambda Larry T.,Hurst, Ex.

along with false pride, which said, – the lbelve Steps, the Tkelve Tradi- “They have to do it my way!” Each tions, the view of alcoholism as a of us seeks sobriety and an under- threefold disease, the spirituality of standing of the Power greater than our program – AA will survive and ourselves, but the way can be devious readily absorb these AAs with “new” and full of stumbling blocks for some. problems. Are we deliberately creating another AA does change as the people in obstacle for the newcomer to AA by AA change – but the basic foundation our judgmental attitudes? remains firm and unchanging, provid- Over the years, the kinds of per- ing a broad program to handle almost sons seeking out AA for help have any new problem through the onechanged, and this has caused a change to-one sharing at the group level, in AA’s approach, because we try to and the more personal sharing of meet the newcomer “where he’s at.” sponsorship. So long as we maintain at the indi- D . K . , Oakland, Calif. They’ll Ruin AA ‘ vidual and group level the AA basics Cfrom the December 1979 Grapevine)

It is becoming in- More recently, newcomers began creasingly appar- arriving at AA in their early twenties ent that the “pure and even teen;, and the cry was “I alcoholic” is a spilled niore than you drank. You’re Practice These Principles … thing of the past. too young to be an alcoholic.” But lkadition Three: The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to The 1977 AA sur- these young people were somewhat stop drinking. vey showed decisively that newcom- different, and formed their own ers to AA more and more are ap- groups in AA. Then persons with dif- 1. In my mind, do I prejudge some new AA members as losers? proaching this program with the prob- ferent sexual preferences appeared, 2. Is there some kind of alcoholic whom I privately do not want in my lem of alcohol – and something else. and the attitude was “They’ll contami- AA group? This situation is not a novel one. nate us. We don’t need them.” Again, Years ago, when ex-convicts began separate groups have formed for these 3. Do I set myself up as a judge of whether a newcomer is sincere or phony? coming to AA, the cry was “Oh, we persons. Now, we’re seeing alcohol- 4. Do I let language, religion (or lack of it), race, education, age, or other

I can’t handle their problems. AA is ics with dual drug problems, and once only for alcoholics.” Very effective again the cry is “They’ll ruin AA.” AA hospital and institutions commit- It’s time we bring to mind with such things interfere with my carrying the message? 5. Am I overimpressed by a celebrity? By a doctor, a clergyman, an exconvict? Or can I just treat this new member simply and naturally as one tees resulted from these newcomers. some force the Third Tradition: “The more sick human, like the rest of us? Later, when newcomers who still had only requirement for AA membership jobs came to the program, the cry is a desire to stop drinking.” This 6. When someone turns up at AA needing information or help (even if he ‘ can’t ask for it aloud), does it really matter to me what he does for a living? was “But they’re not real alcoholics.” Tradition is the direct result of mis- Where he lives? What his domestic arrangements are? Whether he had been The upshot of these persons’ impact takes AA members and groups made to AA before? What his other problems are? on AA was to raise the alcoholic’s over the years in denying help to the “bottom” so that future newcomers suffering alcoholic who was “differ- (Traditions Checklist from the Grapevine) could identify earlier in the progres- ent.” Fear, the difficult-to-remove sion of the illness. character defect, reared its ugly head,

April 199

newcomer who still had to lean on a general service committee). sponsor. We now feel we are truly a group Four So our members and officers and not just a meeting. Nothing has moved, through our group con- drastically changed in our meeting science, to become an autonomous conduct or our ability to carry the AA

I Each group should be autonomoJs group – much as a pigeon might tell message. But our group’s new atexcept in matters afecting other ,!Youps his sponsor he was ready to stand on titude – knowing just who we are or AA as a whole. his own feet. We wanted our structure has made us feel very much a part of to reflect all of the h e l v e Traditions, the sober structure of Alcoholics especially the Fourth (“Each group Anonymous.

Group Conscience should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole”) and the Seventh (“Every We’ve brought our individual recovery to sober action through group unity. We feel it helps the Fellowship AA group ought to be fully self-sup- as a whole each time a group matures porting, declining outside contribu- this way. We’ve done a thorough tions”). housecleaning and taken a group in- The way we achieved ouy auton- ventory. Our informed group consci- We would like to carrying the message by biingingOur omy was as important to us as our share our group’s recovery and sobriety to service decision to try. It took a few months experience of through group unity. Those Present of putting our group conscience “into transition in struc- felt they were attending action” for us to receive the rewards We now feel we ture, because it has where the genuine-hand df AA was niven us renewed extended. You might think We of “how it works.” We put the autonomy question be- are truly a group. . . strength and ho& through our be grateful as a group, given all this, fore the steering committee and the , growth. It’s sort of “what we used to and have serenity as offlcers group for a vote, and received groupbe like, what happened, and what we members. conscience approval. We then took ence is no longer frustrated, for it can are like now” at a group level. Yet we were frustrated, e ~ ~ e c i a l l ~ our proposal to our local service com- now act autonomously on the deci- Our group was a long-standing, those of us on our steering dommittee. mittee for recognition and approval, sions it reaches. We’ve put principles closed, speaker-discussion meeting We were everything an 6stablished which we received. before personalities and the AA Badthat followed AA guidelines and Tra- group should be – but we +”‘eren’tau- Now that we’re autonomous, we itions before local customs. Auditions. That is, we conducted it ac- tonomous! For a long time, Our group pay our own rent, as well as continu- tonomy has made us feel more ascording to the pamphlet “The AA had been a special-purpose group and ing to buy our own refreshments. We sured that the door we hold open to Group” with the approval of the group had been sponsored by dur. central have a group number in the records the alcoholic who still suffers (and conscience. We had an able steering office. We were s e l f – s ~ ~ ~ P * ‘Yet~ g * of the General Service Office, and that’s the longtimer as well as the committee and rotating officers, in- we gave all contributions re- we order our own literature from AA newcomer) is the true door of AA cluding general service, Grapevine, freshment expenses) to the World Services and our own group recovery and fellowship. H&I (hospital and institution), and office. It, in turn, paid 03’ rent and subscription from the Grapevine. We To be sober members of an auintergroup representatives. Many reg- gave us our literature. handle our own contributions, follow- tonomous group in the Fellowship of ular members considered our group Yes, wc felt uncomfortable. ing the “sixty-thirty-ten” recommcn- Alcoholics Anonymous, we are truly their home group, and we had a good we had good sobriety a d a dation (sixty percent to our central grateful. mix in quality and quantity of sobriety. group conscience and meeting con- office, thirty percent to the General H.A . , J . M . , San Francisco We seemed to be staying sober and duct, we felt we were tre$ted like a Service Office, ten percent to our area (from the December 1 9 7 Grapevine)

April 1994

B ill W. warned of the spiritual greater than each person which propride that would delude us into tect the sanctity of each of us and thinking we had a direct allow us to come together to do what pipeline with our Higher Power: “In we could not do alone. We under- AA’s first years, I all but ruined the stand, as Bill W. eventually did, that ‘ whole undertaking with this sort of each person’s theology has to be his unconscious arrogance. God as I un- own quest. derstood him had to be for everybody. Sometimes my aggression was subtle and sometimes it was crude. But No one person either way it was damaging – perhaps fatally so – to numbers of nonbeliev- speaks for the ers.” Bill reminded us (and me too) that “we ourselves need to practice Fellowship . . . what we preach – and forget the ‘preaching,’ too.” Today I’ve learned tolerance and I need to be reminded constantly understanding of those who have an that I don’t have all the answers just orthodox belief in the cosmos; some because I consider myself spiritually need a more structured belief system fit, and that the greatest example of than others. I’ve learned to forgive false pride and self-righteousness is those who turn meetings into testimoto claim, I have the answers! That is nials and remind me of my old church what divides us from cults and reli- days. I try to not judge those who gions: No one person speaks for the judge me for not having a Higher Fellowship; each member can have a Power called God, or because I don’t power greater than themselves or not; pray the Lord’s Prayer at the end of and the only requirement for member- a meeting. I think it’s in conflict with ship is a desire to stop drinking. There the Sixth Tradition of our Fellowship. is no requirement for anyone to be- The ~ o r d ‘ sPrayer comes from the lieve as I do. We are each allowed to Bible, and if that ain’t endorsing accept or reject what we wish – and Christianity, I don’t know what is. ‘ that is the great power and beauty and I’m just grateful I don’t retaliate and attraction of this program. end a group with a Buddhist chant. In a 1940 letter, Bill W. stated that This is a spiritual, not a religious “we make no religious requirement program. Let’s keep it that way. I of anyone . . . In such an atmosphere won’t force my beliefs on you if you the orthodox, the unorthodox, and the don’t force yours on me. Say what unbcliever mix happily and usefully you want, and so will 1 with the help together. An opportunity for spiritual of my Higher Power whom I choose growth is open to all.” Everyone con- nor to call God, and together we’ll tributes in this unique and special Fel- stay sober one day at a time. lowship. We are guided by principles Eddie B . , Ahwahnee, Calif.

May 1994

had failed, and I finally had given in cussed back then too, but after my to reality. I was an alcoholic and first meeting a guy named Sam came . nceded help, and somehow I intui- up to me and sort of swayed his bottle tively knew that I would find the of Dr. Pepper under my nose and said, Each group has but one primary answer in AA. “Don’t worry about a lot of the stuff I wonder if we are really helping that was said here tonight, just keep, purpose – to carry its message to the newcomers when we introduce “other coming back. We’re here every night alcoholic who still suflers. ways” of staying sober in our meet- at 8:30.” Thanks, Sam. Had 1 heard ings. I am grateful that when I came of personal growth retreats, church into AA there was only one signal groups, or validation meetings, I A Simple Solution coming through at the meetings I went to: Don’t drink. Go to meetings. might have wandered down another path and not be trudging the road of Get a sponsor and work the Steps. happy destiny today. Maybe this other stuff was being dis- Torn P., Naples, Italy As an individual, our purpose changed from “not drinkmy primary pur- ing”? At anothcr niecting recently 1 pose is to stay sober and to help heard someone say, “There are solutions.” This statement struck me ?s Practice These Principles. .. other alcoholics odd. I found myself wondering why achieve sobriety. Bill W. didn’t write, “There are solu- – Tradition Five: Each group has but one primary purpose to carry As a group, our primary purpose is tions” instead of “There is a solu- its message to the alcoholic who stiffsuffers. to help the alcoholic who still suffers. tion.” Just yesterday after the nieet- This is pretty simple stuff, isn’t it? ing, I saw a brand-new newcomer – I. Do I ever cop out by saying, “I’m not a group, so this or that But is it too simple? At meetings re- I mean first meeting – standing apart Tradition doesn’t apply to me”? cently, I have sensed something else while everyone talked about what 2. Am I willing to explain firmly to a newcomer the limitations of going on. I couldn’t quite put my churches they go to. AA help, even if he gets mad at me for not giving him a loan? finger on it until I heard one member Why does this weigh so heavily on say to another, “Yeah, I really liked my mind? Well, the answer I’ve come 3. Have I today imposed on any AA member for a special favor or that validation that we did last night.” up with is this: If I ever begin to be- consideration simply because I am a fellow alcoholic? I immediately had a sick feeling in lieve that there is “another way,” an my stomach and was glad that I had “easier, softer way,” a “back door,” 4. Am I willing to twelfth-step the next newcomer without regard missed the meeting where everyone I am on my way back out there. It to who or what is in it for me? “validated” each other. If that had wasn’t easy for me to come into AA. 5. Do I help my group in every way I can to fulfill our primary happened at my first meeting, you It took years of drinking, lying, cheat- purpose? wouldn’t be reading this now. I’d ing (both kinds), stealing, and denial either be drunk or dead. before I picked up the phone and 6. Do I remember that AA old-timers, too, can be alcoholics who What I’m talking about is a tcn- called AA for help. That Friday niorn- still suffer? Do I try both to help them and to learn from them? dency to bring other ways of staying ing I knew it was over. There were sober into’ our groups. How can 1 no more back doors. No more cons (Traditions Checklistfrom the Grapevine) argue if people are not drinking? In to pull. No more lies to be told. It this question lies my dilemma. Has was over – period. All of my ways

nobody can throw you out.” They beyond doubt, that I was suffering quoted the ThirdTradition. I said “Put from a progressive and fatal disease. me down as a member,” and so I be- To think that they had been listening came a member of Alcoholics Anon- to my monologues through the wee I A Benevolent ymous – permanently. But I kept hours of the morning added insult to drinking. Nobody ever said I had to injury.

I Guardian I be sober to be a member. I wasn’t. Unquestionably, that group had I continued to phone the central been conspiring against me to get me office, and several times it sent sober. I felt it had violated my privacy twelfth-steppers to see me. Strangely and somehow infringed on my consti- When I got to this when the bars closed. Someone enough, it was members of my group tutional rights. I was most unhappy Fellowship, I knew would talk with me while I told my who kept making these Twelfth Step that they knew me from top to ‘botnothing about it long, woeful, drunken stories. Of calls. Why did they have to come tom. I hadn’t wanted to be known. I whatever. I only course, I wouldn’t tell the little group when I called for help? I still didn’t was afraid that if they knew me they knew I hurt and I I attended that I was drinking con- want the group to wouldn’t like me. wanted to stop stantly. Why bother them with little know I was drink- It took a long hurting – but without stopping drink- details like that? ing. On one of That group had been while before I uning. After all, alcohol was the solution I was constantly in a fog, but one these calls, three derstood they both to my problems. It made life bear- night I was driving aimlessly around, people from my conspiring against me knew me and liked able. But for some reason I stumbled extremely drunk and depressed, when group arrived at me, and that I was into a meeting and heard AAs tell it suddenly popped into my head that my apartment (they to get me sober: okay just as I was. their stories. They didn’t look like “my” group was meeting at that very knew the chal- Then one day I drunks, but they certainly talked like time. It had been in progress for half lenge I presented). really heard the drunks. I felt at home – without hav- an hour. I staggered in, blind drunk. I told them to take my bottles. It Fifth Tradition. It jumped out and hit ing any idea why I felt that way. I Nobody was very surprised. The took all three with arms loaded to me like a bombshell: “Each Alcoknow now, of course. It was because meeting continued while I sat drunker carry away my liquor. (I always holics Anonymous group ought to be these people had obviously been than a skunk. After the meeting they wanted to have enough to serve my a spiritual entity having but one priwhere I was, had thought what I was took me out to coffee. 1 guests. Of course. I never had ttiary purpose – that of carrying its thinking, and had felt what I was feel- One night during the meeting, a guests.) That night I took my last message to the alcoholic who still ing. I belonged there as I had never “hard core” member said, “There are drink. suffers.” belonged anywhere in my life. people sitting right here who are com- Several months into my sobriety, I It sounded like a bugle call. It I was told to keep coming back, ing to this meeting and drinking all found out that my group had made a marched right off the page, and I so I did (in those days I wasn’t asked week.” He looked straight at me. I project of answering the night phone thought, “Dummy, that group wasn’t to come back anywhere very often). almost went through the floor. (Note: for the central office: it was these meddling in your affairs or infringing I went to a group that met only once That man later became my sponsor.) members who’d been listening to my on your privacy. It was, and is, a a week and occasionally I would It was after that meeting that I long and woeful drunken tales. They spiritual entity carrying out its prihonor it with my presence. I had no learned about the Third Tradition. knew all the time – everything! I mary purpose. Don’t you see?” intention whatsoever of stopping my Other members of the group said to was aghast. It was bad enough that Of course. 1 see now. This single drinking. I would drink, get more de- me privately, “Marion, you want to they had picked me up and taken primary purpose stands as a benevopressed, and invariably phone the get sober, don’t you?’ I said, “Yes.” me to meetings, taken me out to lent guardian over every group, central office – about 2:00 A.M. I re- They said, “Then you are a member coffee, befriended me in every way everywhere. member the hour only because that’s of this group if you say you are and possible, and finally convinced me, Marion D . , Albuquerque, N . M .

able solution. Information meetings ing: the Preamble of Alcoholics are informal discussions and sharing Anonymous, the Twelve Traditions, about what AA is: what it does and or the blue primary purpose card. All does not do. These information meet- state our primary purpose. The priings have helped keep our regular AA mary purpose card was born out of A United Message meetings tied to AA’s singleness of purpose and to the principles of our the frustration of members needing something concrete to reflect the overof Recovery other Traditions. A group conscience will get exactly all consciousness of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is a service piece and what it demands, no more or no less. available upon request from GSO. The long form of the suggestions are not followed. Our experience today still bears out 2. Try to have a strong chairperson ladition One states, When Bill wrote “Problems Other the experience of our founders. Some or discussion leaders who establish in part, that “each Than Alcohol” in 1958, he made clear groups, where the alcoholics became and adhere to a policy of how to remember of Alco- our singleness of purpose: “Sobriety outnumbered and the primary pur- spond to problems other than alcohol. holics Anonymous – freedom from alcohol – through the pose was lost in problems other than 3. Have information available on is but a small part teaching and practice of the f i e l v e 1 alcohol, have had to close their doors. other twelve-step programs – names of a great whole. AA must c o n t h e Steps is the sole purpose of an AA What can we do about singleness and telephone numbers to contact. to live or most of us will surely die. group. Groups have repeatedly tried of purpose? What is our responsibility 4. Hold closed discussion meet- Hence our common welfare must other activities and they have always to AA? What can I do individually? ings – for alcoholics only. Most agree come first.” We are then given eleven failed. It has also been learned that What about my group? How do we it is better to avoid embarrassing an other Traditions that show us what we there is ‘ n o possible way to makc carry a united message of recovery individual publicly and to speak to must do in order to accomplish the nonalcoholics into AA members. We from alcoholism – the only message him or her privately either before or goal of unity allowing recovery. We have to confine our membership to we are given to carry? after the meeting, remembering that are shown that our membership is alcoholics and we have to confine our Following are some solutions many a spirit of understanding should acopeh to all who suffer from al- AA groups to a single purpose. If we groups have found to work. company firmness. coholism – the only requirement is a don’t stick to these principles, we I. Read one or more of the follow- 5. Keep lines of communication . I desire to stop drinking. Another Tra- shall almost surely collapse. And if ing at the beginning of an AA meet- open with court officials, treatment dition tells us that we have but one we collapse, we cannot help anyone.” purpose – to carry the message to the Our singleness of purpose has THIS IS A CLOSED MEETING alcoholic who still suffers. Other really been put to the test with the ‘Raditions relate the things we need growth of treatment facilities which OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS to watch for so we don’t get diverted lump all addictive disorders together, This is a closed meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. In supfrom that primary purpose – problems with the subsequent visits of large port of A.A.3 singleness of purpose, attendance at closed of money, property, prestige, author- numbers of treatment graduates to our meetings is limited to persons who have a desire to stop ity, controversy, sensational advertis- groups, and with the mandatory sen- drinking. If you think you have a problem with alcohol, you ing, and personalities. All these tencing of drunk driving offenders to guidelines come to us from our found- AA meetings. Meanwhile, our own are welcome to attend this meeting. We ask that when disers and past members who experi- AA members aren’t always aware of cussing our problems, we confine ourselves to those probenced firsthand the consequences of our Traditions. lems as they relate to alcoholism. what happens when these principles Many areas have designed plans to he 1987 General Service Conference are not respected – the chaos, heart- meet these situations. “Infomiation” made this available as an A.A. setvice piece for the groups who wish to U s e d break, and confusion that results when meetings have become a good work-

experience. As we look to AA for THIS IS AN OPEN MEETING guidance, we feel separate because We Can’t Afford -ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS OF each Fellowship has a unique primary This is an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are purpose. Both of us have an enor- Not To mous amount of work to do and each glad you are all here – especially newcomers. In keeping time someone recovers, we help each Recently our group held a public with our singleness of purpose,and our Third Tradition I information supper. While we were in other.” the planing stage for this event, 1 had which states that “The only requirement for A.A. member- I a discussion with a friend of mint ship is a desire to stop drinking,” we ask that all who From the Fellowship of Al-Anon: Al- who’s employed with a treatment Anon is so focused on its primary center. participate confine their discussion to their problems with He asked me. “Can you afford this?’ purpose that members cannot serve alcohol. as a GR (comparable to our GSR) or Our group was paying for the whole (The 1987 General Service Conference made this available as an A.A. service piece for the groups who wish to use it.d work higher in the service structure if they are members of another shot, meals and all. I looked at him and said, “We can’t afford nor to.” How easy it is for me to forget my twelve-step fellowship. own words. Last week we got the bill facilities, and employee assistance 11. Be aware of the following po- for our newspaper notice. It had gone programs, always informing them sitions of other twelve-step programs In AA Comes of Age, we find this up from eleven dollars a month to fifwhat AA can and cannot do. Strong on their own singleness of purpose. powerful statement: “We think we teen dollars and we were sitting around discussing whether or not to PI and CPC committees and tempo- These are as strong as those of Al- should do one thing well rather than cancel it. Just then a newcomer came rary sponsorship programs are helpful. coholics Anonymous: many things to which we are not in the door. He said, “My name is Bill 6. At workshops and meetings, called. Our society gathers in unity and I saw your notice in the paper.” the emphasis should be on our entire From the trustees of Narcotics around this concept. The very life of I was thinking about our phone bill program – recovery, unity, and serv- Anonymous: “One of AA’s greatest our fellowship requires its preserva- yesterday. Because our phone is listed ice. Reading of Conference-approved strengths is its single-minded focus tion. Together we have found a sub- as “Alcoholics Anonymous -Admore literature is helpful. Group.” our phone company considon one thing only: By limiting its stantial remedy for a terrible malady. ers this a business line. Therefore we 7. Stress home group member- primary purpose to carrying the mes- As a fellowship we know we must pay about ten dollars a month more ship. The home group is where we sage to alcoholics, avoiding all other not be diverted. It is our experience than does a residential line. And I was have a sense of belonging and a grow- activities, AA has done that supremely as alcoholics that makes us of unique thinking maybe we should change this ing knowledge of how the program well – and they have paved the way value on our sector of the total al- and save the ten dollars. works – and where the understanding for Narcotics Anonymous by freely coholic front. We can approach suffer- At five o’clock last night we got a of service begins. I phone call from a woman who wanted giving us their Steps. The simple fact ers as no one else can. Therefore, the our address. I gave it and she and I 8. A group that periodically inven- is that both Fellowships have a Sixth strongest kind of moral and ethical started to talk. She said, “I asked the tories itself is generally a group that Tradition for a purpose – to keep from compulsion is upon us to do this and operator for the number of Alcoholics reflects strong singleness of purpose. being diverted from our primary pur- nothing more. We shall direct our Anonymous and got yours.” And so 9. Carry the message of singleness pose. Each lbelve Step Fellowship energies where they count most. Most we had another newcomer last night. ‘ of purpose through your sponsorship. must stand alone, unaffiliated with emphatically, then, AA has but one We thought about reducing our 10. Take on the responsibility of everything else. We each have a sepa- newspaper bills and phone bills, and single purpose: To carry its message God showed us that when we try to being informed as to what our Tradi- rate unique primary purpose.” to the alcoholic who still suffers. This help drunks, “We can’t afford not to.” tions are all about. The story is told is our basic objective, our real reason A dollar saved on public information in our literature. Read it. Become a From the trustees of Cocaine for existence.” work is a dollar too much. responsible sober member. Be part of Anonymous: “We at CA look for gui- It’s our only reason for existence. Les L., Beausejour. Man. the solution, not part of the problem. dance from AA and learn from its Gay G . , Decatur, Ga.

May 1996 k —

higher in principles than my own, but I swer: “That group orchestrated everysomehow wondered why the mere thing from meetings that lasted 60.3 mention of that group left me with an minutes to a structure of organization unanswered void. Then I left the area. that made everything robotic. They I heard they were doing great things operated on human power and made and shouting great tidings. I tried my everything too damn perfect. They sober best to leave it alone. lacked humility.” A year or so ago, I heard through the Sad to say, the old-timer was right. I Rigdty overtook a successful group and brought it to its knees grapevine that the group had fallen knew the truth was not so much hi the apart. I had mixed feelings, and fact that Traditions were broken, but thought about the many friends I had more in the overall spirit of what AA

W hen I was first sober, em- togethers in several states and a couple made there. I knew they would find was set up to be, drunks helping other bracing the Twelve Tradi- of Canadian provinces. “Circuit” their own way with renewed hope and drunks get sober. What it proved was tions was no more speakers came and went in the joyous find another group. I also got the an- not that the Traditions don’t work, but complicated than listening to them celebration of sobriety. It seemed that swer why, after ten years and tremen- that they do, spiritually tuned by what being read after each meeting. by the sheer determination of unstop- dous activity, this group had ceased to all of us are trying to become: better, Through those early phases of desper- pable forces, this group would sweep function. It was an old-timer familiar weller, but less than perfect. ate fog, it certainly seemed to me that the world by its dedication and enthu- with the situation who gave me the an- ].V., Mankato, Minn. this newfound heaven called sobriety siasm. I was as caught up as anyone could never be in danger of collapse else, even though I had never become either from outside assault or internal an actual “card-carrying member” by confusion. What was already,in place joining the group. was already deeply rooted. Rather And now I take a pause. That’s the tiaive. But after all, I was sober about pause when something isn’t totally five years at the time, my home group wrong but just isn’t quite right. That’s was doing well, and a group I attended the momentary space where Bill W. on a regular basis was blossoming by must have listened acutely to the lovincredible leaps. ing a+ice of others and humbly passed That particular group, a second over the offer of his picture on Time meeting for me, seemed to be doing magazine’. Somewhere between my everything according to the highest fifth and sixth years of sobriety, I began spiritual principles. Core membership to feel that pause when it came to the was around sixty men and women. activities of the group I had put above From its inception of two members, all other groups, including my own. regular attendance peaked at around Privately I poured through the Tradi- ‘ 150 on its seventh anniversary. Partic- tions and the Twelve Concepts for ipation at every local, district, area, and World Service. I questioned my own region were represented. This group motives, wondering if I was becoming was the talk of AA roundups and get- judgmental. I found the group much ,

June 1994

Tradition Six

A n AA group ought never miliarity on the part of the authorities. forging of the Sixth Tradition. When I In my mind, their attitude translated came into the Fellowship in 1960, I finance, or l e d the enaor~e, into affiliation. If I’d had a sponsor in started attending meetings at the Old the beginning, this and many other 24th Street Clubhouse. It had just AA Any to a n y relatea hatters might have been gotten into a moved to its new home, one block truer perspective. south, on 23rd Street. I was told it was “What about the AA boat ride!” an AA clubhouse. That was the way 1 fnci&y or autdiae erzterprik, asked the newcomer. thought of it and the “Isn’t that a case of way I spoke of it. It Iwt proIIenw ofnzorzcy, AA endorsing an THE SIXTH was a long time before outside enterprise?” I understood that i t . property, a n 3 prutige aivert A local AA group was actually a clubwas sponsoring a boat TRADITION ALERTS US house for M s . ride on the river for The present-day w from our p r i m a r y purpode recreation, to raise TO THE DANGERS OF newcomer didn’t get funds to defray group the distinction. “Isn’t expenses, and also to that all just a lot of semake a contribution THE APPEARANCE OF mantics?” he said. to our local inter- “You know what peogroup. Was AA en- ple mean when they AFFILIATION say that.” dorsing the line that owned the sightsee- No, I don’t always ing boat? No. The know what people group was simply mean if they don’t tell paying for use of the me. So I explained

T he early history of Alcoholics Anonymous includes classic examples bearing directly on the formation of the Sixth Tradition: the offer made our co-founder Bill W. sponsoring became fascinated with it. He read the chapter in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions and then started’ asking questions – as I should have when I was a newcomer. boat. as it does for that the term “AA meetkg quarters. The misunderstand- club” would imply AA ownership ing in the newcomer’s mind was the re- thereby involving AA in “problems of sult of hearing the activity constantly money, property, and prestige.” That’s referred to as “the AA boat ride.” why it has been found wise to incorpoto ally himself with a hospital as an I was so fogbound for years aftcr What is a ncwcomer to think! And rate clubs for AAs as separate entities, “AA counselor”; those education coming in that, even though I heard if those of us who have been around for not owned by any group or collection binges when we succeeded in confus- and rcad about our policy of nonaffilia- a while keep repeating such terms, of groups. If a group wants to meet in ing the public (and ourselves) as to tion, there seemed to be no question what will we eventually think our- such a clubhouse, it pays rent as it just who we were and what it was we but that AA was tied in with hospitals selves? would to a church or a civic hall. were trying to do. and prisons. Every time I wcnt, trcm- Wc still hear rcfcrcnccs to “AA The Sixth Tr;wlition alerts us to the That’s the past. What about today? bling, to visit or to speak at an AA , clubs.” Our early cxpcricnce with them dangers of thc appcarancc of affiliation. This Tradition was brought into fo- group in an institution, I was strongly and with AA groups that meet under A few years ago, an AA group in my cus for me when a newcomer I was aware of the courtesy and the kind fa- the same roof had a lot to do with the area was obliged to move from quarters

Tradition S i r

it had occupied for many years. “Are you saying that we have to be when, and where of groups and of AA one-sidedness of the zealot, and (c) Against the recommendation of sever- on our toes all the time?That we have as a whole. The Sixth is warning us perhaps the villain of the piece, the al of its members, the group voted to to watch everything we think and say!” against a natural tendency to embrace savior complex. move into a center for drug rehabilita- Yes, and what we write, too. A friend all manner of causes, noble or ignoble. “None of that is going to happen to tion. The rehab center was advertising of mine once innocently sent AA It warns us to be aware of our limita- me,” said the newcomer, as he walked to encourage the use of its facilities by members a note that concerned a local tions: AA cannot be everything to away, “now that I know about it.” civic and social groups. The group did intergroup activity but was written on everyone. It reminds us to be ever on I sincerely hope not. I’ve been done not affiliate with the center but did his company business letterhead. There guard against three major shortcom- in by all three. hang its AA sign directly under the were no repercussions, but the impres- ings: (a) the crusader’s ardor, (b) the Bill H., New York, N.Y. drug program sign. The impression of sion could vcry easily have been crcat- (From the February 1982 Grapevine) affiliation, if not endorsement, was cre- cd that the intergroup office and his ated. office were affiliated. At least, the group did not change The number one intent of our Traits name and take the name of the re- ditions, of course, is to guide our groups hab center. Our General Scrvice Con- and our Society as a whole in the ways ference has rcmindcd central offices of unity. And they scrvc a further end and intergroups, as a guideline, that it as well. For example, another aspect of is a good idea for new groups not to this Tradition is the opposite of en- Tradition Six: An AA group orcgbt never enilorde,finance, or Lena the name themselves after the facility or dorsement, namely, criticism. How easy AA name to any relateafncility or orct~iileenterprbe, kit problem of institution where thcy hold their it would bc for the AA movemcnt to money, properly, a d prc,itige ilivert LW from orcr primary purpode. meetings. Too often, impressions cn- point out to the proliferating alcodure longer than facts. holism rehab programs just where we “Tell me,” the newcomer said, with think they are going wrong. It also hap- 1. Should my fellow group members and I go out and raise a touch of defiance in his voice, “how pens that criticism is one of the gravest money to endow several A A beds in our local hospital? an AA group might finance an outside of my old character defects. It is still 2. Is it good for a group to lease a small building? enterprise.” the easiest thing for me to criticize a I remember an AA member’s solic- fellow AA for not working the program 3. Are all the officers and members of our local club for AAs iting groups for bail money for an AA the way it should be worked; to criti- I familiar with “Guidelines on Clubs” (which is available free friend ~f his who had been arrested and cize a group for nor running its meet. charged with a serious crime. Only an ings the way I think they should be from GSO)? insignificant amount was riliscd, he- run; to criticize the operation of our 4. Should the secretary of our club serve on the mayor’s advicause there were enough informed General Scrvicc Office. members around to resist having their “You make it sound like the Fourth sory committee on alcoholism! AA groups finance the bail bond busi- Step,” the newcomer said, and he visi- 5. Some alcoholics will stay around A A only if we have aTV ness. Without the Sixth to guide bly drew back. “You make it sound just them, however, even that handful of like an inventory.” and card room. If this is what is required to carry the message members might have viewed the bail- That is pretty much what the Tra- to them, should we have these facilities? out action as a charitable one and set ditions come down to – an ongoing aside their groups’ primary purpose. inventory of the who, why, what,

July 1994

Tradition Seven

ers similarly, with no thought of re- world. We in Australia are appreciative ward. They in turn do likewise, and so of help and advice thus made possible. AA snowballs. To its contributing members AA New groups learn how to maintain says, “Thank you!” To outside wouldthetnsclves from the members’ contri- be contributors, AA also says, “Thank Every AA group ought to be butions – offered in gratitude for a you very much. . . but if you don’t newfound life and happiness. So please mind. . . no thank you.” fully delf-dupporting, aeclin- ‘ don’t be mean, as any group surplus can Colin R., Sydney, Australia hclp spread our message round the (From the February 1959 Grapevine)

1. Honestly now, do I do all I can to help AA (my group, my central office, my GSO) remain self-supporting? Could I put a THEREISNO little more into the basket on behalf of the new guy who can’t FREE LUNCH afford it yet? How generous was I when tankcd in a barroom? 2. Should the Grapevine sell advertising space, so it could make a big profit and become a bigger magazine, in full color, at a cheaper price per copy?

E verything in the world costs meeting place is real. Other incidental something – in both material costs grow along with the group. 3. If GSO runs short of funds, wouldn’t it be okay to let the and spiritual spheres. Just think But because nobody asks us to meet government subsidize AA groups in hospitals and prisons? for a moment: What costs nothing? together except ourselves, then logi- Some say courtesy costs nothing or cally we ourselves should pay whatev- 4. Is it more important to get a big collection from a few, or a love costs nothing, but that’s not so. er costs arise through this association smaller collection in which more members participate? . Even these virtues call for humility within our Fellowship. It’s as simple as and unselfishness. So, without split- that! 5. Is a group treasurer’s report unimportant AA business? How ting hairs, it does cost some effort to If honestly (through our own free does the treasurer feel about it? get anything or to give anything. Even will and the help of a greater Power) 6. How important in my recovery is the feeling of self-respect, love itself can cost heartaches if it’s wc seek to help ourselves, we must denot understood. cline outside contributions becausc, ;C rathcr than thc fccling of hcing always undcr obligation for In AA, minor cash costs are incurred ter all, it’s nobody’s business except our charity received? when just a few people voluntarily own anyway. meet together. T h e cost of hiring a By helping ourselves so we help 0th-

July 1994

Our true trademark From Albuquerque, N .M. : Our AA Preamble clearly states T h e r e seems to be much furor ancl who we are and what our purpose is. controv~isyin the Fellowship because we have lost the exclusive use I don’t think we need worry too much about implied affiliation, only of the circle and triangle as a trade- discourage it as much as possible. mark. It seems to me that this is a We have no real means of punishtempest in a teapot. ment for those who transgress, nor When 1 attended my first meet- do we really need any. ing of Alcoholics Anonymous I was In the final analysis, we need only pceted, not with a symbol,but with plant ourselves in the midst of the a feeling of warmth, acceptance, un- program, as it is established, and derstanding, and hope. It seems to continue our work with alcoholics. me that these are the true trade- This has worked well for nearly marks of our Fellowship. sixty years. Whether or not we use the circle and triangle on our literature is of It is impdssible to find words to little consequence over the long describe our Fellowship and how it haul, so long as the literature is works. We can only say that at any clearly marked as being AA Con- given hour of the longest day or ference-approved. Our message re- darkest night, somewhere in the mains the same. world an AA member is unlocking -a Anyone who is seriously consid- door, making coffee and setting up chairs for a meeting, or going out on ering using our program of recovery a Twelfth Stet, call to carrv the mesfrom alcoholism can be, and usually is, quickly informed of our Tradition sage of hope to a still suffering alcoof independence from any other or- holic. No one else can, or will, do ganization or enterprise. this work. This is our true trademark. Jesse L.

September 1994′.

Tradition Nine

AA, (M ducb, ought never bylaws, dues, and paid sergeants of Obviously, I was seeing only the lowsome kind trained to discipline the est-grade members of this outfit, I bebe orgnnizei2; but we backsliders. After all, there was a tele- came pretty sure. I kept nosing around phone listing, and I had been invited to find the generals, so I could get the to come to an office. That sounded real score. I never found any top brass. may create dervice pretty organized to me. But despite the vast ignorance of the But the first members I met unwit- noncom troops, AA got things done. boar& or comnzitteed tingly sowed confu- The telephone got sion by using familiar answered: meetings terms in an unfamil- ONE SURE WAY were held, with pre- ‘ iar context. Such arranged – – programs; words as “member,” TO DESTROY AA coffee got served; a “join,” “meeting,”- book and ~ a m ~ h l e t s “officer,” and “com- were distribut;d. So tnittce” do not mean WOULD BE FOR US AA must be systcmthe same in A A as atized in some way, I outside it, but how had to conclude. But was I to know that? To SET UP A how? Was there a se- M y confusion grew cret hierarchv of auas I heard and’saw ORGANIZATION thorities who A A people behaving enforced the sta tes differently from each other, saying wildly k by making mem ers do things? tt disparate things, Such were the exsometimes contra- pectations – shaped,

T wo flaked-out fellows were shown i n a popular William Steig cartoon a few years ago. The caption was something like “One of these days we’ve got t o get orgaself-enforced droughts, I would zealously overorganize everything in sight in round-the-clock spurts – only to blow it all later in a flood of ethanol. And so I welcomed the idea of an dicting each other. Some even drank! of course, by the experiences of my I asked about the president of AA, non-AA lifetime -with which I arand they said there wasn’t any; yet they rived at the door of the Fellowship. had a chairman, a secretary, and elec- With growing delight, and often chations. There was no ritual for joining, grin, I have learned how mistaken I nized around here.” “organization” – which I supposed they said; yet the secretary usually an- was. I remember expressing the same sen- A A was -for getting something done nounced, “If you want to join this Now I am convinced that one sure timent while drinking. I not only said about the trouble I was having with my group, see me after the meeting.” way to destroy AA would be for us to it, I did it. To me, getting organized drinking. They said there were no musts, but set up a rigid organization patterned afmeant getting things arranged in a I approached A A in Manhattan that to do certain jobs one must have ter the non-AA societies we all know. highly systetnatic manner, in prepara- twenty-six years ago in total darkness bcen sober at least three months. They Yct wc cannot be a laissez-faire body, tion for gettidg them done. (You don’t as to how ~t did things. (How often is insisted they were alcoholics, not cx- willing always to “let George do it.” Innecessarily pay your hills, hut you do it approached any other way?) 1 guess I :~lcoholics;yet most never touchcd a stead, each bf us is expected, it seems make a neat list of creditors.) During expected to find a written constitution, drop. to me, to assume enough personal re-

sponsibility on his own for the Fellow- Steps suggested as a program of recov- “Oh, that!” Ernie replied with dis- tiful nutshell, it seems to me. How, on ship to get its major function (Tradi- ery. But I had to make myself do them, gust. “I’ve never opened it,” he an- the one hand, do we avoid offending tion Five) accomplished. because no one in AA could force me nounced proudly. “Nobody in AA is each other with government -which What giant problems our first mem- to. going to tell me what to do!” inevitably means giving some members bers faced! They had to find ways to’ I tried to be bossy in AA, and I got , Several chronic beginners tipsily ap- authority over others – and still, on get things done without slipping into drunk. 1 learned to empty ashtrays for plauded. the other hand, escape chaos? As the either the bedlam of unlimited auton- the group, and I began staying sober. That nutty contretemps puts the late Bernard Smith so eloquently put it omy or the trap of overorganizing and A few years back, we floundering fa- AA organization problem into a beau- at our 1970 International Convention underaccomplishing. The dilemma thers of a certain Greenwich Village ,could easily have overwhelmed them, group found ourselves about to be rein my opinion. Organizing can itself be placed. To make life easier for our sucaddictive, my personal experience in- cessors than it had been for us, we dicated. It’s easy to get so fascinated wrote out what each steering-commitwith the process of organizing that I tee member (trusted servant) had Tradition Nine: AA tw duch oqht never be orrganized; but we may crecan lose all sigl~tof what 1 am organiz- done, exactly how, whcn, and where. ate dewice boarad or committeed directly rcdpomib& to thodc they d e m . ing for. I marvel that any of the first ten (This was before the General Service years’ members stayed sober at all. Office published its excellent pamphlet Tradition Nine describes the master- “The AA Group.”) We bound these 1. Do I still try to boss things in AA? ful solution worked out during the first information sheets in a notebook for ten years of AA experience. Since so our new secretary!treasurer. 2. Do I resist formal aspects of AA because I fear them as many alcoholics rebel against authority About three months later, we authoritative? in human form, we just dispense with learned that the group was behind in it altogether. The first seven words of 3. Am I mature enough to understand and use all elements of “gifts” to our landlord (a church) and Tradition Nine say that we have no had not paid its intergroup pledges nor the AA program -even if no one makes me do so -with a bosses -echoing Tradition Two. several GSO bills for literature. sense of personal responsibility? But the last fourteen words describe Swift to find a scapegoat, we turned1 the system and orderliness necessary for on Ernie, the new secretary-treasurer, 4. Do I try to exercise patience and humility in any AA job 1 our outfit to get things done. and demanded, “Why didn’t you pay take? My personal AA life illustrates both those things!” 5. Am I aware of all those to whom I am responsible in any At! the problem and its solution. Like a Indignatitly, he told us, “Because I tantrum-throwing four-year-okl,1 figu- didn’t know I was supposed to, and I job? ratively stamped my foot and refused to don’t know where to pay them, any- 6. Why doesn’t every AA group need a constitution and pay attention to the Twelve Steps. 1 how.” mistakenly believed them to bc rules In my most tolerant bleeding-deacon bylaws? for staying sober, instead of a simple dc- voice, I said, “Rut Ernie, exactly what 7. Have I learned to step out of an AA job graccfully -and scription of how our first ~ncmbcrsac- is to be paid, and whcn, and to whom, profit thereby -when the time comes? tually did recover. After enough slips, is all spelled out for you in that book.” however, I saw that in AA I had the “What book?’ he asked. 8. What has rotation to do with anonymity! With humility? freedom to try out, on my own, the “That black notebook we gave you.”

October 1994

Tradition Ten

Ahoholiu Anonymom hm no we in disagreement again?One camp made us quit drinking, and nobody says that since alcoholism is a disease owes us anything. opinion on oubii)e wdued; we did not ask for, it should be up to How long would I have stayed sober, the’government to take care of us; the I wonder, identifying myself at AA other, that we may not be responsible meetings by saying, “My name is Bhence the AA name ought for having the disease, but we are re- and I am in favor of legislation to responsible for seeking recovery. . strict alcoholic beverages to. .”? never be &awn into public If I had been con- Meanwhile, interfronted by that issue ested non-A& would controverdy. when I came into Al- WE HAD TO AVO1D look on with dismay. coholics Anonvmous “If only they had in 1960, some’thing stuck to their experitells me that I would INVOLVING ence,” people would have vcered toward say. “If only they had the position of mak- OURSELVES IN stayed with the one ing the government thing they knew best responsible. Why – recovery from alnot? My pattern was OTHER CAUSES OR coholism.” , to shift my own re. We sober alcoholics sponsibilities onto in AA -all one milothers – a pattern IN PUBLIC FIGHTS lion plus -may have that helped keep me any number of shortdrinking and added comings among us: we O k Y to my burden of guilt; may become overzealif I had found a &koup ous sometimes, stop

T here is no doubt that Alco- nobody has a right to stop them; the of people who would listening, and attempt holics Anonymous could have other, that alcohol is harmful to alco- legitimize that old pattern, I shudder to to steamroller a prospect into sobriety; a lot of political clout if it holic and nonalcoholic alike and think how short a time I would have we may imagine, at times, that ours is ‘ chose to move in that direction. A should be banned forever. If taking a stayed sober. the only recovery program around; we few banners,’and we would be ready stand on the matter had been a re- Cause three: legislation to restrict may even occasionally take it into our for a march to the Capitol. quirement for AA membership, which the use of alcoholic beverages to cer- heads that what we have in AA is the Organizations do it all the time – side would I have chosen?Chances are tain parts of restaurants and’hirplanes. only bona fide pipeline to God. But groups with far less worldwide respect that my old people-pleasing pattern What, more disagreement?One camp there is one defect that we, as a Feland prestige. So why shouldn’t we?The would have had me espousing both says that since we give a lot of business lowship, do not have: we are not suicifirst thing we would have to do is de- sides. In the old days, people-pleasing to restaurants and since we are sober dal. cide on a cause. used to help keep me drunk. now and able to travel more often, tlwy As thc “Twclvc and Twclve” points Cause one: the wet-dry issue. Bring Cause two: laws should be passed to ought to give us special consideration. out, we seemed to know instinctively back Prohibition? But hold on. One assure adequate jobs and housing for all But from another camp comes the cry from the start that, in order to survive, camp says that if people want to drink, alcoholics, drinking or not. What?Are that nobody made us drink, nobody we had to avoid involving ourselves in

Tradition Ten

other causes or in public fights, no mat- them. After the meeting, someone told like to propose that we celebrate the Thanks to the Tenth Tradition, we ter how proper or justified they might him how to obtain the name of a doc- space outside the doors of our meeting have ample space in the entryways for appear. The history of the Washing- tor tvho had an understanding of alco- rooms -the space where we can leave our meetings, no matter how small the tonian Society of alcoholics, which holism, and made it very clear that it the hundred issues that bombard us all rooms thernsclves may be. rose and fell in the 1840s, demonstrat’- was one AA member talking to anoth- day long, where we can leave every- W. H., New York, N.Y. ed clearly that we had to develop sin- er -that Alcoholics Anonymous had thing except our desire to stay sober. (From the July 1982 Grapevine) gle-mindedness and not be swerved for absolutely no connection with the one moment from our goal of staying physician’s art or with the physician sober and helping other alcoholics to himself. get sober. Our own early history At least I no longer play doctor. But showed us that our best course of ac- every once in a while, what I hear mytion would be to stand on our own two self saying does not sound like the kind feet and to practice self-government of AA sharing I am used to. It does not Tradition Ten: AIcobolicd Anonymoud ha.+ no opinion on outdia~ based on the principle of rotation; and even sound like advice. Rather, 1 sound iddued; hence the AA name oru~htnever be 2rawn into public rontroverdy. that the best way to avoid, or at least like someone who has full comprehcnto minimize, controversy at the public sion of “the AA position” on all man- 1. Do I ever give the impression that there really is an “AA level would be to abandon our person- ner of subjects, from the need for al identities at the public level. Over improved alcoholism education in opinion” on Antabuse? Tranquilizers?Doctors? Psychiatrists? forty-fiveyears later, how well that pro- schools to aid for the starving nations Churches? Hospitals?Jails?Alcohol? The federal or state govgram of action has succeeded is a mat- of the world. I must be on constant ter of record. guard against this form of self-aggran- ernment?Legalizing marijuana?Vitamins?Al-Anon?Alateen? I look back on my early years in AA dizement. It pokes its head up at the 2. Can I honestly share my own personal experience concern- (when I was still convinced that I darnedest times, whether I am talking knew what was good for everybody to an AA group, to a non-AA person, ing any of those without giving the impression I am stating the else) and regret to remember the high or one-on-one to a newcomer. In my “AA opinion”? esteem I had of myself as a diagnosti- unthinking enthusiasm, I can wind up cian. Not only did 1advise newcomers smack in the middle of my old habit 3. What in AA history gave rise to our Tenth Tradition? to stop taking doctor-prescribed med- pattern of imagining I know every- 4. Have I had a similar experience in my own AA life? ication, but 1 also told them that as- thing. That kind of undisciplined en- 5. What would AA be without this Tradition?Where , pirin was harmful and vitamins were thusiasm can be the source of useless. misinformation about Alcoholics would I be? I was a t an AA meeting recently Anonymous – and goodness knows, 6. Do I breach this or any of its supporting Traditions in subwhen a newcomer told us that he had there is enough misinformation about been in a serious accident and was suf- us among the general public without tle, perhaps unconscious, ways? fering a lot of pain, and that his doctor, my adding to it. 7. How can I manifest the spirit of this Tradition in my perwho was not sympathetic tvward the Within AA, the Tenth Tradition is concept of alcoholism as a disease, had a source of so much comtort. It is large- sonal life outside AA? Inside AA? prescribed painkillers. The newcomer’s ly thanks to this Tradition that I can question was whether he should take attend AA meetings in peace. I would I

October 1994

Outdated Principles? F A hp&,&, hd: I am thirty-four years old and have I’m tired of reading articles that heen sober in AA for a little more cut down or condemn people whose drug of choice may not be the same than six years now. I am very grateas theirs. We’re all in the same boat, ful to my Higher Power for working so why rock it. We need to support through Rill W. and Dr. Bub and each other. No person should be creating AA for those of us who sufturned away just because his drug of fer from the disease of addiction. choice is not alcohol. I have heard of Singleness of purpose may have this being done and, without our worked well in the 1930s but this is help, the person may continue to the 1990s and it is obviously out of live a miserable life. In some smaller date. citics and towns AA is the only I attend a lot of meetings in sur- twelve step program available. rounding cities and I have noticed that most of the people attending A lot of the personal stories in the Big Book tell of people with multiple are addicted to drugs other than aldrug addictions. On pages 176 and cohol. I don’t know many “pure” al- 177 of the third edition, Dr. Bob discoholics. Lct’s facc it: a drug is a drug, whether it’s a pill, liquid, or cusses taking large doses of sedatives for seventeen years. In the book whatever. “Pass It On,” Bill W. admits to taking LSD. He even admits to giving Lois some. Wake up, people! shphun

October 1994

A Mania for Alcohol the message of recovery from alco- holics to achieve sobriety” comes didn’t want anything in return. F D6e6ii u&.: * holism to alcoholics. Because our alcoholism is the only malady that we from our Preamble. I can’t stay sober on only one hour per day, nor can I People in the program who were ten, twenty years older than myself I have been sober and a memberuf all have in common, our singleness carry any type of message and help would take me out with them for ice AA since March 1987 and am now of purpose reminds us that we are to others on just one hour per day. I cream or coffee after the meeting. twenty-eightyears old. My drinking stay sober and help other alcoholics was taught to learn how to live sober Believe it or not, I had just as much career was brief -spanning only to achieve sobriety. outside AA meetings by spending fun with these older guys as I did seven years. But when 1came into Because AA existed and carried time with AA members outside AA with guys my own age. They showed AA at twenty-one, I was already a the message of sobriety and serenity meetings. As I understand my sobri- me the path to sobriety and conchronic rumhound. to me seven years ago, and because of ety, I have been given my life back vinced me that I was worth some- Like many younger members of the love of one drunk for another one day at a time by a loving God thing in this world today. AA, I used substances other than a1- drunk, I am filled with gratitude. and that will continue provided I Now, five years later, it is my job cohol during my drinking career. JmwN follow directions. to keep our singleness of purpose However, alcohol was what dominat- AA is not a self-help program, a alive. The way I see it, singleness of ed my life. In the “Twelve and therapy group, nor an extension of a purpose is to carry the message to Twelve,” the chapter on Step Six I t Has to Begin treatment center. It is a twelve step the still suffering alcoholic who talks about the “mania for alcohol” With Me program in which we experience a needs help like !needed help. in our lives (p. 64). That description GJ. FNMCoyu C L P I ~ ~: “psychic change” or “spiritual experi- I remember being in a meeting affits me perfectly. I had a mania for al- ence” after working the Steps. This ter my first anniversary and seeing cohol. I recently celebrated my thirty-sec- is what 1want new members to have this guy come in with a Mohawk I was arrested for drinking and dri- ond biological birthday and I’m nine when they walk in the door of my hairdo, ripped shirt, and raggedy I ving three times -not for smoking, shooting, or popping pills and driving. My ego and my craving for aland a half years sober. At most AA meetings I’ve attended in the United States, Canada, and the Far East, the home group. jeans. I said to myself, this guy is never going to make it. As the meeting was going on I was still judging cohol were at the center of my life. AA Preamble has been read at the The Path to Sobriety him in my head. When the meeting I remember hearing a friend in beginning of each meeting. ended, I started to feel guilty for AA telling me a truth about alco- I honestly don’t believe it could be FNMDuPI~(~o~cI&, Md: what I was thinking about this guy I holics. He said that in order for a p t ‘ i n simpler terms nor more easily When I came into the program at didn’t even know. What would have person to become an alcoholic one understandable. If 1 want those who the age of eighteen, 1 didn’t know happened to me if people had judged must consume alcohol. 1 became an come into AA to have what I had what singleness of purpose was. me and hadn’t given me a chance? alcoholic because I drank alcohol to when 1 came in, then it has to begin Come to think of it, the only thing I Would I be here today or would I excess not because 1 drank milk or with me. I don’t live my life only in knew was how to get drunk. I was still he getting drunk? tea to excess or because I smoked or an AA meeting and 1don’t practice scared, lonely, and didn’t know what I can’t honestly answer that quesswallowed druns. these principles only when I get to to expect. But people in the program tion, but I can tell you I stopped AA’s singleness of purpose is itn- the door of the clubhouse where the started to give me hope that i could judging that newcomer and intro. portant to me because it constantly group meets. “Our primary purpose is stay sober. 1 couldn’t believe that duced myself to hrm instead. From reminds me that AA exists to bring to stay sober and help other alco- these people wanted to help me and that day on, we have been best

friends and I was able to help him My singleness of purpose today is treatment centers, I can understand cused on sobriety and my disease of like people helped me in the begin- to stay sober and help other alco- ‘ why our singleness of purpose is get- nlcoholism, the multitude of other ning. holics to achieve sobriety. ting lost. Treatment centers as such problems 1 possess will eventually So I always need to remember dee,,0 have no singleness of purpose or work their way to the surface. Then AA’s singleness of purpose and havc Traditions, so their clients are coun- with the tools I have learned in AA, my hand out for the next person. Keeping It Simple seled on everything from drugs and they can be ~lcaltwith, one at a time. D m k 7T fm,u bkoo&, h d ,: alcohol, to co-dependency,child As the Big Book says, first we abuse, incest, wife beating, anger, straighten out spiritually, then men- Around the Tables My name is Terry, and I’m an alco- control problems, dysfunctionalfam- tally and emotionally. holic. I came into Alcoholics ilies – the list goes on and on. It’s One last thing. 1 think that it’s L. Fm h&sto~/: Anonymous at the age of twenty- no wonder that by the time these wonderful whcn people find the My name is Allen and I am an alco- two. After going to meetings for thir- people get to AA they see them- courage to seek help outside AA holic: I came into AA when I was ty days I took my last drink on selves as “alcoholic and a . . .” It also when necessary. Rut I believe it’s a fifteen ycm old. August 5, 1988. Although I didn’t follows that whcn in an AA meeting mistake to hring thcsc things into an 1 had no purpose in life until I realize it till now, AA’s singleness of many people continue to discuss all AA meeting. A newer member or came into AA. At first I couldn’t un- purpose has meant a lot to me. these issues. somebody not listening closely may derstand anything about the Steps, When I showed up at your door, On the surface I don’t believe that interpret what you say as ;I part of our Traditions, or Big Book except the you kept it very simple for me. You this is a real threat to AA. Most of recovery progrm whcn renlly it isn’t. phrase I heard at meetings: “Kccp said, “Don’t drink, go to meetings, the people I see who maintain this This only serves to Ji!ute the AA coming back, it works.” get a sponsor, and keep coming mentality that “I’m addicted to message and mayhe lead someone Of course I had to keep coming back.” You said that if I did this it everything” usually don’t stick from our tried, tested, and proven back, otherwise I would have evcntu- would get better. You didn’t tell me around too long. I for one don’t Twelve Steps. ally died out there. I didn’t want to when, hut 1 believed you just the blame them. If you had told me in Mv sohrietv. , and the sobriety of go on like 1 was, but I was afraid to same. There was no evaluation the beginning what I was going to those to come, depends on the simtry something different. process, no fees to pay, no people I have to do, I never would have come plicity of AA and on our singleness After going back out twice at the needed to see, or appointments that I back. of purpose. start of the recovery process, today I needed to make. I just showed up at I was at a meeting one night when 61~kl 34 have over seven years, one day at a meetings and you loved me. I was an a man got his five-yearchip and said, time. alcoholic who wanted a new way of “I didn’t come into Alcoholics Opinions I heard my future told around the life, and that was all you cared about. Anonymous to get a beautiful wife, a tables at my home group if I were to 1 believe it’s the simplicity of AA, nice home, and a new car; to be keep on going like I was, and I also based on our singleness of purpose, blessed with two wonderful children, heard what my future could be if I that makes AA not only easily acces- or a host of new friends. I came to I’tnyoung in sobriety and not exactly got soher and stayed that way. sible to every alcoholic, but a pro- AA to get sober, and in staying old in age, and I felt compelled to Now I know what they mean gram that really works. sober I received all that and so much write ahout ;I recent situation that whcn I hear, “You havc to give it From conversations I’ve had with more.” This to me really sums up happened to me. away in order to keep it.” people who have come to AA via what I’m trying to say. If 1 stay fo- One of the opportunities for AA

— — – — –

service work in my area is taking :I “Addictions Anonymous” and that if ,. meeting into a girl’s detention cen- Upholding simply “an alcoholic,” our common she ever found she had a problem ter. One week, as usual, one of the the lkaditions bond. with alcohol she was welcome to One night, I found myself in the come back to our meeting. girls volunteered to read the Steps ~ H M fi&h?W, Nk.’ same position as that man I had reout loud before the meeting. In the The girl left and has not been process, she adcied the words “or her” At one of the first AA meetings I at- sented for asking the addict to leave back. It’s not easy to tell a person wherever God was referred to as him. tended, a young man was asked to a closed Step meeting. A newcomer they don’t qualify to be in an AA This hothered me but I didn’t say leave a closed Step meeting because came to the meeting I was leading meeting, but I know 1did the right anything at thc time. he identified himself as an addict and identified herself as an “addict.” thing by upholding our Traditions. I The following week I askcd that and not an alcoholic. I left that I looked around and saw that other was really surprised at how many of the Steps he read as they were writ- meeting very confused because I group members had noticed this, just my fellow group members were eiten, without anv added words. All identified myself as an addict as well as I did, but I was the only one who ther apathetic to the situation or went fine until one of the .girls , asked as an alcoholic and didn’t under- went up to her at the end of the thought she should have been alwhy I had u~ialcthat rcclucst. I triccl stand why this had happened. I felt meeting. lowed to stay at the meeting. If we that the group member who had 1 feel that as an AA member I am had allowed her to stay, what we perfectly free to have their own con- asked the fellow to leave must cer- responsible to make sure my group fol- would have ended up with is a group cept of God, whatever works for tainly have done so due to his own lows the Traditions of our Fellowship. of diversified people with no comthem, hut by adcling words to the personal prejudices toward drug ad- They are there for our protection. mon bond. If she cou!d stay then Steps a person coulcl cilhily get the dicts. I had no concept at that time I asked the newcomer if she had a anyone could stay. idea that wc were trying to define of AA’s singleness of purpose, that problem with alcohol and she 1 knew at that momep why the God. common bond of alcoholism which replied that she didn’t, but that she young man was asked to leave that Of course each cirl hacl her own results in AA unity. did have a problem with pills. I was mceting early in my sobriety. As time has gone on and I have hoping she would say, “Well, maybe opinion on this ;mJ some sh;~rcdit. Before 1 knew it our AA meeting learned more and more about our I have a little problem with alcohol,” &c E had turned into a wide-ranging dis- Traditions, I understand just how so our conversation could end, but cussion about different concepts of important that singleness of purpose since she was certain that her prob- God. This didn’t last too long until is. AA is filled with such diverse lem did not include alcohol, I exthe woman who brought the meeting people that the only thing we could plained to her our singleness of in with me said we were all there for all possibly have in common is the purpose. I told her I too was a dmg an AA meeting but could continue fact that we are recovering alco- addict, but also an alcoholic, that to discuss this after the meeting if holics. It’s the one thing that holds there were open meetings she was anvone was interested. us together. welcome to attend, and that there This was a perfect example to me Somewhere along the road of my was another twelve step program for that our primary purpose must re- recovery it became less important for her addiction. She replied with 111ain;~lcoholism.This is wliat hinds me to identify myself as an addict. I something 1 hear often at meetings: know in my mind and in my heart “Yes, hut an addiction is an addicthat I am also addicted to drugs, but tion.” I explained that we were “Al- I now identify myself at meetings as coholics Anonymous,” not

October 1994

ber there for a little over four years. ply in the Big Book and outlined in What was once a thriving meeting the “Twelve and Twelve.” Our pur- had faded almost into nothing. The pose is very clear! group had stopped having regular I am a young person in AA. I came But I often go to meetings where business meetings. As a result the into the program when I was six- I wonder whether I’m at an A A group broke up into fragments. At teen. I am now twenty-two. meeting or a therapy session. As a that time I had to make a choice. Through the grace of God and AA, member of A A it is my responsibili- Do I change my home group, or do I 1 have maintained my sobriety one ty to say something when a meeting stand up for A A ? day at a time. is drifting. It says in Step Nine, I’m happy to say I did make a I rcad the January 1994 issue “Let’s not talk prudence while priic- stand – not a verbal power-driven which asked young members to write ticing evasion.” Therefore I try not stand, but rather, 1 took the secreon the topic of singleness of purpose. to complain, rather I try to be a n tary job and started practicing the I am very grateful for Alcoholics example. Traditions. The group healed itself. Anonymous. It saved my life and the What scares me is the fact that A A does work! lives of many others, and I am a firm I’ve heard old-timers say, “I don’t go It’s not the people who are cum-

believer that there is only one program of recovery and that is the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions to a lot of meetings anymore. A A has changed.” I believe a lot of the reason A A is losing its singleness of ing in now who are damaging our singleness of purpose. It’s the people who have stopped coming who do of AA. I cringe when people say purpose at the meetings is because the real damage. It’s easy to sit there are as many ways to work the the more experienced members home and complain about what’s program as there are people in it, aren’t showing up or speaking up! wrong with A A today. and then they wonder what hap- My Thursday night homc group I love AA and I treasure the gift of pened to singleness of purpose. meeting was having a lot of trouble sobriety. 1 also realize, though, that it The program is written very sim- a year or so ago. I had been a mem- is my responsibility to pass that gift on, like it was passed on to me! &Iy r.

November 1994

Tradition Eleven

Our prtllic relationn policy in Consec~uently,the good news of AA’s beginning of some credibility for AA’s existence was spread with ballyhoo and cbims. hue8 on attraction rather a fine eye for whimsical contrasts. It Characteristically, the headlines fowas safer, after all, to play for laughs cused on the paradox of John D. and for the bizarre: Rockefeller Ir., the than promotion; we nee8 MAN BlTES M)G is symbol of Ameristill a more newswor- can success and soaltvnyd nurintain per~onal thy h ~ i dthan MAN cial propriety, QUITS HAIR OF throwing a dinner anonyi~tityat the level of THE DOG. for drunks. The famous Rock- ROCKEFELLER prwn, ra8io an2Jl1rt.4. efeller dinner is an DINES EX-SOTS example. In 1940, NOW RUM FOES, John D. Rockefeller sang the New York Jr. threw a $100-a- Daily News. 60 ON plate dinner for AA. WAGON – AND The founders hoped ROOM FOR MORE, to raise money to announced the help spread AA’s in- New York Post on fluence, and they February 9,1940. thought Rockefeller Other, less colorand his friends would ful newspapers be interested in treated it straight funding a program with heads such as that was already do- ALCOHOLICS

N o, it wasn’t the Lone Ranger. In fact, when this picture was taken, t h e subject was less a loner than he’d been in a long while. The man in the mask is an A A mem- AND IT’S WATER OR NOTHING (Chicago Sun-Times, December 1, 1940). AA’s need for favorable publicity was greatest in the very beginning. Bill and ing such a wonderful job restoring the human resources of alcoholism victims. ANONYMOUS DINNER JOHN D. ROCKE- FELLER AS HOST. While dinner guests later gave modest But whatever the style, the.headlines HAS

ber of 1942, and his mask is one solu- Bob, our co-founders, looked on the sums and Rockefeller donated $1,000, and the stories left little doubt as to tion to the problem of how to tell our members of the press as important he felt any more would “spoil” the new what the writers felt was important stories to the public without breaking friends who offered the best way to car- Fellowship. Thus, the dinner was far not the existence of AA, but the fact anonymity. ry the message to the many suffering al- less significant as the fund raiser that that John D. threw the dinner for its , Press coverage in the early days of coholics still outside the influence of Bill ; i d h b hoped for tlxm it w;w for members. A A was loaded with oddities. It had a the young program. In many ways, the two other things. One: it csti~hlishcd Where journalists treated it straight, kind of zest for one-liners that we just message was well carried, but often by AA’s emerging resolution to he self- they revealed il pretty strong show-me don’t often see today: writers who regarded the sober alco- supporting. Two: it was an early hrc;ik attitude. Note this sober (no pun in- ALCOHOLICS ALL: 150 MEET – holics with understandable skepticism. for them in the press, if not the actual tended) treatment in a Newsweek arti- 871

Tradition Eleven

cle: “Medicine usually claims to cure great difficulty understanding why Bill do the story. Bill admitted that he was There was another side to anonymionly about two percent of the cases of continued to refer to Ebby as his spon- tempted -but after a great deal of dis- ty in the early days that might well acute alcoholism it treats. Last week a sor in spite of Ebby’s slips over the cussion and soul-searching, he turned have worked tor us in a strange mannonmedical group appeared which. years. To most AAs, however, that sit- the offer down. ner. Anonymity has a way of appealing made the unusual claim that twenty- uation emphasizes the permanent vul- “If I appeared on the cover this to the American imagination. Our hisfive percent of its cases were cured. nerability of each individual and the month with my back to the camera,” tory and folklore are shot through with Called Alcoholics Anonymous, the main reason that we simply cannot af- he reasoned, “it wouldn’t be long be- anonymous characters such as vigigroup was a club composed of ex- ford to have any kind of hierarchy – fore some other drunk would be thcre lantes in lawless areas of the early drunkards and men trying to overcome even one based on length of sobriety. with his face to the cameras.” West, and all those masked or disguised the liquor habit who, for obvious rea- “The soberest person in the room,” the . sons, prefer to remain anonymous . .” old A A saying goes, “is the one who, But t o AAs, the writer’s “obvious got up earliest this morning.” reasons” were obviously wrong. H e (All of that was obviously lost on the m i ~ i n t e r ~ r e t e ‘ dour principle of journalist who covered the second ananonymity, assuming that the members nual dinner held for Rill in Cleveland, were worried about their reputations. November 9, 1942. His headline read: Tradition Eleven: Our lwhiic relntion~poiicy id bmei)on attraction ‘ But as all of us who have traveled the 1,000 PAY TRIBUTE T O CHIEF OF AL- rather thm promotion; tve n a i l abvayd maintain perdona/ anonymity a t tbe route to our first A A meeting know, COHOLICS ANONYMOUS.) level Ofpredd, r d i o , a n 2 f ; h . reputation is one of the early casualties The first generally conceded examin the life of the active alcoholic. ple of this principle, i.e., anonymity, That writer’s confusion, however, is apparently occurred when the press’s 1. Do 1 sometimes promote AA so fanatically that 1 make it understandable. To this day, it is hard “chief’ finished writing the Big Book. seem unattractive? to explain to a nonmember that After some debate, Bill decided not to 2. Am I always careful to keep the confidences reposed in me anonymity is our way of maintaining sign his own name, and he also cast his spiritual equality – or to explain why vote for Alcoholics Anonymous as the as an AA member? this spiritual equality should be such a title. 3. Am I careful about throwing AA names around – even critical factor in staying sober. One of the last known examples of It is really the same principle cx- Bill’s use of the principle occurrcd within the Fellowship? pressed by the phenomenon of spon- about three years before his death – 4. Am I ashamed of being a recovered, or recovering, alcosorship among early AAs. For example, by which time there was no shortage of few “civilians” who know the story of favoriihlc p r c s interest in AA. Time holic? AA’s origin would have trouble un~lcr- rnagazlnc asked Bill to pose for a cover 5. What would AA be like if we were not guided by the ideas standing why Rob might regard Bill as shot so the magazine C O L I I ~do a feature his sponsor. After all, Bill achieved so- on Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill refused in Tradition Eleven?Where would I be? tmcty before Dr. Doh did, carried the out of hi~nd. 6. Is my AA sobriety attractive enough that a sick drunk message t o him, and had about six Time then went back to the drawing months’ more soher expcricncc hcliind Iwiird i l d Ciilnc 1117with il c ~ m ~ r o ~ n i ~ c : would want such a quality for himself? him than Bob did. If Bill would appear on the covx with But the same “civilians” might have his back to the camera, Tme would still

Tradition Eleven

riders, flyers, and fighters for justice Alexander article in the Saturday groups, spiritual leaders, and doctors. (Some he lost.) And I love all the little from the Lone Ranger himself to Bat- Evening Post of March 1, 1941, that That incredible picture is lost, but things that keep them human to me. man and Robin and Superman. Add to people began to take the program scri- reprints of it in the Alexander article These things remind me that AA is that the fact that most newspaper peo-. ously. It was a turning point for us. And ancl in a few subsequent newspaper ar- no set of tablets handed down to some ple tend to be suckers for underdogs. perhaps the oddest thing about it is ticles can be seen under glassine at the latter-day Moses – but a continuing They were pullipg for what appeared that it also represents a departure from A A archives in the General Service creative process in which we all take t o them t o be a the principle of Office in New York City. Bill never part, a perpetual journey from the plucky little band anonymity at the again departed from the principle, and known to the unknown, a truth everof people fighting media level. with the possible exception of Dr. Bob, arriving through experience. That’s against insur- he was its strongest advocate. what it was for our AA pioneers, as it AA IS NO SET OF A t that time, Some people may be upset by appar- is for me. mountable odds. the founders were The humor only trying desperately ent contradictions such as Bill’s break- God bless those early headline makmade us more at- TABLETS HANDED to get some expo- ing his anonymity. But I lovc them, ers – those who stayed sober and tractive – espe- sure for the pro- hccause they reveal the evolutionary those who didn’t. They are dear to me, cially when the nature of the program. I also lovc find- not for the road maps they left (I must, AAs thetnselves DOWN TO SOME LATTER- gram. Alexander ing out about the personal quirks and aftcr all, chart my own), but for the exwanted very much did so much laugh- to do the article, scrapes of the early AAs. 1 love Bob’s ample of their courage. ing about their DAY MOSES- BUT A but his editors passion for sporty cars. I love Bill’s bat- C.S., New York, N.Y. condition. Peter balked at a story tles with his own promoter instincts. (From the May 198.3Grapevine) Craig of the At- about people who lanta Journal cov- CONTINUING CREATIVE wouldn’t show ered the first their faces. They anniversary of the Atlanta AA PROCESS. . . refused to publish unless they could Group, and he show photographs couldn’t resist one P&Y of real A A memof the signs he saw bers at a meeting. hanging over t h e And so Bill clubhouse door. He and several other turned it into his alcoholics broke headline: “CAN’T BEAT DRUNKS their anonymity by allowing them- WHEN SOBER,” SAY EX-ALCO- selves to be photographed at a meeting. HOLICS. T h e site selected was the old 24th The term ex-alcoholic, incidentally, Street Clubhouse in Manhattan. had fairly common coin in the early The article was printed – and suddays of press coverage -just another denly Alcoholics Anonymous was on example of the misinformation sur- the map. The response was overrounding the disease. whelming, not only from suffering al- It really wasn’t until the famous Jack coholics, but from civic and social

November 1994

Purity in AA ? From Sacramento, Calif. :

I’ve been reading’ and hearing a lot me of a statement in Step Ten: “It is of hostility directed at recovering al- a spiritual axiom that every time we coholics who seem to have other are disturbed, no matter what the problems while recovering from al- -cause, there is something wrong with US.” coholism – i.e., drugs, food, etc. Using this statement as a guide, I 1 find it easier not to get caught am compelled to search out why a up in the hysteria of diluting AA person’s sharing is making me so unand sitting in judgment as to who is comfortable and angry. It’s usually bcst qualified to be a member of A A because they are talking about somewhen I call to mind several things I thing that I don’t want to see or deal have read about some of these exact with in me. issues in the “Twelve and Twelve” I’m also comforted by the fact that on Tradition Three: “We were re- OUT co-foundcrs werc not “pure alcosolved to ; h i t nobody to AA but holics,” as their sharing depicts in that hypothetical class of people we their A A stories. This is also true for termed ‘pure alcoholics.’ Except for others whose stories are in the Big their guzzling and the unfortunate rcsults thercof, they could have 110 Book. If someone at a meeting introother complications. S o beggars, duces himself as an alcoholic, that’s tramps, asylum inmates, prisoners, good enough for me. My job is to queers, plain crackpots, and fallen keep an open mind, listen, and women were definitely out. Yes sir, maybe if I’m lucky, l e x n a little we’d cater only to pure and remore about this deadly disease and spectable alcoholics! Any others maybe even a little more about me. would surely destroy us. Besides if we P.G. took in those odd ones, what would cieccnt people say about us? We built a fine mesh fence around AA.” That statement has saved me more than once because it reminds

December 1994

Tradltlon Twelve

mon as first names in group meetings. can break my anonymity on a private No one thinks anything of it, because level. it does not violate our Traditions and So, in our perspective on anonymi- Anonymity w the pir ritual it is not at a public event. We know ty, we travel through the stages of fear and believe in the confidentiality of and acceptance and finallv to service. foudatwn of a l l our trditwrw, our group meetings. Here is where 1 feel In other areas, the danger may lie. such as mv home It is among those of ever remin2ing u to place state of Oregon, THE GUARDING us who have been great care has been sober some time, have principh before perdonaliti~. taken through the gained some selfyears not to reveal OF ANONYMITY worth, and now have last names in meet- a real feeling of self-esings. It stems from teem, that a problem CAN BECOME the fact that we do may exist. It seems a not have the right to seif-esteem based on break another’s OBSESSIVE – A fact, for haven’t we anonymity, and it cleared away the work; toward reduc- wreckage of our past, M A Y O U R BLESSINGS ing our desire for per- CONTAGIOUS and are we not being soial distinction as of the greatest service US N E V E R SPOIL AA members among fellow alcoholics. But HABIT we can to our fellowman and our Fellowhave you ever tried ship?We think well of to visit someone in w ourselves these days;

T radition Eleven is generally fear and allows newcomers freedom to the hospital when other members see our well understood, and anonymi- join us. Newly recovered alcoholics are you did- not know good work and think ty breaks are relatively few con- still very close to past guilts and mis- the person’s last well of us, too. Persidering the size of our Fellowship takes. Losing their anonymity in the name?The guarding haps the show-off today. But Tradition Twelve is the beginning can be a traumatic thing, of anonymity can become obsessive – stage has passed, and there is now some rock upon which we have built our both personally and professionally. a contagious habit. Our Traditions do substance to our achievements. We Society. If it is not substantially se- Fairly early in my sobriety, while in not include the tradition of habit. know, however, that our usefulness is a cure, we surely face significant danger. a restaurant with people not in our Fel- Anonymity must be guarded at the gift. Were we granted sobriety and a Our greatest danger lies within each lowship, I met a dear friend from AA. 1 media level, but that doesn’t mean I new life to revel in our achievements? of us. was free to greet him and introduce can’t break my anonymity in meetings Are we not just a part of a great whole, As we all know, recovering alco- him by his first and last name, because or among some people outside AA. all working for the same Boss? Do we holics pass through many stages of ac- I trusted him with my anonymity and The essential thing is to focus on the consider enough by what Power we ceptance and understanding. It is the he trusted me with his. spirit of our Traditions. When princi- have been abk to make these achievecomfort of anonymity that eases the In some areas, last names are as com- ples are placed before personalities, I ments? An early member used to say,

Tradltlon Twelve

“Count yourself. You’re not so many.” rate from the general public, does exist work because there was no other way In the “Twelve and Twelve,” the within our Fellowship, containing to survive, and through God’s grace, chapter on Tradition Twelve says: “Our many new and uninformed mcmbers. the results have been made manifest in growth made it plain that we couldn’t Are we in danger of the “vaudcvillc cir- our lives. Why now do we do the footbe a secret society, but it was equally cuit”? How great is our need to be en- work? We now do it to survive with plain that we couldn’t tertained? Does it love. Because we were loved, we’ve be a vaudeville circuit, transcend our search for learned to love in return. We have either. The charting of quality sobriety?Do we learned that faith without works is a safe path between ARE WE select people and look dead. In love and service, we have these extremes took a to them as Mr. or Ms. found that freedom we so long desired. long time.” 1 believe it A A ? And if we do, Some have called it sacrifice. is still taking a long IN DANGER what does the new and Our Twelfth Tradition (long form) time. uninformed member Self-esteem, a product of living within asks us “actually to practice a genuine With a membership OF THE do? When speakers are the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anony- humility . . . to the enJ that our great of over a million, the selected, what attribut- mous, grows as a result of sobriety. As blessings may never spoil us.” So, feeldanger of a “secret so- es are desired?Are their we succeed more than we fail, and the ing this all-encompassing desire for ciety” has passed, but “VAUDEVILLE stories different from quality of our sobriety improves, so will love and service founded in gratitude, the danger of a most of ours? More ex- our self-esteem. But self-esteem is the we try to “give up our natural desires cc~aude~ille circuit” citing?Are they humor- bedfellow of inflated ego. We may be for personal distinction as AA mem- CIRCUIT”? has not. Whether we ous? Will their names living with bad company. We need al- bers.” It is the act of doing good withlike to consider it in draw a lot of people, so ways watch for the inflated ego. Rea- out getting found out. this light or not, we h that expenses will be soning can play tricks on us. Through Let us, then, focus on the spirit of are so large, we now met and some money self-honesty, we stand guard at our anonymity rather than just the letter of have a “public” within made for the area or dis- mental door, and achieve a kind of hu- the Tradition, and in doing so, ask our our Fellowship. Again, trict? And finally, what mility. Higher Power to keep us safe from ourthe chapter on our Twelfth Tradition is the quality of their sobriety?Do they “Anonymity,” says the chapter on selves. says that public approval can do “in- have a real, honest message?Perhaps it our Twelfth Tradition, “is real humili- D. S., Gresham, Ore. calculable good or great harm. Every- may be time to look at our priorities. ty at work.” We have done the foot- (From the September 1983 Grapevine) thing would depend upon how it was And what about the personal needs channeled.” It also says, “We simply of Mr. and Ms. A A ? Where is their couldn’t afford to take the chance of chance for further growth? Can they letting self-appointed members present share the struggles that occur from time themselves as messiahs representing to time in later sobriety, or do they feel AA before the whole public. The pro- they should remain that ideal example moter instinct in us might be our un- of achieved peace and serenity repredoing.” sentative of what it is supposed to be Now that AA has grown to such like today? great size, it is about time we recognize We have moved from self-degradaand accept that a kind of public, sepa- tion to self-acceptance to self-esteem.

Tradition Twelve

Tradition TWe lve :Anonymity id the dpiritua( founaation of a(( our Traaitiotw, ever remirzaing tw to pplace principles before perdonnlitied.

1. Why is it a good idea for me to place the common welfare of all AA members before individual welfare?What would happen to me if AA as a whole disappeared? 2. When I do not trust AA’s current servants, who do I wish had the authority to straighten them out? 3. In my opinions of and remarks about other AAs, am I implying membership requirements other than a desire to stay sober? 4. Do I ever try to get a certain AA group to conform to my standards, not its own? 5. Have I a personal responsibility in helping an AA group fulfill its primary purpose?What is my part? 6. Does my personal behavior reflect the Sixth Tradition – or belie it? 7. Do I do all I can to support AA financially?When is the last time I anonymously gave away a Grapevine subscription? 8. Do I complain about certain AA’s behavior – especially if they are paid to work for AA?Who made me so smart? 9. Do I fulfill all AA responsibilitiues in such a way as to please privately even my own conscience?Really? 10. Do my utterances always reflect the Tenth Tradition, or do I give AA critics real ammunition? 11. Should I keep my AA membership a secret, or reveal it in private conversation when that may help another alcoholic? Is my brand of AA so attractive that other drunks want it? 12. What is the real importance of me among more than a million AAs?

January 1995

Two great teachers, Trial and Error From Washington, D.C. :

T h e United States Constitution The Twelve Traditions are the was drawn up to protect the nation; lcssons learned from those two later the Bill of Rights was drawn great teachers, Trial and Error. up to protect the individual from They cover a ten-year period the nation. between 1935 and 1945. In that In contrast, AA’s Twelve Steps decade, the members of AA deterwere drawn up to protect the indi- mined that the Fellowship would vidual; later the Traditions were continue to endure. They did so by drawn up to protect the Society from documenting and trying to adhere the individual. to the following resolutions or Of course, in protecting the Traditions: nation, the Constitution protects That AA would put its common the individual. So, in protecting welfare first; rely on the group conthe Society (or organization), AA science; open its doors to any alcoprotects the individual, for it holic who wished to join; proclaim assures that AA will be there for groups to be autonomous; make carthe next person who reaches out in rying the AA message its primary need of it. purpose; endorse no causes and The Twelve Steps came about as have no affiliations; decline outside’ a result of Bill W. and the first one contributions; remain nonprofeshundred members asking “What sional; stay unorganized; avoid pubhave we done right!” The Twelve lic positions and controversy; Traditions came about as a result of attract rather than promote; and the early members asking “What preserve anonymity. have we done wrong!” -some- Vance G. times, of course, just avoiding the wrong, if only by a last-minute swerve of the wheel.

March 1995

Trusted servants From Tucson, Ariz. :

W i t h o u t sounding like a bleeding deacon myself, I think many people in AA would benefit from reading and examining Tradition Two. O n examining this Tradition myself, I thought of people in A& who try to push their dogma on the rest of us and on our groups and meetings. When one person wants the group or meeting to do it his (or her) way onlv., that is when Tradition two comes in, because it is the group conscience that should prevail at our business meetings and meetings in general. Unfortunately for us, some people in AA think God put them on earth to tell the rest of us what thev think we ought to do with our lives, whether we like it or not. But we don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do. T o me, that is the beauty of Tradition Two, because it protects us from people like that! I think the Traditions have kept AA together for the last fifty plus years, and they will keep us together for the long run. So, remember the Second TraJition when someone is trying to enlighten you against your wishes. You don’t have to do it and neither dqes the group. Charlie W.

April 1995

What about my reputation ? From Augusta, Maine:

I read your feature article in the November 1994 issue on the Eleventh Tradition and was mildly upset with C. S.’s statement that, “He misinterpreted our principle of anonymity, assuming that the members were worried about their reputations.” The simple fact is they were worried, very worried, about thcir reputations. Their concern for anonymity did not arise out of a desire to maintain “spiritual equality,” but rather out of a desire to keep their positions, professional licenses, etc. That goal is the prime reason for anonymity and has always been the moving force behind the principle. Mundane? Maybe. Important? Absolutely! Lore F.

May 1995

Home Croup

‘ that addictions are all the same, that AA’s doors many years ago, people drugs are all the same, and that AA is didn’t share thcir opinions with me for anyone who has a problem with the they shared, instead, their strength, “drug of their choice.” I sit there with hope, and experience. And the latter my pack of cigarettes, containing an was their experience in AA. addictive drug called nicotine, and my 1 need an AA group united by AA coffee or Pepsi, loaded with the drug principles to stay alive. I need the mescaffeine, and wonder whether I am sage of AA carried to me and I need to sober according to these criteria. 1 won- carry the A A message to other alcoder if people in meetings who identify holics – my very life depends on it. I , themselves as “addicts” are like me – listen in AA meetings and seek AA’s powerless over taking that first drink. I message, not somebody else’s message. . begin to wonder if I’m in the right 1 believe that the AA program is a place. gift from God. I also believe that if self- 1 hear psychobabble from self-help will runs riot in our groups, we can group programs incorporated into screw this thing up. The last thing Dr. everal years ago, when I was sec- place. I’m grateful I’m not a newcomer many A A meetings. The purpose of Bob said to Bill before his death in

S retary of my home group, 1 used rlcpendent on today’s meetings, heto read a statement c;illerl “The cause I don’t lwlicvc I coul~lget sohcr. Friendly Reminder.” It asked memkcrs My group sanctions non-AA literathese meetings seems to be “to feel good ahout yourself.” I believe that if I stay sober through the spiritual principles of AA, one of the fringe benefits 1950 was, “Remember, Bill, let’s not louse this thing up. Let’s keep it simple!” Dr. Bob was referring to the A A program. I think of his statement every to refrain from profanity when sharing ture by using it for topics of discussion in A A meetings, by reminding us that in meetings, making no distinction hc- will be self-esteem. I was told that as a time I am in an A A meeting. I sinour primary purpose was “to carry the tween non-AA literature and Confcr- result of working the Twelve Steps I cerely believe he was speaking to all fumessage of the Big Book of Alcoholics encc-approved AA literature. Wc ;dso can recover from alcoholism a day at a ture AAs, not just to Bill W. Anonymous” when speaking in meet- buy and sell more non-AA litcraturc time and become a woman of dignity 1 pray daily that Gtxl will sustain us ings of AA. 1 loved to read it since it than we do A A literature in our group, and honor. in unity in our AA groups all over the was a personal reminder to me that we and I wonder whose message we are During the moment of silence that world. 1 pray, too, that I may do my are a spiritual program, anci when I’m carrying. I have nothing against other opens every meeting I attend, 1 ask for part, in every meeting of Alcoholics in a n A A meeting I’m supposed to publishers, but I didn’t get sohcr hc- help carrying the message of AA’s Big Anonymous I attend, to preserve the carry AA’s message and not my own. cause cd thcir message; I got sohcr hc- Book and not my own message. 1 sit in message of the Big Book, Alcoholics Today I’m confused i ~ n dfrightened C;IUSC of the Big Book and other AA meetings day after day and hear half Anonymous. when what 1 hear in meetings is not literature that carries the message of the remarks made by members prefaced Whenever I speak in meetings, chair the message of AA. 1 was at a meeting the AA program. AA saved my life. It’s with: “This is just my opinion, but.. .” a discussion meeting, or share onk on recently where someone preached his the only mcssage that has worked for I was told when 1 came into A A that one with another alcoholic, I want to religion and pliiyed a religious song on me i ~ n dmillions like me who are meetings are not a forum for opinions. carry the message of AA so that it can a tape playdr to close the meeting. I searching for an ;inswcr to a~coholism. My opinions are not what got me always he here, and so that future genwalked out and felt sorry for any new- But what 1 often hear at mee:ings is sober; if left to my own opinions, I’d erations of ;~lcoholicscan recover in comer in that meeting who might he the messilgc of treatment centers and still think it was a good iclca to drink. this life-giving Fellowship. wondering if he or she was in the right their philosophy. 1 hear the message Thank God that when I came through I.]., Belton, S.C.

May 1995

A true AA leader always puts the best interests of the Fellowship ahead of anything else, and one of the finest examples I ever saw of this was while I was a delegate to the General Service Conference. Under consideration that year were some very emotionally charged issues revolving around the participation of nonalcoholics at closed meetings and how topics unrelated to alcoholism were frequently being discussed at meetings. The specific item on the table was a statement prepared by one of the Conference committees which defined what an bp& meeting was and what a closed meeting was. The Conference itself seemed to be split into three factions over this statement: those who wanted the statement to be Conference-approved, those who wanted no statement at all, and those who wanted a statement that could be used by those who needed it but one which would not be construed as “exclusive” or be used to keep people out of AA meetings. The debate went on for hours. The wording of the two statements was worked and reworked, but no clear group conscience was emerging. Finally, noting that there was still a considerable amount of material left on the agenda and that the Conference as a whole was facing the possibility of running out of time altogether, discussion was ended and a vote was taken. The issue seemed to have come to a close, and yet there was still unrest among the delegates as a whole. A turning point had been reached. Even though a lot of time had been devoted to this issue and it had, temporarily, been resolved, one AA member who had voted on the side of ending the discussion reversed his vote and put the topic back on the floor. Somehow he knew that the Conference as a whole was not through talking, that a true, informed conscience had not yet been born. Even with emotions almost at the fraying point, the discussion continued until substantial unanimity could be achieved. A true AA leader had once again shown up when we needed one most, putting the good of the Fellowship first. Don P. , Aurora, Cob. (From the September 1991 Grapevine)

June 1995

supporting my body in all its comings “Well that’s not very important!” But group’s spirituality, failing to recognize and goings. When I die, it’s my skele- suddenly as a group, we begin to stum- the Higher Power expressed to us in ton that will be around a lot longer ble. Our whole group progress is in the group conscience? Do we really listhan all my fleshy parts. jeopardy. ten to one another when we are speak- And so it is with the Traditions. Some thirty-five years ago, while 1 ing? (Tradition Two.) Have we so They are there for us, but many times was still in college, I broke a vertebra broadened the scope of our AA meetthey remain unseen so we often take in my lower back in an accident on an ings that folks addicted to alcohol find them for granted. O h yes, we do pay lip icy toboggan run. And while I didn’t difficulty in relating to the speakers? service to them. Some groups read know that I’d broken anything, I did (Tradition Three.) Have we grown them illoud at the beginning of cilch know that I was in il lot of pain. Some- slack in carrying the message to the meeting and most havc them displayed how by sheer effort, I managed to get still-sufferingalcoholic! Whatever hapon a , windowshade in the meeting by. It wasn’t until many years later that pened to the Twelfth Step calls? (Traroom. Some groups may even have a 1 began to experience serious disorders dition Five.) Have we allowed issues of Traditions ~neetingevcry so often. Most with my sacroiliac. A n x-ray of my power, money, property, or prestige to times, though, wc just take them for spinal column revealed scars from thc divert us from o w primary purpose? granted -until somehody breaks onc. original fracture. That old assault on (Tradition Six.) How about group sup- But the Traditions need more than a my bones was taking its toll three port? Do we contribute financially and once-over-lightly glance evcry so often. decades later. We might think we can through our presence to the mainte- . They are the source of our group get away with breaking a Tradition but nancc and ongoing life of our group? strength, the origin of the form for the ycars later, our whole systcm will rebel. (Tradition Scvcn.) Often we hear at- A A group. They are the structure It will be out of alignment. tacks on the medical profession, psywhich upholds us and gives us form. As they grow older, some people de- chiatry, or organized religion. Isn’t this The Tradition of anonymity, in my velop osteoporosis. Poor nutrition and “having an opinion on outside issues”? opinion, is the most critical one; it’s I S YOUR like the sp~nulcolumn, from w l ~ c hall lack of exercise can make them fragile. If we don’t carc for and nourish our (Tradition Ten.) Have we been faithful to our anonymity? (Traditions Ten SKELETON the other Traditions depend. Break your back, and see how many miles you skeletal system with daily calcium requirements and exercise, we will wind and Eleven.) Are we impressed when some celebrity breaks hisher anonymi- IN THE can run – even if your legs are strong and straight. When anonymity has up in later life in big trouble. I suggest that, for the care and mainty? Isn’t that placing personalities before principles? (Tradition Twelve.) CLOSET? been broken, we may need the intervention of an orthopedic surgeon. tenance of the Traditions, groups sct aside a meeting or two to take an occa- While the Traditions are often out of sight and out of mind, they are very

I usually don’t think very much Without this and other Traditions, we sional, but serious, group inventory in important for our group survival and about my skeletal systcm, at least grow spineless and wishy-washy. which the members of the group look our individual health and well-being. not until I break a bone. Then the Did you ever break one of those mi- over how they havc been carrying out They are the structure which protects ache of the fracture makes me very nuscule bones in your foot? Some mi- the Traditions. our sobriety and our serenity. Show me much itware that it is bones that hold nor misstep m d cri~ck!,you’re in major What about our group unity? Do we ;I group which ignores the Traditions, me up and keep me going. My skele- ;~gony.It becomes imposs~bleto walk. care for one another, look after our and 1’11 show you a group that’s headed ton is something I take for granted; How easy it is to break some insignifi- companions in AA? (Tradition One.) for trouble. but it’s there daily, doing the work, cant appearing Tradition – to say, Have we tended to lose sight of the Daniel I., MaryknoU, N.Y.

June 1995

Around AA

AA is and isn’t and help them understand well-being in our Twelve Traditions,” Bill that AA views alcoholism as an illness of then asked his listeners, “But are we a relithe body, mind, and spirit that has nothing gious society? Absolutely not. AAs are of whatsoever to do with ‘sin.”‘ just about every faith and persuasion, from So, Bill relates, “I immediately contact- Christians and Jews to Buddhists and those , ed the clergy, expressed my concerns and of the Islamic faith, along with agnostics asked if I might have the opportunity to tell and atheists. Experience shows that the their congregation about Alcoholics AA program will work for those who be- Anonymous. They ;~ssented,though they lieve in a God of their understanding were rather insistent and it will work for ‘Singleness of Purpose8 about my confining the talk to five min- Today AA has more those who don’t believe in God. 1.m con-

Unites Over Tho Million utes – not easy.” FOKo~eners.he told 1 than two tldi0tl vinced it won’t work, however, for those, the congregation, “My who think they are name is Bill and I am meeting in G d ! NOW, another an alcoholic. I have question: Is AA a temnot had a drink of perance movement! Reprinted from the Fall/ Winter 1994 “4bout AA ” bohze since January 3, 9 1,000 groups in 14 1 V . Again, no. AS a el-‘ newsletter, published by AA’s General Service Office 1985, and for me that lowship, AA has no is a miracle.” The only reuuirement for memcountries and opinion at all on such outside issues as

A s it has for almost sixty years, AA distinctly Christian perspective to AA – bership, he continued, whether other ~ e o p l e cooperates fully, though it does and bring AA to Christians.” One of the “is ;I desire to stop is still growing* should or should not not affiliate, with our friends in clergy, the article noted, said among other, drinking. As our Pre- drink.” the professional community – doctors, things that, “It’s okay to come together and amble states, ‘There are no dues or fees for Bill told the congregation that “back in lawyers, the clergy, and others who have say, ‘We’re all insane.’ In some sense we all AA membership; we are self-supporting 1935 two drunks, Bill W. and Dr. Bob, been instrumental in carrying the AA mes- have a problem, and the biggest problem is through our own contributions. AA is not found that by helping each other they sage to alcoholics who otherwise might called sin. . . .” allied with any sect, denomination, poli- could stay sober one day at a time, and thus never have recovered. Usually the lines of One person who read the article was the tics, organization or institution; does not the founding spark of AA was struck: TOcommunication between AA and profes- Southern Illinois delegate to AA’s Gener- wish to engage in any controversy; neither day AA has more than two mil’lion memsionals fairly crackle with shared informa- al Service Conference, Bill B. “1 knew that endorses nor opposes any causes. Our pri- bers meeting in 91,000 groups in 141 tion and understanding, but it takes these people – the clergy, the writer – mary purpose is to stay sober and help oth- countries and is still growing.” Bill emphaceaseless effort to keep them that way. A meant well,” he says, “but it was apparent er alcoholics to achieve sobriety.’ We do sized the importance of anonymity, quotcase in point: that they were not informed about AA this by sharing our experience, strength, ing AA co-fomder Bill W.: “The word Last spring, an Illinois newspaper ran an and, because of that, they were passing on and hope with each other.” Noting that ‘anonymous’ has for us an immense spirituarticle about the clergy of a local church potentially harmful misinformation to oth- ‘bur guidelines for personal recovery from al significance. Subtly but powerfully, it rewho were holding a ten-week sermon series ers – perhaps some of them alcoholics in alcoholism are contained in AA’s Twelve minds us that we are always to place on AA’s Twelve Steps in order “to bring a need of help. I felt it vital to clarify what Steps, and for our collective survival and principles before personalities; that we have

Around AA , ,

renounced personal glorification in public; know who and what we are when they spiritual help. Additionally, 87% of those ra’s Box of problems at AA meetings, from that our movement not only preaches but make referrals. As id written in so much of members who had received such treatment hostility and noisy disruptions to anonymiactually practices a true humility.” our literature, ‘When anyone, anywhere, or counseling said that it played an impor- ty breaks. But after initial confusion, AA Bill went on to explain some of the key reaches out for help, I want the hancl of tant part in their continuing recovery from areas and their groups held long discussions values of anonymity: “Newcomers can at. ‘ AA always to be there. And for that I am alcoholism. and, arriving at a “group conscience,” or tend meetings with the assurance that their responsible.’ I like to think that every little “This is all well and good,” David said, consensus, began to take positive and exnames and what they say in meetings will bit of communication helps.” “since we are grateful for every agency or citing action. A progress report: stay there when they leave; and, by main- method that helps the suffering alcoholic. In Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Arizona, taining anonymity at the public level, we Being Friendly But sometimes there is the danger that our Arkansas, and many other states, AA ser- 1 protect the Fellowship frotn exploitation with Our Friends policy of cooperation will spill over into the vice areas are holding informational pro. and misrepresentation. As our Twelfth Trad “I believe our friends are generally doing appearance of affiliation, violating the spir- grams, commonly called “court classes,” to dition states, ‘Anonymity is an all-pervad- right. O n the rare occasions they don’t, it of our Traditions and so threatening our let referrals know that help is available in ing spiritual quality which today keynotes chances are that we in AA have failed to unity, our very survival. This xcurs, for ex- AA if they have a problem with drinking. AA life everywhere . . . Humility, expressed tell the program like it is, or else have he- ample, when well-meaning but misguided And these areas are sharing their succ&ses by anonymity, is the greatest safeguard AA come lazy and let them do our work for us treatment facilities set up programs in the and setbacks with each other. Whenever can ever have.”‘ -and that’s where the problems start.” AA name (a few have publicized them as possible, members of Narcotics A n o n y Bill’ then stressed that “what AA does Speaking at the General Service Con- such in promotional material); or when a mous, Cocaine Anonymous, or some othnot do is almost as important as what it ference, David, a past AA delegate from court treats AA as an arm of their correc- er twelve-step program are on hand to does,” and he listed sotne of the “don’ts”: the southeastern U.S., explained, “When I tional systems; or when big companies ini- share the nuts and bolts of their organiza- “We don’t solicit members; don’t engage in speak of our ‘friends,’ 1 am referring to the tiate alcoholism education programs citing tion with those whose primary problem is or sponsor research; don’t provide drying- professionid community: treatment centers, AA as if we were joined at the hip. When drugs, not alcohol. This is very important, out or nursing services; don’t engage in ed- court officials,health-care workers, and the such things happen, we need to get off our because as AA co-founder Bill W. says in ucation about alcohol or offer religious media.” Significantly, he noted, many al- duffs and shout loud and clear that while the pamphlet “Problems Other than Akcoservices; don’t provide housing, fixxl, cloth- coholics entering AA todiry ;Ire coming cli- we gladly share what we have -our expe- hol,” a drug addict with “a genuine alcoing, jobs, money, clomestic or vocational rectly and indirectly as a result of rience, strength, and hope in recovery from holic history” is eligible for AA counseling, letters of reference to court of- professional help. According to the latest alcoholism – we do not lend the AA membership, but “there is no possible way ficials or employers, or any other welfare (1992) triennial AA Membership Survey, name to any cause but our own. Paradoxi- to make nonalcoholics into AA members. services; and, finally, we don’t accept mon- 34% of newcomers were twelfth-stepped by cally, removing ourselves from the arena of We have to confine our AA groups to a ey for our services, or any contributions an AA member; 29% knew about AA and politics, prestige, and business enables us to single purpose. If we don’t stick to these from non-AA sources.” came on their own; 27% cited guidiuice cooperate far more effectively with our principles, we shall almost certainly cold Looking back, Bill hopes that hoth the frotn treatment fi~cilities(down from S O ‘ k friends.” lapse. And if we collapse, we cannot help clerLy and their congregation emerged from in the previcm [I9891 survey); and 21% anyone.” his talk with a clearer understanding of were giiided by one or more family tnem- The Power of The key word here is “identification.” As AA. “I am mindful,” he says, “that AA’s hers. Still others were influenced by the Our Common Bond AA’s Fifth Tradition states (Twelve Steps strength depends greatly upon rci~chingthe cclurts (HX)), hy it doctor (7%), i 1 1 d hy ;In In the early 1980s, the courts hegiln man- and Twelve ~ r d t i o n sp., 150-151): “The sick alcoholic through our professionill ctnployer or fellow worker (6%). After cl;lting “chemicidly ilcpcntlent” offenders to uniq~~e ithility of each AA to identify himfriends in the community. We are grilteful coming to AA, 56% of the resp~ndentsre- AA – he they alcoholics, drug i~rl&ts, or self with, and hring recovery to, the new, when these friends recommend us, but at ceived sotne type of treatment or counsel- a combination of both. The influx of these comer in no way depends upon his the same time we need to be sure they ing, or medical, psychological, andlor newcomers immediately created a Piindo- learning, his eloquence, or any special in-

Around AA

dividual skills. The only thing that matters profound effect on the court-ordered ‘stuis that he is an alcoholic who has found a dents.”‘ key to sobriety.” Reports from numerous areas show that In Colorado, the AA service committees the court classes have helped ease the way for Cooperation with the Professional of alcoholic court referrals into mainstream ‘

Community (CPC) and for Correctional AA meetings. Mary B., director of the Dal- Facilities (CF) together developed their las Intergroup Association, reports that court-class program, using guidelines pub- many probationers and parolees remanded lished by the AA General Service Office to AA by the courts “just assume we’re a in New York and the sharing of other areas punitive arm of the law. Once they underbent on a similar mission. Several impor- stand we’re not, that the one thing we do tant points: “The court class belongs to the is share our experience, strength, and hope judicial system, not AA, and is held in the in recovery from alcoholism, they frejudicial building. All AA volunteers are quently relax visibly, listen, and become there at the invitation of the court. We co- willing to be helped.” operate with the judicial system but do not No comprehensive statistics exist on affiliate . . . The judicial system determines how many alcoholic court referrals have , who will attend class and appoints a deputy corked the bottle and found a new, sober from the sheriffs office to monitor it. AA life in AA -not to mention the nondco- ,volunteers provide the coffee pot and sup- holics who found appropriate help through plies, and all literature. We pass the basket an AA’court class – but the numbers are to help defray the costs; if we run short of high and still climbing. Says Mary: “The being self-supporting, the CPC and C F more AAs and professionals communicate committees make up the difference. The and work with each other, the better are courts do not contribute . . . Members of the our chances of carrying the message to a judicial system are invited to attend and are group of alcoholics long considered ‘ungiven time at the beginning of class to say a reachable’ – something AA experience few words before turning the meeting over clearly shows they’re not.” to an AA member. This generally has a CIJ

October 1995

of Myth peculiarly alcoholic need to see myself as a martyr. “Oh, woe is me” is how I play the role. “I’m a lone AA traditionalist, carrying the real AA program vulnerable, the real old-timers made bigger mistakes than anyone has dreamed up since. Today,can we even imagine a local out here among these heathen addicts AA group soliciting other people’s all by myself.” money to open its own rehab, loan of- The purpose of this kind of message fice, and educational center? How is to place guilt, to inflate my self-im- about the General Service Office apportance, and to manipulate others proaching wealthy philanthropists for . v (mostly vulnerable, impressionable handouts to make up for a budget newcomers) so they’ll conform to a shortfall?Or groups deliberately ex- A response to the May 1995 Grapevine article, narrow use of language and behavior cluding women and people of color “Whose Message Are We Carrying? ” by J .I.from Belton, S .C . with which I’m comfortable. The im- from their meetings?The old-timers plication is that if they don’t, they are did these things, and more.

T here is a myth circulating day-wonder, poly-addicted, rehab ba- doing something wrong, something But these horrendous mistakes didn’t among some AA 1ong.timers. bies who are primed by therapists t o , that will harm the AA program and stop the growth and the impact of the The short form goes like this: talk about their feelings. strangle their own prospects for sobri- AA program. The other addictions and Years ago, back when I was a newcom- As the authors of this AA lore fre- ety. After all, I reason soundly, it’s for treatment programs that some weller, AA was solidly unified behind the quently admit, newcomers leave them their own good. meaning but inexperienced newcommessage carried in the Big Book. Old- “confused and frightened when what I I’ve thought and said all these ers talk about at meetings are small timers welcomed me to meetings where hear in meetings is not the message of things. For me this behavior was the change relative to the intolerance, the only thing spoken wus the wisdom of AA.” (J. J. from Belton, S.C. in the product of long-standing fear and inse- blunders, and internal rancor that first the Big Book and the Twelve Steps. No- May 1995 issue). curity. The truth is that since the first spurred Bill W. to write the Traditions, body talked about their struggles with I would add two more emotions evi- day I walked through the doors of AA, and then to relentlessly defend them drugs: sex, money, religion, food, smok- dent in this point of view, both of I’ve heard people bemoaning the loss against hostile old-timers who considing, emotions. None of that muddied the which I’ve experienced as well: guilt of the way it used to be. And I’ve seen ered them too complicated. pure waters of good old-time AA. And and what the Big Book calls “a feeling many drift away because of this atti- In addition to information about the God forbid anybody might think of anxious apartness.” In order to move tude. First comes the loss of humor – tumultuous history of the Fellowship, they’d learned something about alco- beyond these feelings – ones that every transgression of “the way things our Step book has some advice for holism anywhere else – like from a every bleeding deacon suffers from – should be” seems serious and threaten- hand-wringers: Don’t like what’s going therapist or rehab or another outside I’ve learned to ask myself two questions ing. Then comes the loss of faith. on in your home group? Then take source. Never happened back in those in my daily inventory: am I still learn- So I want to suggest to those who are some action. Start your own group. days. No sir, not when we had only ing?Am I too busy preaching? nostalgic about the old days that the The hitch is: once the group gains its real alcoholics at meetings. I’ve been around AA for fourteen history presented in our Step book, in own momentum, you have to turn it According to this fairy tale, long- years, and sober for twelve, by the grace old Grapevines, and in Conference-ap- over to the group conscience. Do you timers got the “real A M from the old- of God. I also attend Al-Anon, so I’ve proved biographies shows that AA has have enough faith in Tradition Two to timers, and most transgressions of AA learned to recognize when I’m laying a always been rife with controversy, re- do that?Might not the groups you’re so tradition have been introduced to guilt trip on others, and w h ~ nI’m sentment, and not-so-petty rows. In worried about also be under the guidmeetings since then by twenty-eight- viewing a problem in order to suit my fact, when the program was at its most ance of “a loving God as He may ex- .

press Himself in our group conscience”? doing things, not in a fixed set of Come on, long-timers, get real. words, but in the living, changing, Laugh a little. The program is alive and growing spirit we share, one alcoholic well and thriving for millions of us, to another. How can any of us claim Raising the alarm for the sake of AA is that simply because of changes in the what Rule #62 should guard against. language and concerns expressed at Sure, the language people use at meetings, this can no longer be so? meetings is changing. Just as the prob- A final question to consider: would lems they bring to meetings – eco- any of us have found it inspiring or nomic, personal, chemical – are helpful as newcomers to listen to some changing. That’s life on life’s terms. wistful harangue about how wonderful Everything changes. But the Twelve AA used to be? Steps and ~ w e l v eTraditions and Ernest S., York Harbor, Maine Twelve Concepts remain to guide our behavior, as surely as the seven deadly sins guide our inventories. AA unity is an ide. a1 to which we still aspire, and which we still fail to achieve. Just like it’s always been. Those who believe the program used to be unified, heterogeneous, and peacefully engaged in bnly our singleness of purpose are dreaming. The miracle at the heart of AA has always been a gritty, turbulent one. The push and pull between great love and great suffering rends the resilient spiritual fabric of our groups again and again; and people still get sober. Maybe the lesson is that, despite the growing diversity of our membership and the burdensome complexity of our service struce ture, the real power of AA still resides in one alcoholic talking to another. Not in a fixeld way of

December 1995

Tradition Twelve

mon as first names in group meetings. can break my anonymity on a private No one thinks anything of it, because level. , it does not violate our Traditions and So, in our perspective on anonymi- Anonymity w the dpiritual it is not at a public event. We know ty, we travel through the stages of fear and believe in the confidentiality of and acceptance and finally to service. f o u d a t i o n of all our traaitiotw, our group meetings. Here is where I feel In other areas, the danger may lie. such as my home It is among those of ever rentin2ing ud to place state of Oregon, THE GUARDING us who have been -great care has been sober some time. have principled before perdonalitied. taken through the gained some selfyears not to reveal OF ANONYMITY worth, and now have last names in meet- a real feeling of self-esings. It stems from CAN BECOME a teem, that problem the fact that we do mav exist. It seems a not have the right to self-esteem based on break another’s OBSESSIVE – A fact, for haven’t we anonymity, and it cleared away t h e , works toward reduc- wreckage of our past, ing our desire for per- CONTAGIOUS and are we not being sonal distinction as of the greatest service AA members among HABIT we can to our fellowfellow alcoholics. But man and our Fellowhave you ever tried ship?We think well of to visit someone in m ourselves these days;

T radition Eleven is generally fear and allows newcomers freedom to well understood, and anonymi- join us. Newly recovered alcoholics are ty breaks are relatively few con- still very close to past guilts and missidering the size of our Fellowship takes. Losing their anonymity in the today. But Tradition Twelve is the beginning can be a traumatic thing, the hospital when you did not know the person’s last name? The guarding other members see our. good work and think well of us, too. Per. haps the show-off of anonymity can become obsessive – stage has passed, and there is now some rock upon which we have built our both personally and professionally. a contagious habit. Our Traditions do substance to our achievements. We Society. If it is not substantially se- Fairly early in my sobriety, while in not include the tradition of habit. know, however, that our usefulness is a cure, we surely face significant danger. a restaurant with people not in our Fel- Anonymity must be guarded at the gift. Were we granted sobriety and a Our gkeatest danger lies within each lowship, I met a dear friend from AA. I media level, but that doesn’t mean I new life to revel in our achievements? of us. was free to greet him and introduce can’t break my anonymity in meetings Are we not just a part of a great whole, As we all know, recovering alco- him by his first and last name, because ot among some people outsidc AA. a11 working for the same Boss! Do we holics pass through many stages of ac- I trusted him with my anonymity and The essential thing is to focus on the consider enough by what Power we ceptance and understanding. It is the he trusted me with his. spirit of our Traditions. When princi- have been able to make these achieved comfort of anonymity that eases the In some areas, last names are as com- ples are placed before personalities, I ments? An early member used to say,

Tradition Twelve

“Count yourself. You’re not so many.” rate from the general publlc, does exist work because there was no other way In the “Twelve and Twelve,” the within our Fellowship, containing to survive, and through God’s grace, chapter on Tradition Twelve says: “Our many new and uninformed members. the results have been made manifest in growth made it plain that we couldn’t Are we in danger of the “vaudeville cir- our lives. Why now do we do the footbe a secret society, but it was equally cuit”? How great is our need to be en- ‘ work? We now do it to survive with plain that we couldn’t tertained? Does it love. Because we were loved, we’ve be a vaudeville circuit, transcend our search for learned to love in return. We have either. The charting of quality sobriety?Do we , learned that faith without works is a safe path between ARE WE select people and look dead. In love and service, we have these extremes took a to them as Mr. or Ms. found that freedom we so long desired. long time.” I believe it AA? And if we do, Some have called it sacrifice. is still taking a long I N DANGER what does the new and Our Twelfth Tradition (long form) time. uninformed membcr Self-esteem, a product of living within asks us “actually to practice a genuine

– With a membership OF THE do! When speakers are1 the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anony- humility. . .,to the end that our great of over a million, the selected, what attribut- mous, grows as a result of sobriety. As blessings may never spod us.” So, feeldanger of a “secret so- cs are desired?Are their we succeed more than we fail, and the ing this all-encompassing desire for ciety” has passed, but “VAUDEVILLE stories different from quality of our sobriety improves, so will love and service founded in gratitude, the danger of a most of ours? More ex- our self-esteem. But self-esteem is the we try to “give up our natural desires “vaudeville circuit” citing?Are they humor- CIRCUIT”? bedfellow of inflated ego. We may be for personal distinction as AA memhas not. Whether we ous? Will their names living with bad company. We need al- bers.” It is the act of doing good withlike to consider it in draw a lot of people, so ways watch for the inflated ego. Rea- out getting found out. this light or not, we that expenses will be soning can play tricks on us. ‘Through Let us, then, focus on the spirit of are so large, we now met and some money self-honesty, we stand guard at our anonymity rather than just the letter of have a “public” within made for the area or dis- mental door, and achieve a kind of hu- the Tradition, and in doing so, ask our our Fellowship. Again, trict! And finally, what mility. Higher Power to keep us safe from ourthe chapter on our Twelfth Tradition is the quality of their sobriety?Do they “Anonymity,” says the chapter on selves. says that public approval can do “in- have a real, honest message?Perhaps it our Twelfth Tradition, “is real humili- D. S., Gresham, Ore. calculable good or great harm. Every- may be time to look at our priorities. ty at work.” We have done the foot- (From the September 1983Grapevine) thing would depend upon how it was And what about the personal needs channeled.” It also says, “We simply of Mr. and Ms. AA? Where is their couldn’t afford to take the chance of chance for further growth? Can they letting self-appointed members present share the struggles that occur from time themselves as messiahs representing to time in later sobriety, or do they feel AA before the whole public. The pro- they should remain that ideal example moter instinct in us might be our un- of achieved peace and serenity repredoing.” sentative of what it is supposed to be Now that AA has grown to such like today? great size, it is about time we recognize We have moved from self-degradaand accept that a kind of public, sepa- tion to self-acceptance to self-esteem.

Tradition Twelve

Tradition Tw e 1v e :~ t t o n ~ t n iG& the d p i r i t dfoudation of all our ‘

T r d i t i o m , ever reminiling ud to place principled before perdonalitied.

1. Why is it a good idea for me to place the common welfare of all AA members before individual welfare?What would happen to me if AA as a whole disappeared? 2. When I do not trust AA’s current servants, who do I wish had the authority to straighten them out? 3. In my opinions of and remarks about other AAs, am I implying membership rcquircmcnts othcr than a dcsirc to stay sober? 4. Do I ever try to get a certain AA group to conform to my standards, not its own? 5. Have I a personal responsibility in helping an AA group fulfill its primary purpose? What is my part? 6. Does my personal behavior reflect the Sixth Tradition -or belie it? 7,. Do I do all I can to support AA financially?When is the last I time I anonymously gave away a Grapevine subscription! 8. Do I complain about certain AA’s behavior – especially if they are paid to work for AA? Who made me so smart? 9. Do I fulfill all AA responsibilitiues in such a way as to please privately even my own conscience? Really? 10. Do my utterances always reflect the Tenth Tradition, or do I give AA critics real ammunition? 11. Should I keep my AA membership a secret, or reveal it in ‘

private conversation when that may help another alcoholic? Is my brand of AA so attractive that other drunks want it? 12. What is the real importance of me among more than a million AAs?

Dece

ing and I was shaking. 1was no longer I still didn’t really believe that I was going into the meeting as a casual ob- powerless over alcohol. I hadn’t taken , server, but as a person in pain who the First Step. needed help. I was open and willing. I The minute I felt the glow of that remember how safe I felt in that room first drink of rum I wanted more. that night and how the things people Everyone else was sipping their drink talked about made sense to me. Being slowly, enjoying the conversation, there with those people gave me the while I became more and more obstrength to make it until the next sessed with how I was going to get the meeting. next drink without drawing too much I kept going to meetings; one every attention to myself. I couldn’t stand day, and I found myself feeling better the thought of sobering up before I fell and better. I listened to hear what peo- asleep, so after I poured myself two ple who used drugs were calling them- more good-sized drinks, I went to bed.

I remember my first introduction to AA. I had asked a friend at work about how she was able to stay sober, and she offered to take me to a meeting. I wasn’t an alcoholic of bly had no other life to fall back on. On the other hand, I still had a job, . friends, and a family. And besides, alcohol wasn’t my problem. I said thank you very much to my friend for her selves. Cross-addicted seemed to be The next morning when I woke up I acceptable so that’s what I’d say. I tried was flooded with anxiety and a sense of to get the word “alcoholic” out a cou- foreboding. The feelings were strangeple of times but it just wouldn’t come ly similar to those I had felt a little over .

course, but I was starting to spend a trouble, but I was not using anymore because I didn’t believe it. I talked to a six months earlier on that morning 1 little too much money on the drugs I and I was sure that I could handle it few members about how I felt and they had made the call to Alcoholics was now using on a daily basis. Sure I from here. told me that as long as I had a desire to Anonymous. At that moment 1 began drank, but I could take it or leave it. I For six months I stayed clean and stop drinking I belonged and that if 1 to get a glimpse that I might have a knew that my friend had been sober sober. Each day was a huge struggle. My kept coming back, I would figure out problem with alcohol. for some time. Maybe what she was friend would check in with me every, for myself if I was an alcoholic. I did I started back to the meetings. Three , doing to stay sober could help me stay once and a while to see how I was do- have a desire to stop drinking because I months later I was let go from my job off the drugs. ing and asked me if I wanted to go to a knew that alcohol would lead me back and decided that maybe I should at- One Tuesday night we opened the meeting. “No thanks, I’m just fine,” to the drugs. tend a rehab program. By this time I door to a crowded smoke-filled room. was my reply. Inside I was becoming Six months went by and I experi- had changed the way I was talking The images I remember were mostly more and more restless, irritable, and enced all the stuff that goes along with about my recovery. Instead of saying I’d those of older men, Everyone greeted discontent. Then the day came. Surely early sobriety, the fears and mood been sober for three months, I was each other warmly and many came after six months I’d proved that I didn’t swings, the physical cravings, and the telling people I had been “around the over afterwards to shake my hand. The have a problem. One day I picked up relationship problems with friends, program” for nine months. My denial sharing was honest and open, and I re- and the physical compulsion returned. family, and coworkers. One night when was very strong. member being impressed by that. I My disease was active again. I was staying over at a friend’s house, I The counselor 1 was assigned in the went to several other meetings with my Two years later I picked up the was offered a drink and I took it. I had treatment center was an AA member friend but never fclt like I bclongcd. 1 phonc ;~ndcalled AA. 1 still didn’t be- been restless that day and the thought with twcnty ycars of sobriety. After lisremember thinking that these people lieve I was an alcoholic but 1 didn’t of a drink to relax seemed like a won- tening to me talk for twenty minutes must really need all these meetings be- know where else to turn. That night I derful idea. l t never even occurred to about why I was there, how I had emocause they were lonely and they proba- sat in the parking lot before the meet- me that there would be consequences. tions and mood swings to deal with,

and how 1wanted to learn to live with coholic. Today when I’m in a meeting myself and others, she questioned me and I hear somebody share that they’re . about my alcoholism. I told her I knew not sure whether or not they belong I couldn’t drink because it would lead because alcohol was not their primary me back to the drugs. She told me even drug of choice, I can extend my hand though I had many other issues to deal and tell them that 1 understand. I tell with, what I really needed to do was to them what was told to me: Keep an work on Step One: my powerlessness open mind and keep coming back, and over alcohol. you will find the answers for yourself. It was there that I wrote my first Some people stay and have the same drinking history. As I went back I dis- experience that I did. Some leave and covered many things that had some- find their home in other twelve-step how escaped my notice. The first drug I programs. had ever picked up was alcohol. I had I believe that it is important not to started drinking three to four nights a dilute AA’s message and that our sinwcek after only a few weeks of drink- gleness of purpose should be preserved. ing and always to get drunk. I was sus- Many of us do have other issues to deal pended from college because of a low with and the Big Book encourages us grade point average, and that was di- to go for outside help in those cases, rectly related to my drinking. As I re- but in AA meetings, 1 want to hear viewed all the crazy, desperate, how people are staying sober. I’ve been unmanageable times in my life, alcohol able to deal with some of those other was always present. It had affected my issues by going for outside help,’but life physically, emotionally, mentally, without my sobriety, none of it would socially, academically, and spiritually. It have been possible. was as if my eyes had been opened for When 1first came into the program, the first time. I was powerless over al- I didn’t understand anything about the cohol and my life was unmanageable. I disease of alcoholism and how it had was an alcoholic. made my life unmanageable. I thought When I returned from treatment that people, places, and things were the and went back to meetings, I was able real problems. It took AAmembers to stand at the podium and say, “My with good long-term sobriety to help name is Lynn and I’m an alcoholic.” me get the focus back on me. ,When The words came freely because they newcomers come in talking about outwere coming from my heart. I’ve been side issues, it’s my responsibility to keep sober a few years now and I owe my life things on track in the same loving and to AA. I’m grateful that those people 1 careful way that others used to walk me met when I first came in didn’t reject through my early sobriety. me because I couldn’t say I was an al- Lynn J., Saint John, N.B.

January 1996 – .-

Vj,jq T ~ C from Here: The VIew from Here

Unity in Service FmAr ;arRp&, fliw.: I was taught from the very beginning by the old-timers that my life and that of my group had to be built around AA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. I was warned that the penalty for extensive disobedience to these prin- ~raditionOne: Our common weyare should comejrst; ciples is death for the individual and dissolution for the grmp. Our common welfare had to come first. personal recovey depends upon& unity. I understood these principles. Before I got sober, I used to race cars; my life and the lives of the other drivers depended totally upon the unity of the pit A Family Affair crew. Disobedience and disregard of basic safety rules could mean death. I FM S&B&M: understand about the importance of surrendering my wants for the better good of the many. A simple principle, but not always an easy road for me. Tradition One basically says that our common welfare comes first -bad 1 During my first year of sobriety, my sponsor guided me into carrying AA’s news for an egocentric drunk! In my family, that means that the common message of hope into prisons, something I still do today. My service to AA welfare of the family comes first. My own personal needs, wants, desires, ex- beyond the home group included being a representative to our intergroup pectations, and dreams all need to be passed through the screen of the com- and some participation in general service at the district level. However, I am mon welfare. If the family is going to exist and function as a meaningful unit, basically a loner; crowds and groups are not my favorite places to be. I was then I have to keep one eye on the common good all the time. (If the family and still am happiest when I am alone and riding down the road on my moself-destructs, my survival is also threatened.) torcycle. Just me and the wind. At work, the common welfare had to come first, too. I couldn’t ignore the That’s where I was, at the fourteen-year mark in sobriety. Not drinking, general directions of the staff and administration, and say to myself, “That’s going to meetings -getting on with life. Then I found myself before a docokay for you ordinary folks, but with my creative genius, I can do what I tor being informed of a serious medical situation which medicine could do like.” No. If the school where I worked was going to exist and fulfill its mis- nothing about. sion of educating the youth, then all my personal needs, wants, desires, goals, I had no thought of drinking, but I did lose my will to live. I went home expectations, and dreams needed to be passed through the screen of the com-, with the thought of not being alive in the morning when the phone rang. mon welfare. The common good had to be paramount. Then another AA, whom I hadn’t heard from in a long time, asked me if I Finally, I need to respect the environment in which I live – the people I would go into the local prison to do a Twelfth Step meeting with him that live with and work with; the community and country I live in. If the world night. If we didn’t go that night, the inmates would have no meeting, no around me goes for schnitz, I won’t have a lot of resources to live on or with. hope. Our common welfare must come first. I put aside my own feelingsof kWpW despair and went into the prison. These men knew me well and they knew

, Tho Viow from Worm

something was wrong. They challenged me to live the principles that I had As chairman of this committee, I became painfully aware that every word shared with them for so many years. The unity of their spirit got me through and action of mine became a living example of the Steps, Traditions, and the night. Concepts at work. I was no longer an autonomous individual. I was no longer The next day I called someone in AA I knew who had gone through a a loner. To quote from the pamphlet “AA Tradition -How It Developed”: similar situation. She told me that I had a choice: I could sit around and wait “But AA unity cannot automatically preserve itself. Like personal recovery, until this other disease killed me or I could get up each day and thank God I we shall always have to work to maintain it.” was still breathing and go about my business helping other drunks. Bu6Mo. At this point I was asked to come back to our local general service district. The unity and future of the district depended on some of us stepping back into service to lend a hand. It was not really what I wanted to do, but our common welfare must come first so 1jumped in and became the district treatment facilities chairperson. In 1989 and 1990 I went on to serve our area as the treatment facilities committee chairperson. Just as I began my term as chairperson, our assembly voted to alter the structure of this committee. Instead of just being a general service committee or a cooperative effort with one intergroup as some of our other committees are structured, the assembly voted to have the committee adopt a cooperative effort with d the inter- The maditions fm Ch&, o*c: – One Member&Short Form groups. This action was taken without asking the intergroups if this was what I they wanted. What followed was a serious split in our membership. 1. Home groups can be tom apart by gossip, backbiting, and judging of oth- We went through weeks and months of subcommittees, assemblies, and ofers. (And where would we be without our home groups?) ten very heated and argumentative debates. I sometimes wondered if we 2. Rotation gets new people involved so that God can be expressed would ever see an end to the fighting and disunity. through all of us. Finally, after seven months, I had the unenviable task of presenting our 3. There is a requirement for AA membership -a desire to stop and stay newly hammered-out policies and procedures to our assembly for approval. I stopped drinking. We need to be sharing our experience on the solution wouldn’t wish on anyone what I went through. Every word, every recom- rather than on the problem. mendation, was challenged again and again. I wanted to scream and throw 4. Taking care of our own group business and allowing other groups to do the papers in the air and tell everyone to do something profane. After hours the same will ensure we continue to be here for the still-suffering alcoholic. of discussion and no side able to achieve a two-thirds vote, a third option was 5. As individuals and as groups our primary purpose is the same, to get and presented -compromise. God did for us what we were unwilling to do for keep one alcoholic talking with another. I ourselves and the still suffering alcoholic. Everyone surrendered their person- 6. Our groups carry the life-saving message of AA to alcoholics and let al agendas and we worked for the common welfare. It was a hard lesson for all others do the same, with our blessing. of us. We got so trapped in which way was best, we almost lost sight of what 7. In AA we pay our way and are not influenced by others. our primary purpose as sober alcoholics truly is – to carry AA’s message of 8. AA is love and service freely received and freely given. We do need to hope and recovery. With the love and support of many, we did get through employ qualified people to keep certain services available and functioning. that day and the new policies were accepted. It took time but unity was re- 9. We need a service structure directly responsible to ourselves. stored. The committee is working well today. 10. We leave our personal, religious, and political feelings outside AA AA’s Declaration of Unity reminded us that we owed it to AA’s future to doors along with our worldly ambitions. find a way to work together. The common welfare of those to come was more 11. Very little attraction will show forth if we are promoting ourselves. Our important than our personal agendas.

–

The View from Here

recovery program is what’s important to the public, not us as individuals. son to take precedence over my pride. The Fellowship is flexible enough to 12. Striving for the good of AA and the still-sufferingalcoholic, with deal with people having different ideas and customs so long as each group re- God’s help, is a foundation we can build on. When we stand on our princi- ‘members that our primary purpose is to stop drinking and help others to ples, we leave personalities behind us: achieve sobriety. The principle of “singleness of purpose” can and must still A M be applied. The principles of Alcoholics Anonymous’are so designed that no person can be eliminated for any reason, other than disruption of the meeting, so long as they have a desire to stop drinking. We will continue to have differences of opinion on certain issues, and I won’t attempt to say who is right or wrong. I will continue to respectfully re. quest permission to express my views on any controversial issue. ;The point is that we should try to discuss our differences in a msitive manner. Let’s be agreeable in our disagreements. If we keep on to meetings and we keep on studying the Steps, we will eventually agree on the proper resolution of , Brianf Story each issue. So long as we allow the spirit of the Steps and the Traditions to fmldM, &,: prevail, and we let our own Higher Power or God as we understand him to guide us through an informed “group conscience,” then AA is on solid We have now, and will continue to have, differences of opinion with regard ground. But if I demand that you adhere to my point of view on any given isto the subject of drug addicts in AA, as well as the role of treatment centers sue, then I’m wrong even if I’m right. and their relationship with AA and countless other issues. Even the contro- The General Service Office manager who served as chaimrson for some versy over the health effects of smoking has become a divisive issue. Whatev- of the general assemblies wherein this topic was debated reEired a few years er happens, however, I believe we should continue to protect our First later. Upon retirement, he was asked what he thought posed the greatest Tradition. threat to the continuing health and well-being of Alcoholics Anonymous. My own involvement in a controversy came when I was a delegate to the He said that he thought our rigidity, or our failure to listen to an opposing 24th General Service Conference in 1974. The problem set before us was viewpoint, posed a greater threat than did outside issues. whether or not special purpose groups should be allowed to be so identified Realizing that I am not responsible “for” anyone else’s sobriety but that I and listed in the AA World Directory. The groups under debate were gay have an intense responsibility “to” others, I always try to say a little silent groups. prayer before I speak, whether it be in a one-to-one situation or before a It is the policy of the Conference to attempt to get, as nearly as possible, group: “Dear God, please help and guide me in passing the message. Even unanimous agreement on every issue, and as part of that process, the chair- though I may not say or do anything that will help another person, please person givq the minority voters ample opportunity to express their opinions. help me to not say or do anything that will harm anyone.” In this case there was a significant minority group that voted, emphatically, May God as you understand him continue to hold you in the palm 6f his no to the question of gay groups being listed. The chairperson called a night hand. session on the issue. We continued to argue for perhaps two full days. Eventually, a nonalcoholic trustee stood and said, “What will be the harm in listing special purpose groups?” Another vote was called and the vote was practically unanimous: yes. That was twenty-one years ago, and I’m not aware of any detrimental effects caused by this action. I believe I’m qualified to comment on this incident because I was one of those who voted with the minority, until a simple question allowed my reaa

Red Light, Green Light anniversary dinner and presented them at our next group conscience meetf~aA~t4 Id:, ing. How about an elaborate punch bowl for the pre-dinner “happy hour”? But the conscience of the group didn’t agree. “We don’t do it that way!” Consider the first two legacies as a traffic light. they said. “It’s too reminiscent of our drinking days and we keep it simple Recovery (the Steps) is a green light saying: yes, do this; this is how the in- with an early coffee hour.” dividual AA stays sober. Feeling a bit defeated but undaunted, I disclosed my next brilliant idea. I’d Unity (the Traditions) is a red light telling these groups of sober drunks to heard a lot about unity and service -togetherness. As I now recall, a “shake slow down and stop the tendency to let self-will run riot. It says no: no to be- and bake” product was fairly new on the market. So with togetherness in ing organized, no to outside contributions, no to anonymity breaks in the mind, I suggested that we get some chicken and some “shake and bake” and media, etc. gather together – in unity – in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon to pre- Jm f? pare the chicken dinner. Once again, the group conscience responded with, “We don’t do it that way! We always have cold cuts and covered dishes.” To this overly sensitive beginner-no-more, it was a crushing blow! It was only with the help of an understanding sponsor and a Power greater than me that I accepted the voice of the group conscience. Approximately five group anniversaries later, I was temporarily sponsoring a lovely young lady (who professed to being her college’s champion at a previous Spring Break Beer Drinking contest). We asked her to be responsible Shake and Bake for the food at our upcoming anniversary. At the group conscience planning Fma P;ctipbw$, Pa.: meeting, our former champion presented her idea -why don’t we get some chicken and some “shake and bake” and gather together in the kitchen on The Twelve Traditions are, to me, an extension of the Twelve Steps and, like Sunday afternoon to prepare a chicken dinner. the Steps, are to be “lived.” The Steps help me to learn about myself; the Traditions help me to learn about my fellow alcoholics – and not only learn – Ah, ha – I gloated she’s in for a big surprise. I wanted to prepare her for the agony of defeat when, to my complete surprise, the group conscience about them, but learn to work with them to carry out our primary purpose. responded with, “What a wonderful idea! Let’s do it.” And so we did. The Traditions are as much a part of my recovery as the Steps and have In retrospect, this episode taught me quite a bit Traditions-wise. By denyhelped me grow in the program. ing the punch-bowl idea, the group conscience was thinking of the common With eleven months of sobriety, I was just coming out of the fog. Soon I’d welfare (Tradition One). I reluctantlv learned to accem the voice of the no longer be classified as a “beginner” (less than a year away from one’s last group conscience (~radition~wo). I also learned that- with time -AA drink). I’d learned so much about AA at those beginners meetings. We were groups can change, just like AA people can. blessed with knowledgeable and experienced long-timer chairpersons who Lok C. emphasized all three sides of the AA triangle -unity, service, and recovery. My Sunday night home group was approaching its anniversary and called a meeting to plan for it. I was so honored when they asked me to be the chairman of the food! Well, no wonder, I’d had plenty of experience prior to coming to AA – theme dinner parties for the women’s club, wine and cheese tasting parties for the alumnae association, etc., etc. Drawing on that experience, I came up with some marvelous ideas for our

February 1996

+ The!’ I I that there is no real “authority” within AA. I suggested to the GSK that he might want to discuss the matter with someone outside our immediate lo- ‘

from Here: cale, perhaps our current delegate, just to get the benefit of additional experience. We also talked about waiting to take action until some clearer path showed itself, and in the meantime praying and trying to show love and tolerance toward all involved. It will be interesting to watch and see how this situation resolves itself. dik:

Tradition Two:$or ourgroup putpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God asJe may expressJiimselJ in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do ntotgovern. Tradition Two says there is but one ultimate authority (and I’m not it): a Love and Tolerance loving God -that is, some Higher Power that cares for me. The Italians F%aM&&Ca&, NC.: have a neat way of telling someone “I love you.” Their expression is ‘Ti voglio bene” -“I wish you well.” It just seems to put things on a tangible Just a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from the GSR (general service repre- level, whereas “love” is abstract at best and always seems open to intexpretasentative) of one of the groups in my area. He had been asked by the group tion. It is good for me to think of my Higher Power as caring for me and to get some advice from someone in authority. He called me to get the name wanting what is good for me. of someone at the General Service Office that he could call. You know, Steps Four and Five suggest that you pray for the one who is It seems that the group’s treasurer had had some amount of trouble staying apparently causing the hurt or the resentment. Well, quite often my prayer is sober. So in a previous business meeting, the group had elected a new trea- nothing more than this little Italian phrase, ‘Ti voglio bene” (“I wish you surer. But the new treasurer had decided to keep the old treasurer as his assis- well”). tant, and to let him continue signing the checks. This had caused quite a bit The ultimate authority,is “a loving God as He may express Himself in our of concern to some of the group’s members. At a subsequent business meet- group conscience.” This almost always happens at an AA meeting some- ing the matter was discussed again, and a vote was taken to replace the one will say something that either affirms or totally alters my vision of myself newest treasurer and his assistant. The vote was pretty close to fifty-fifty. or what my life should be like. The voice of the group conscience is out There was nothing close to unanimity. It was at that point that the group there. It’s just a matter of whether 1want to linen 1-whether I’m willing to asked the GSR to get advice from someone of “higher authority.” accept what I’m hearing. The GSR and I had some discussion about Tradition Two, about the fact

“Our leaders are but trusted servants.” If I want to be a leader, I have to do more than just find out in which direction the mob is moving and then get out in front of it. No. Leadership involves significant sacrifice of personal goals and ambitions. A person really heeds to have Tradition Two right at the center. The good of the big picture for the longest time always needs to be foremost in any decision or action. Personal pettiness just has no place in leadership. If 1 want to serve myself, fine – I can just crawl into a hole and hibernate somewhere. If I want to be of some use to someone (my family, my employer, my community) then I can be a leader by becoming a servant. Out of the Hat, Into the Fire This is one of those crazy paradoxes we find all over the AA program: being a FNMU ?Itdmh: servant to be a leader. My most vivid recollection of my stint at the 16th General Service Confer- ence (1966) is of the vote on the restructuring of the Board of T ~ s t e e s primarily because of its importance to the future of AA. [In 1966, the Conference addressed the question of whether the ratio of alcoholics to nonakoholics should change, to favor the alcoholics.] I’ve told and retold my own personal account of that change over and over through the years, using it to. try to impress upon others the importance of service and Tradition Two hoping to stress that AA had, indeed, “come of age” and is responsible for its own future. At thirty-two years of age I was the youngest Conference delegate, up to that time, to serve. With only seven years of sobriety I had been cast by AA’s election procedure as Nebraska’s delegate, having been drawn from the hat after several votes. I was rather unsure of myself and my responsibilities, despite having tried to read all the pre-Conference literature mailed to me. It was late in the week of the 40th General Service Conference in 1990. We I knew the restructuring of the Board of Trustees was to be a major item on seemed to be getting nowhere fast. About then, I could best be described as the Conference agenda. Listening to others soon after my arrival at the “viewing with alarm for the good of AA.” The issue that was currently before Roosevelt Hotel, I was rather astonished when I heard from opponents to the us is itself lost to my memory but the feelings of tension, fear, anger (and a change that Bill W. was trying to run the show. . . have things his own way, few others) that were twisting up my insides are as clear as though it was yes- that he was greedy and continued to be self-centered. I was astonished to terday. Just when I thought, “God, it can’t get much worse,” a pale, rather hear such talk! I idolized this man I was soon to meet for the first time. I soon shaky delegate, whose turn it was at the microphone, unexpectedly asked the sensed there were two factions on this restructuring issue. entire Conference body to observe a moment of silence. Immediately an aura All day long on opening.day (Monday) I heard conversations both for and of peace settled over the whole room. We had been shown the way. Perhaps against the proposed change. But it wasn’t until the Delegates Only meeting this is a common occurrence in groups all over the Fellowship but I had nev- on Monday night that I realized the importance of the issue and heard, from er seen anything like it. 1 believe, though, that it will work every time – if the floor, definite opinions either way. As I recall, we discussed the issue late we just let it. into the night before finally adjourning. And I seem to recall that during that I JwwA ‘ first Monday afternoon session -before the Delegates Only meeting -Bill ‘

The View from Her8

himself had addressed the Conference primarily to make a “pitch” for the re- We then went on to other issues. But I’ll not forget that restructuring , structuring. change nor the look I saw on Bill W.’s face, almost as if to say, “AA has in- When I went to my room late that Monday night, my head was swim- deed come of age! I’ve done all I can do.” ming. I had no idea how to vote nor’how my area would want me to vote on I IYv C. this important issue. I recalled that we’d taken a straw vote before adjourning the Delegates Only session and the issue of restructuring had been turned down in an overwhelming vote. The delegates wanted no change at this time, though that late-night vote was consensus only. Unable to sleep and not wanting to keep my wife awake as I pondered the events of the day and the issues before me, I decided to step out into the hallway where I could pace back and forth and get my thoughts together, as well as do a little praying and some asking for guidance from a Higher Power. I was astonished to find when I left the room that other delegates were . outside their doors. . some of them pacing and others simply sitting on the In Good Hands floor with their backs to the wall. FH.USt, fiimwoh: One Panel 16 delegate I’d gotten acquainted with -Ken K. of Northern California -stood nearby. “Why are you out here!” 1 asked him. I learned In 1957 I left for New York as the first delegate to be elected from our area afthat he, tob, was having trouble confronting this major issue. Soon I learned ter the Conference became permanent. It was difficult for me to realize that the others in the hallway were also trying to sort out their thoughts. Bill W. wouldn’t be making final decisions as to our destiny. The issue before It was 3:30 or 4 A.M. when I felt tired enough to get a short sleep. But us was whether or not to remove the word “honest” from our membership remorning came early, as it does for Conference delegates, and I was up and quirement. During the Conference session some argued that no one could back downstairs for breakfast. achieve sobriety until one becomes honest and that the word should remain. As the Conference reconvened at 800 Tuesday morning, the opening Others spoke just as eloquentlythat not a single person was honest when question was what we wanted to do first: attend to the regular agenda or ad- they first came to our Fellowship. dress the issue at hand – the restructuring of the Board of Trustees. The I left the conference hall for a few moments during the thick of the debate Conference chose to turn first to the restructuring, getting that major issue and found Bill pacing up and down the hallway. Running up to him, I asked, out of the way. “How do you want this to be resolved?’ I can still hear his words, “My friend, Knowing the overpowering delegate vote only hours earlier had denied I no longer make such decisions. You are experiencing God at work through any change and believing that the issue would fall, I was astonished as vote our group conscience.” after vote was recorded after the “yes” call. What about the previous night? I returned to the conference room, and the vote was taken. The group What happened to all those “no” votes? conscience had spoken, and the word “honest” was removed from our re- I knew that something deep inside me had changed my own vote from a quirement for membership. The door to our Fellowship opened even wider “no” the previous night to a “yes” that morning. But I wasn’t the only one to than it had been before. In the future all one needed to enter was a desire to have changed my mind. And there had been little, if any, discussion between stop drinking. delegates on this all-important change. Over the years I have wimessed the wisdom embodied in our Second Tra- I feel, to this day, it was the guidance of a Higher Power. The issue passed, dition. 1 have watched it work in ways that seemed miraculous. I have no fear overwhelmingly. for the future of our Fellowship. We are in good hands! &’f

March — -b

he VM The VIew from Hare

I now look at that eight-month period as my true test of self-honesty. I could admit all I wanted that I was an alcoholic, but when I admitted within

I from ,@!!Here: me that I truly wanted to stop drinking – that’s when I became a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Rhrrvl/?

I

Tradition ihrcc: The only requirementfor& membership is a desire to stop drinking. Sharing Our Way of Life F~arL+~t&, hdiua: Just Keep Coming Back The long form of Tradition Three states, in part: “Our membership ought to fmPitr;p& /E/M Ydr& include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover.” My first experience with this Tradition was in 1979. A group I My encounter with the Third Tradition came almost immediately upon en- attended in Illinois met in a church school building. One night a member of tering the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I remember reading that Tradi- this group who had a resentment burnt down the building. The overwhelmtion on a windowshade which hung at the front of the room at the first ing attitude from group members was to ban the man,fromall AA meetings I in town. meeting I entered. I

I Somewhere in the depths of my being I knew I wasn’t a member because I A discussion ensued at our GSR meeting over this matter. As others comdidn’t have, nor could I even imagine having, a desire to stop drinking. I was mented around the table, Tradition Three kept ringing in my mind. When it an alcoholic to be sure; that I knew! So I had no problem with the First Step was my turn to comment, I quoted this Tradition. I also added that I too of AA. But there certainly was a difference between admitting I was an alco- would have to be banned for my actions during drinking. holic and having a desire to stop drinking. I offered an alternative to banning the man, and that was to allow him to When I mentioned this to a woman who was later to become my sponsor, attend meetings, but to make sure he didn’t have any matches or burnables she said, “That’s okay, honey, you just keep coming back.” And I did. Even- on him. And to continue to share our way of life, with love, to all who wanttually, after attending AA meetings for eight months, certain events took ed it. And this person really wanted it. place in my life and all of a sudden I had a very powerful desire not to pick up . As a result of the discussion on this Tradition,. the Derson remained in our another drink. I call that the two-byefour effect. My sponsor told me later meetings. On my last visit to the group, he was still sober. that I rode the rim of AA until I fell in!

The Vlew from Here

A Self-Diagnosed Disease We Must Never Compel’ 7w: fkwhId;lar, FHMffubot& Sarr&~&uum: The Third Tradition has been made sb complicated. Simply stated, if you Tradition Three says that the only requirement for membership is a desire to haven’t had a problem with alcohol (and you are the only one who really stop drinking. I’d like to quote from the “Twelve and Twelve”: “We must knows that), then you cannot become a member of AA. But you certainly never compel anyone to pay anything, believe anything, or conform to a n y can come to open meetings, and if you do choose to participate, we would ask thing.” To me this Tradition is just one specific application in AA ofthe only that you confine your discussion to your problems with alcohol. general principle “Live and Let Live.” I have the right to be who I afl You tell us you are an alcoholic; we never tell you. you have the right to be who you are. I can’t tell you that you are wrong, and Les k! you can’t tell me that I am wrong. My spouse has the right to be who she is without having to check with me. Our kids have the right to decide who they are and how they want to live their lives. Somewhere in the Big Book it says that since I didn’t even know ahat was good for me, how can I possibly know what’s good for someone else?I can’t. ~ I O I ~ W

Maintaining Our Singleness of Purpose Fma Sm A k ~ i ,Twf: This membership Tradition is so simple and yet it holds such great spiritual power. We admit into our Fellowship anybody that has a problem with drinking. In my case, I didn’t know if I wanted to quit drinking, I just didn’t want to hurt anymore. They didn’t tell me to get out if I didn’t say I wanted to quit drinking; they didn’t say I was an alcoholic. All they said was if I had a problem with alcohol I might have the disease called alcoholism and if I wanted to do something about it, I had come to the right place. When I came to AA in 1950, I didn’t pay too much heed to any of the God,I didn’t know I had a disease. I thought I was some kind of freak, a ‘

Traditions. But since then I’ve become increasingly aware of just hog vita1 tramp, a good-for-nothing SOB, a degenerate. The Third Tradition is the the Third Tradition is to my continuing sobriety. In those early days I had requirement that maintains this Fellowship within the boundaries of our sinreally nothing to offer except a very badly battered wreck of a person. I gleness of purpose that preserves the spiritual entity of Alcoholics Anonyfered all the physical aches and pains and had a very confused state of mind mous. I have to be an alcoholic, or have a problem with alcohol, to be a and no real purpose in life. Any other requirement except a desire to StOP member of AA. Closed meetings are for members only, for alcoholics. But drinking could have been fatal to my survival. you are a member if you say you are. fa& i: Raue/tl:

March 1996

Around AA

ers that these things were desirable. He hopes. He described it later, with gentle wanted to spread the message of AA and self-mockery: perhaps naturally, he thought in terms of “As we watched the faces of the guests, establishing power bases. Bill was a former it was evident that we had captured their stockbroker, and everything he knew sympathetic interest. Great influence and about business and life told him that mon- great wealth were soon to be at our disey made the world go round. It seemed posal. Weariness and worry were to be like simple logic: if AA . things of the past. .. had more money, it could “Breathlessly, we carry the message better. waited for the climax Where Money and To that end, in the fall -the matter of money. of 1937, Bill’s brother-in- Nelson Rockefeller Spirituality Mix’ law Leonard Strong set obliged us. … ‘Gentleup a meeting with men, you can all see Willard Richardson, an that this is work of “When we meet and defeat the temptation lo t+ lmge gifts, we are only associate of John D. goodwill. Its power lies Rockefeller, Jr. Richard- in the fact that one being prudent. But when we are generous with the hat we give a token , son was impressed by Bill member carries the that we are grateful for our blessings and evidence that we are eager to and his story, though a good message to the few weeks later he wrote next, without any share what we have found with all those who still suffer.” to Strong that “anything thought of financial in- -The Language of the Heart that tended to profession- come or reward. Therealize or institutionalize AN^ concept ofse~-support fore, it is our belief that [AA] would be a serious from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Alcoholics Anonymous

W hen the hat or basket is passed This isn’t how it was in AA’s early matter and quite undesir- should be self-supportat a n A A meeting, and A A days, however. In the beginning, money able.” However, Richardson set up a meet- ing so far as money is concerned. It needs members throw in a buck or looked like a very good thing to some of ing with the Rockefeller associates and only our goodwill.’ Whereupon the guests two, they’re observing the Seventh Tradi- our members, including co-founder Bill with Bill, Dr. Bob, and members of AA. clapped lustily, and after cordial handtion by contributing to AA’s self-support. W. Bill had tremendous energy, drive, and Bill had hopes of a large outpouring of shakes and goodbyes all around, the whole Simply put, the Seventh Tradition means ambition on behalf of the budding Fel- Rockefeller money, but in the end, the billion dollars’ worth of them walked out that the Fellowship pays its own way: it lowship but he was also susceptible to vi- Fellowship had to make do with $5,000. the door.” doesn’t solicit or accept contributions sions of grandeur. When he wrote about Two years later, Rockefeller set up an As a matter of fact, some money did from government, corporations, or chari- the dangers of “self-will run riot,” he was exchange between A A and the New come in because of the Rockefeller dintable institutions, and it caps donations speaking from the heart. York business community, this time a ner: Rockefeller himself bought 400 copies from individuals at $1,000 per year. It nei- Bill’s schemes, in the first few years of dinner at the exclusive Union Club, to of the newly published Big Book (at a disther lavishly spends nor raises money; it AA, included having paid AA missionar- which 400 were invited and 75 came. count) and sent it to the 400 invitees; he doesn’t try to amass capital. In a world ies and setting up AA hospitals, and he (Because John D. was ill, his son Nelson also contributed another $1,000; and AA where money talks, AA has chosen to re- managed to persuade a reluctant Dr. Bob , presided.) Contemplating a roomful of was allowed to solicit the invitees – the main quiet. and a group of Akronites and New York- wealthy, influential men reignited Bill’s “dinner list.” It did this for four years,

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reaping a total of $3,000 a year in dona- Twelfth Step work; that we AAs ought to contributed by the groups – a shortfall tool. But if AA is to be self-supporting, tions. These monies helped support the pay these office expenses ourselves and which for many years has been met then increased literature sales could evennew AA headquarters on Vesey Street in rely no further upon outside charity or in- through literature sales. tually violate the SeventhTradition. And Manhattan and gave Bill and Dr. Bob a sufficient book sales. The two trustees also This doesn’t mean there’s a financial if GSO becomes too dependent on literaweekly stipend bf $30. suggested that . . . all group contributions emergency at GSO; in fact, the Reserve ture, then less and less income will come But Nelson Rockefeller, like William ought to be entirely voluntary; that every Fund recently exceeded from the direct source, Richardson, had put his finger on the AA group would receive equal service its Conference.approved and conceivably the AA thing that made AA work: members car- from t+ New York office, whether it con- limit (equal to twelve member and the AA rying the message with no thought “of fi- tributed or not. It was estimated that if ‘ months of operating ex- group could become less nancial income or reward.” He could see each group sent the Foundation a sum penses) and operating important. Group con- – more clearly than could Bill at the time equal to $1 per member per year, this plans were deliberately tributions maintain the -that money and professionalism would might eventually carry our office, without put into effect in order to direct one-on-one con. corrupt the real spirit of the Fellowship. other assistance. Under this arrangement reduce it. So, the ques- nection between GSO So, in a way, AA was saved from itself. the office would ask the groups twice year- tion might be, what is and the Fellowship a – But the remarkable thing is that Bill and ly for funds and render, at the same time, a wrong with supporting connection so vital to the other early members were,soquick to statement’of its expenses for the previous GSO’s services with prof- both parties. grasp the value of self-support.The finan- . period. . Now clearly understanding the its from the sale of the Different AA groups cial necessity to be self-supporting gradu- situation, most groups began contributing Big Book or “The Twelve define “self-support” in ally merged with the desire for autonomy to the Alcoholic Foundation for Central and Twelve” or Living different ways. A group and the recognition that AA was not a Office expenses, and have continued to do Sober? Why is there a may collect money only business proposition. so ever since. In this practice the AA Tra- concern, as Gary Glynn for the support of itself In an August 1947 Grapevine article, dition of self-support had a firm begin- (Class A [nonalcoholic] – i.e., rent, coffee, lit- Bill explained how self-support became a ning.” trustee) explains, with erature for newcomers. practical reality. In 1941, The Saturday “the long-term implicad Some groups are simply Evening Post asked Jack Alexander to Self-support Today I tidns of what appears to too small, too new, or write an article on AA. Bill anticipated The Alcoholic Foundation is now the be a trend of too much self-support com- too unstable to make contributions. But that the article would bring hundreds of General Service Board, and through group ing from literature income and too little most groups who see the role of self-supqueries into the,little New York City of- contributions the Fellowship continues to coming from group contributions”? Why port as part of the larger picture will be fice, which was staffed only by himself, support it and its related activities: group did Bill write in 1946 that “the voluntary more likely to support local, area, inter- Ruth Hock, and a typist. They were going services, the convening of the General contributions or pledges of AA members group, and GSO service activities with a to need help. But how would they finance Service Conference and the World Ser- , should be our principal and eventually our donation, even if it has to be small, una larger office staff?Bill described how two vice Meeting, and the maintenance of the sole support.” derstanding that at all levels AA must be alcoholic trustees went out to AA groups Archives. However, while the number of A primary reason is that while contri- self+supporting.As Bill W. once put it, to ask for help: registered groups has risen over the past butions come only from AAs, a consumer “Our support of services actually amounts, “They presented their listeners with six years, the percentage of registered of AA literature can be anyone, in or out to a recognition on our part that AA,must these ideas: that support of our Central groups that contribute to GSO has steadi- of the Fellowship (a bookstore, a treat. everywhere function in full strength – Office was a definite responsibility of the ly fallen. So for several years there’s been a ment center, a library system). There’s and that, under our Tradition of self-sup- AA groups; that answering written in- widening gap between the cost of provid- certainly nothing wrong with that per se; port, we are a11 going to foot the bill.” . quiries was a necessary assistance to our ing services to AA groups and the dollars the literature is an important Twelfth Step So self-support isn’t just a matter of do\-

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lars and cents; it’s also about a willingness drop in membership in all organizations. Fellowship, the 1995 General Service tribute. It’s always up to the group how it ‘to participate. Making a contribution is an He also wonders if newcomers are learn- Conference approved a newly revised self- can support AA services. act that affirms the importance of unity, ing from their sponsors how important it support pamphlet, “Self-Support: Where The new pamphlet deemphasizes dolresponsibility, and commitment to “our is to have a sense of commitment to a Money and Spirituality Mix.” As the lars and cents, makes clear that ‘the Felcommon welfare.” home group: “Do sponsors still point out Conference looked at the new pamphlet, lowship is GSO’s base of support, stresses George D., general manager – the im~ortanceof the it debated whether or not to include the the importance of an informed group conof GSO, out that ” t i e home group in instill- pie charts, which suggest ways a group can science, and renews the focus on the spirwhole process of the member ing a sense of responsi- divvy up their contributions. Some felt it of the Seventh Tradition. Different putting money in the basket, bility and commitment that the pie charts were too directive; but people might sum up that spirit with difthe group taking care of its ex- to newcomers? When I others pointed out that many AA groups ferent words: responsibility, commitment,, penses and then, through a was newly sober, self- have found the charts to be helpful. The participation. But it is generally agreed that group conscience, determining support was explained to new pamphlet offers five pie charts (la- as members of Alcoholics Anonymous, we how it can pay for needed AA me as being important to belled “Suggested Plans for Group Con- are all responsible for carrying the message services that can’t be extend- both my personal recov- tributions Toward All AA Services”), but -and that is where spirituality and moned by individual groups act-

ery and to the home great efforts were made to present a num- ey mix. As GSO’s auditor of many years ing alone – this is a ber of different options, making it clear has often put it: “Contributions are the wonderful spiritual process Perhaps the’ biggest I that there isn’t one right way to con- mortar that holds AA together.” basic to our personal recov- problem, however, is lack ery and to our Traditions.” of communication. Julian I George made these remarks reports that he was told by at a sharing session of the A A members around the General Service Board last fall, when Gary Glynn and country that “the lack of :What do contributions to GSO cove;r? participation could be at- I

other attendees were tributed to a lack of informaasked to address the ques- tion rather than a lack of tion of declining group interest. Many groups simply participation. Of each dollar contributed, 43 cents goes to cover Group George emphasized the impor- – do not know and do not un- . . derstand just what the Uener- Services (this includes Box 4-5-9, AA directories, the French

1 ‘ tance of participation: “Appeals for money based on other than basic AA spiritual principles could result in temporary ina1 Service Office does for them.” George comments: “We need to do a better job of getting across an underliterature service, Spanish services, the Records and Contributions departments); 4 cents goes toward public information activity; 6 cents toward cooperation with the professional ;omcreases in contributions, but they might standing of the critical importance of connot continue. We hope for orderly and munity activity; 2 cents to treatment facilities activities; 4 cents tribution support. With new people sustainable growth in contributions rather coming in and new groups that may be toward correctional facilities services; 2 cents for Loners; 7 cents than quick fixes.” less connected to AA as a whole, the mes- for overseas services; 14 cents for the General Service Confer- Trustee Julian R. suggests some reasons sage has to be repeated and repeated in ence; 6 cents for Regional Forums; 6 cents for Archives; and 6 why a smaller percentage of groups is par- simple and straightforward AA language.” cents to support the activities of the General Service Board. ticipating these days: for example, down- In an effort to communicate the imporswings in the economy and an overall tance of self-support more clearly to the -From “Self-Support: Where Money and Spirituality Mix”

April

The kom , M V I Here: @ Traditions. But when something didn’t please them or upset their ways, they were very quick to scream about Traditions “violations.” So it seems that our Traditions are sort of an insurance policy; when trouble pops up we trot out our policy and start reading it. BwM

Tradition $out h h group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or& as a whole.

Tradition Four says that each group should be autonomous. This, in my mind, reaffirms the “live and let live” principle. I have the right to be me; you have the right to be you. But there is one condition on me, and that is that if my choice affects someone else (family, coworkers, employer), I’d bet- When I was serving as delegate in 1962, most AA members were not the ter consider their rights as well. least bit interested in the Traditions. They wanted “drunk stories” in meet- The discussion on Tradition Four in the “Twelve and Twelve” contains ings. But I recall that when a member with ‘several vears’ sobrietv moved to Portland, someone asked this new man to chair a meeting. – Our keetinm my all-time favorite story -the one where a gung-ho enthusiastic group, despite a lot of warnings to the contrary, planned a magnificent organization were small and often repetitious, and new speakers were always welcome. for the total care of the wet drunk coming in. They set up a detox, club- However, instead of following the meeting format we were all used to, he house, and services for education and loans. To make this thing run, they opened the meeting in the way he was accustomed to from his old home needed lots of dollars, and of course, lots of rules -sixty-one of them in fact. group. Most members went along with this, but at the coffee break several But it didn’t take long before the whole thing came crashing down. Out of members came up to me very irate. These irate members informed me that the rubble they came up with one more rule – the now-famous Rule #62 this change in meeting format was a violation of the Traditions. And further- which simply says, “Don’t take yourself too damned seriously.” more, what was I going to do about it? I use Rule #62 a lot, and occasionally I get a gentle reminder that maybe I I had to reason with them that the Traditions were more far-reaching than should be using it more. When I was first elected Saskatchewan area delematters such as meeting formats. Individual group meetings could vary to gate, it seems I had the weight of the entire AA world squarely on my shoulmost tolerable degrees, so long as the group itself would allow the change. ders. 1 made the mistake of telling my wife Julie how all this heavy responsi- Typically, this group like many others didn’t want anything to do with the bility was resting on me. I was heading straight for one of those “poor me”

The VIew from Here

routines when she said, “Oh good!” -big smile on her face. “Damned little all the great Twelfth Step work they were going to do, and every year they to laugh about,” I thought to myself, but I asked her anyway what she meant would end up with a “pot of gold” and lots of Twelfth Step work not done. by this “Oh good.” She said, “Nothing really. But I just always wondered Our GSR, however, suggested that our group should consider joining with what it would be like to sleep with God.” the other groups of the area in supporting the assembly for two reasons. First, As long as I can laugh at my mistakes, I’ll probably be okay. the area’s current trend of spending would deplete excess funds in a short pe- Ahy~oas riod of time. Second, our group’s lack of participation, not so much monetary but mostly spiritual, would negatively affect other groups and even AA as a whole. We realized that our policy of minimal participation was in fact “taking our ball and going home” because we didn’t like the way things were going. Our group decided to join and participate fully in the area’s p u p conscience. Though we had the right to be autonomous, our behavior would withdraw financial and spiritual support from other groups and AA as a whole. I 6-4

We’re Taking Our Ball and Leaving’ Fm &he, ~WIU;;

For several years now, my home group has had many loving discussions during its business meetings on whether our group should support our local area assembly. In my group’s opinion, the area assembly tended to accumulate enormous sums of excess money for no stated AA purpose, and the group viewed this as accumulating unnecessary wealth, power, and prestige -and with verv little Twelfth S t e ~ — work done. We’d decided that we wanted to in the area’s ~wklfthStep work but didn’t waAt to contribute to During my drinking career, I didn’t really consider other people as important the assembly’s already overflowing coffers. So our group decided to send a in my life, although I sometimes pretended I did when I thought it might get monthly contribution of $1.00 with a handwritten note, lovingly expound- me what I wanted. I figured I was an adult and could do what I pleased. And ing on the spiritual benefits of corporate poverty. I thought my actions didn’t hurt anyone but myself. I was wrong but I didn’t Recentlv our GSR returned from an assemblv to announce that the assem- – . realize it until after working the Steps of AA. bly had unanimously approved another annual budget. It was again a deficit In the process of working the Steps, I discovered that my actions had had budget which projected using up all the excess reserves that had accumulat- profound and far-reaching effects on the people in my life. My parents had ed. The assembly was now in need of financial support. It sounded like the been deprived of the comfort of a loving son. My daughter had been cheated same old pitch. Every year the assembly would produce a budget projecting of the affections of a loving father. My employershadn’t been given the full

The VIow from Here

value of the money they paid for the job I performed. In essence, every person amongst themselves. No consensus was reached about doing this, and the I’d encountered had been affected by my actions and my disease in the same landlord remained unpaid. way that a pebble dropped into a still pond sends ripples all the way to the So, that’s one case where a single group, in an expression of group will run shore. All had been affected by the actions of a single person. riot, had the power to affect all the nearby groups and pentially the groups Now consider a single AA group. In Tradition Four it’s recognized that in the entire state if the landlord had followed up on his threat to publicize every AA group has the right to govern itself in any way it deems fit. Every the event in the media. He also could have filed criminal charges or civil AA group has the ultimate right to be wrong. The ”Twelve and Twelve” suit. . – –

carefully explains the benefit of allowing this8seeming anarchy – if a group But worse than the actual event and its immediate conseauences are the goes too far wrong, it will dissolve and maybe a few individuals may get rippling effects on the AAs who were involved in the event. Now hundreds drunk. If in experimentation an AA group discovers a new way to do things of AA members who went to the event believe that it’s okav for an individthat has a wider benefit, other groups will be quick to copy its methods and ual to organize an AA event and thev don’t need to ask, “$/here’s the v

thus benefit also. money going!” When they are next involved in a group conscience discus- But let’s consider the real case of a group which decided to sponsor a sober sion about such an event, they’ll remember their own experience and say, function. The group held a group conscience meeting and voted to sponsor “It’s okay -we did that x years ago in ABC group.” the function and invite other groups and individual members to participate. Just as I have to set right the mistakes I make, so too the group needs to set It elected as chairperson an individual who had the necessary connections to right the mistakes the group makes. In our home group, we took an inventory get the job done -but didn’t have much experience with the Traditions. He to see what our part had been in this debacle. We finally came to the concluarranged the function and put out flyers at local meetings. Other groups saw sion that, in the future, we would not accept just any flyer that someone nothing wrong with the idea as the function seemed sponsored by an AA brought in to be announced. Before making an announcement about any group. And so announcements were made. seeming AA function, we’d find out who was sponsoring it and where the The function came off very well with high attendance, but the group ser- money was going. If the whole thing seemed legitimate, then, by group convant in charge failed to pay the substantial sum it cost to rent the location. science, we’d allow it to be announced. Suddenly the ripples of that action started to move out beyond AA and into Obviously, events sponsored by our intergroup, district, or area were the general community. The landlord was at first patient and attempted to exempted from this requirement since our GSR and intergroup rep kept us recover his costs by contacting the central office and some trusted AA ser- well informed on the activities of those entities. vants. But he soon realized he’d been ripped off, and justifiably angry, he Tradition Four says that we are autonomous except in matters affecting threatened to write letters to the local paper and announce to the community other groups or AA as a whole. In my view, anything a group does that goes how unreliable and dishonest AAs were. outside its own parameters affects other groups or AA as a whole. And if a Now all the groups in the local area were in sudden jeopardy of losing the group votes to do something inside the group that is outside our Traditions, it good reputation they had spent years building. The members of the sponsor- affectsother groups or AA as a whole because those group members and vising group, with its own impoverished treasury, decided it was the responsibili- iting AA members will think “it’s AA so it has to be okay” and carry that ty of the chairperson to pay the owner. The matter was brought to the district experience to other groups. and the district voted that it was the responsibility of the sponsoring group. Finally, it is each individual’s responsibility to be fully informed on the Finally the area discussed the issue and determined it was an unfortunate principles expressed in the Traditions and to understand the way these prinoccurrence, but had to be resolved locally. Our regional trustee was consulted ciples apply to an issue before the group. In this way, group conscience has and he suggested that a few AA members dig deep into their pockets to pay the best chance to really be an expression of God’s will and not just misin-! off the landlord and end the threat to AA as a whole, then resolve the issue formed group opinion. Daor;/E:

The Fourth Tradition is perhaps the major attraction of our Fellowship. Where would we be if, say, there were nothing but closed meetings from eight to nine every night and never open speakers meetings, or “pot luck” Sundays, or “birthday” nights, or beginners meetings, or study and discussion meetings?We have the capability of growing and having more AA activities, as long as we don’t step over any other group or affiliate with any outside organization. We are gifted in this Fellowship with many talented members and our desire to grow and organize all kinds of wonderful AA activities is limitless. So it is not uncommon that we overstep our boundaries once in a while. But sooner or later we realize our mistakes and get back on track, licking our wounds and wondering where we went wrong. We are indeed fortunate to have elder statesmen who can point out our wrongs and those “meddling” DCMs who will jump at the chance of lending a helping hand or maybe a sponsor who will share some experiences. Whatever the case, we find that as a group, we follow our group conscience and if we are wrong, we realize that we have the right to be wrong (as long as we don’t make it a habit!). Here we come to a point in which we can take a group inventory -just as in a Fourth Step. A n active group guided by the principles of sharing, participating, and rotating, of periodically looking into the mirror and contributing its share, is a healthy group, a group that can best fulfill its commitment to keep its doors open.

May 1996 *- C

higher in principles than my own, but I swer: “That group orchestrated everysomehow wondered why the mere thing from meetings that lasted 60.3 mention of that group left me with an minutes to a structure of organization unanswered void. Then I left the area. that made everything robotic. They I heard they were doing great things operated on human power and made and shouting great tidings. I tried my everything too damn perfect. They sober best to leave it alone. lacked humility.” A year or so ago, I heard through the Sad to say, the old-timer was right. I Rigrdrty overtook a successfulgroup and brought it to its knees grapevine – . that the group had fallen knew the truth was not so much ih the apart. I had mixed feklings, and fact that Traditions were broken, but thought about the many friends I had more in the,overall spirit of what AA

W hen I was first sober, em- togethers in several states and a couple made there. I knew they would find was set up to be, drunks helping other bracing the Twelve Tradi- of Canadian provinces. “Circuit” their own way with renewed hope and drunks get sober. What it proved was tions was no more speakers came and went in the joyous find another group. I also got the an- not that the Traditions don’t work, but complicated than listening to them celebration of sobriety. It seemed that swer why, after ten years and tremen- that they do, spiritually tuned by what being read after each meeting. by the sheer determination of unstop- dous activity, this group had ceased to all of us are trying to become: better, Through those early phases of desper- pable forces, this gtoup would sweep function. It was an old-timer familiar weller, but less than perfect. ate fog, it certainly seemed to me that the world by its dedication and enthu- with the situation who gave me the an- J .V., Mankato, Minn. this newfound heaven called sobriety siasm. I was as caught up as anyone could never be in danger of collapse else, even though I had never become either from outside assault or internal an actual “card-carrying member” by confusion. What was already,in place joining the group. was already deeply rooted. Rather And now I take a pause. That’s the riaive. But after all, I was sober about pause when something isn’t totally five years at the time, my home group wrong but just isn’t quite right. That’s was doing well, and a group I attended the momentary space where Bill W.

I on a regular basis was blossoming by incredible leaps. That particular group, a second must have listened acutely to the loving advice of others and humbly passed over’the offer of his picture on Time meeting for me, seemed to be doing magazine. Somewhere between my everything according to the highest fifth and sixth years of sobriety, I began spiritual principles. Core membership to feel that pause when it came to the was around sixty men and women. activities of the group I had put above From its inception of two members, all other groups, including my own. regular attendance ~ e a k e dat around Privately I poured through the Tradi- ‘ 150 on its seventh anniversary. Partic- tions and the Twelve Concepts for ipation at every local, district, area, and World Service. I questioned my own region were represented. This group motives, wondering if I was becoming was the talk of AA roundups and get- judgmental. I found the group much ,

May 1996 –

The from !NHere: The View from Here

Remember the Struggle RidYp, P ~ ~ s ~ ~ a : F~M I left one home group for another; I’m not sure why. My first excuse was because it was too big. Next it was because the discussions were more appro- Tradition $be: Each group has but one prima y purpose – priate for a sponsor’s ears. Was it the language?Then it was because I felt I to carry its message to the alcoholic who still su.ers. should be listening more and talking less. The new group was started in 1980 by five comparative newcomers, none of whom had two years (except one who stayed sober for a while before corning to the program because of a broken jaw and difficulty in eating and drinking – through a straw!). The newcomers.were aided by two older-in- Of Maximum Service sobriety members who set the stage by making the prearrangements with the *F S~~(ckccum: church pastor. One of the longtimers felt the existing local meetings were too big. Tradition Five talks about our primary purpose. But the Big Book tells us The new group met on the same night as a much older and more wellat Step Nine that “our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum grounded group. In a short time, the new group not only grew, it thrived. Its service to God and the people about us.” I think I can safely assume that my need was obvious. Its members were eager to learn and dedicated to AA primary purpose in life is to be of service to God and my fellow human principles. Its purpose was carrying the AA message. It had its own identity ‘ beings. – its own personality. When I was delegate, one of the trustees who was rotating off the General Before long, a simultaneous discussion session was added to its already- Service Board talked about this in his farewell talk. He said that one of the established speaker meeting. Eventually the new group became popular with greatest gifts God can give anyone is to be of use to someone else. That really the influx of young people being sent to Alcoholic. Anonymous in the midhad an impact on me, and I know it’s true for me now. When do I feel like eighties. This rankled some of the existing group members who decided to go the whole world is right and I fit into it just perfectly?With me it comes elsewhere for their AA. The young people stayed and took responsibility for when I act on a hunch that I should call someone or go see someone, and it the group. They came early to set up (but sometimes not early enough), turns out to be just what the doctor ordered. It feels just great. And if I can made the coffee (which many didn’t drink), greeted at the door (in their shut up about it afterwards, it lasts so much longer. own inimitable ways). Those who stayed sober for a reasonable amount of A ~ u ~ time ~served as ~group officers. With graduation, college, and job searches, the young AA servants disap-

Tho View from Hero

peared -some to other groups in other parts aid some to do more research. The remnants of the group consisted of three consistent members who recognized their own limitations. Attendance was down and there was no way they could maintain two simultaneous meetings. Since the informal discussion in the kitchen had its regulars, the group conscience of three decided to change the meeting format to a closed group discussion for a six-month trial period; they were realistically resigned to closing the doors if the meeting didn’t pick up. Then a few interesting things happened. Eight people showed up for the first meeting under the closed discussion format. In a month’s time that number doubled. Then a newcomer showed up for his first AA meeting. Hungry for new members to sustain itself, the group took this newcomer under their wing and nurtured him. They met him at the church and showed him how to A Consistent Message set up the meeting, then how to make the coffee, and encouraged him to stay bas,igdoG /I;Iv&d: sober for six months so he could chair the meeting – they sponsored him into group service. I joined Alcoholics Anonymous after spending nine months drinking, going Group membership increased during the next several months; it grew in to Al-Anon, and hanging around AA. I went to a psychiatric hospital that number and in sobriety age. There were now two simultaneous closed discus- specialized in alcoholism and drug addiction, and that’s where I found local sions. The newcomer had about eight months’ sobriety and was very active AA meetings and began my participation in the program. When I left the in the group, when another newcomer came along. The group adopted him, hospital, I found myself living on my own (for the first time in my life), not too, carried the AA message, and showed him how to set up, make coffee, drinking and going to meetings. This period was traumatic and tumultuous. I

and encouraged him to stay sober so he could take a turn at chairing one of My marriage dissolved in a long and violent divorce. By my third anniversary the two discussions. I was active in service and settled down to the joys and challenges of every- And the growth continued. One of the members suggested a Big Book day life. Since then, as I’ve grown in the program, I’vC remarried, had another Study, and another suggested a “Twelve and Twelve” discussion in the child, participated in the graduations and marriages of my older children, and kitchen. By now, there were enough members to fill the meetings. Parking continue to trudge the road of happy destiny. became a problem. The landlord established a non-smoking policy, but My job requires me to travel around the United States; and in every city attendance still soared. I’ve visited, I’ve been able to find an AA meeting. Whether at home or on It was like that when I left it, but I like to remember the group as it was in the road, AA’s message has always been there for me: how to not drink one the beginning when we were learning about AA’s principles and in the days day at a time, how to practice the principles in all of my affairs, and how to when we had only three members fighting for survival and knocking our- be happily and usefully whole. The consistency of the message is due to our selves out to carry the AA message. Fifth Tradition: “Each group has but one primary purpose -to carry iis ma- Groups change, just like people do, and we AAs fight change. Although sage to the alcoholic who still suffers.” we can never go back to the way it once was, we will survive -yea, even Having one primary purpose allows each group to focus all its energies on thrive -as long as we remember Tradition Five, “Each Alcoholics carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. The group is therefore Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose not distracted by other things. Other Traditions support this singleness of -that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.” purpose. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, so Lo12C. a group doesn’t have to worry about who its members are. Each group is autonomous; so it has the freedom to focus its energy on the needs of its

– – –

The View from Here

members. A group doesn’t endorse, finance or lend the AA name to outside Let us never forget the precious gift that we were given. AA is unique enterprises so it can’t get involved with other pursuits. Each group is self-sup- because we have one primary purpose. Let us not dilute this purpose in our porting through its own contributions so it is accountable and responsible group meetings or activities, at group, district, or area levels. Though our prosolely to its membership. Groups have no opinion on outside issues, so the gram has the answer to the affliction of alcoholism, through our Twelve only subject available is the message of recovery contained in the Big Book. Steps and Twelve Traditions, AA cannot help nonalcoholics. This world is This singleness of purpose allows each group to stay in touch with its mem- full of afflictions and wrongs, and there are other programs for other problems. bers, their needs and the Fellowship as a whole. , RaIIe/cj! Over the years I’ve gone to different types of groups to meet different needs in my life or to share experience, strength, and hope about a particular problem I was struggling with. Some days I’ve been part of the solution for another suffering alcoholic; other days I’ve been the one who was suffering. Thanks to our Fifth Tradition, no matter what my needs or my location I can find an Mgroup where I can talk about -and listen to -not drinkin$ one day at a time, practicing the principles in all of my affairs, and being happily and usefully whole. The Third Tradition makes me Dart of the erouo and the Fifth Tradition frees us all to carry the message. A Regular Reminder hu.u fiiot, /twd hhta.:

I remember the first time I chaired a closed meeting. During the sharing, an uneasiness developed in the room. One member expressed his disapproval of his daughter’s pierced ears, and another member got all upset over some gun control. Thank God for another member who knew we had strayed from our primary purpose -sharing our recovery from drinking on a daily basis. Many may think the Fifth Tradition is directed to a suffering nonmember, but I consider it a message I need on a regular basis. /t&& A Program for Alcoholics , fmS er Aadira14 iw: T o carry its message to the alcoholic who is suffering is our one purpose in this Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. For no other reason are we here, as this Fifth Tradition tells us. And we sober ones are also in the process of recovering and may come across many fears and pains; so we too need the group to stay sober; we cannot do it alone. So this is a program for alcoholics, active or sober. Our sole purpose is to pass it on, so we may live and help others to find their lives.

M Spotlight O n Service

Spotlight message must be how to preserve this what had worked and what had not. precious gift so that those yet to come Often when I would go to my service On Service will have the same chance at recovery sponsors, they listened, then said, “Let’s ‘ and life we had. see what the manual says” or “How From the beginning of AA, the con. does that idea fit the Concepts!” cept of sponsorship has been one of our A “loving invitation” always seems most important means of passing on to work with me. So perhaps one of the experience. My early sponsors lovingly best ways for us to continue to benefit showed me simple and direct steps I from our rotated servants would be to could take that would produce very request that they put on a workshop at specific results. They demonstrated an assembly or be on a panel with oththese results in their lives in such a way ers who share their experience. I once that I wanted what they had. I followed heard that the condition of “bleeding their suggestions and got the same re- deaconism” was caused by service pea- The Spirit of sults. 1 began to recover and walk the spiritual path as they did. How nice it was to have someone who had been ple who got out of service. I don’t need a title, but I do need to be involved. I love the action of service. I love service over the path before to show me the people. I would be less if I couldn’t parrough spots and to explain the new ticipate. If this is so for me, then perthings that were happening to me. haps it is so for others. I need to ask When the time came, my sponsors them to continue to be part of my sershared with meiabout serving the Fel- vice life so that their precious learning those who have rotated?

0 ne of the most valuable resources of any organization is the experience of those who have gone before. The sharing of what they’ve done right, and the sharing of My understanding of rotation has led me from one service job to another. I don’t believe rotation means “I quit.” I don’t think rotation means “I’ve done 4 lowship. I was to do for the new people what had been done for me. I was to make my time and my experience available. is not lost. When I’m allowed to help plan a function, I try always to give out those “loving invitations.” I need, and have, service sponsors. I call on the One of the things 1 like best about phone or stop by and visit. 1 don’t althe mistakes they’ve made, become a my time, now it’s someone else’s turn.” spiritual people is that they are seldom ways agree with my sponsors, but I alsolid foundation for continued healthy I do believe rotation means that “I rude. They don’t often demand their ways listen. But there will be nothing growth. Because of the wise and spiri- have made my contribution in this ca- . own way, nor do they seem to be to listen to if I don’t ask. tual principle of rotation, we in Alco- pacity. Where can I be of use next?” driven by a need to be right all the As is usually the case, the answer to holics Anonymous are blessed with a I feel a deep need to pass the mes- time. They do seem to be around and most of my questions is in the question constantly vital and always growing sage on. I have an obligation to the available, but usually wait to be asked. itself. “How can we continue to benepool of people whose primary aim is to new person to pass on the message of As I’ve gone from service assignment fit from the experience of those who serve the AA Fellowship. They are recovery, but my obligation goes be- to service assignment, I’ve found that have rotated?” The best way I can willing to share both success and fail- yond today. It extends to those who those who preceded me were always think of to benefit from their experiure in order to preserve what we have will come through the doors of Alco- willing to share with me, but they also ence is to be certain that they are a been given. How then can we contin- holics Anonymous fifty years from now, allowed me to make my own mistakes. part of mine. ue to benefit from the experience of when I am dead and gone. Part of our They told me what they had done, Don P., Aurora, cob I.

June 1996

The V lew from H

underwater team. O n the positive side, though, one member who thought it was all right to leave the AA name on the flyers started coming to our

Here: Traditions meeting and over time began to see things quite differently. hfil?

?’ra.dition Six: &n& group ought never endorse,jnance, or lend the& name to any relatedfacility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert usji-om our prima y purpose. Warning Labels Fm S~SI&OLM: Tradition Six says we ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to Sinking Our Good Name any related facility or outside enterprise; lest problems of money, property, FHM f i t hua:: and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. I have to remember that my own personal stand, especially on some controversial issue on a public level, A few years ago an Alano Club in this area hosted a “Las Vegas” night with will almost certainly be reflected on my family. Kids at school, for example, the intention of sending the proceeds to an underwater rescue team for are often picked on because of the opinions held by their parents. equipment. Flyers were distributed and posted in public places. It was found The other important thing about this Tradition is the last part: “lest probthat where it was printed “hosted by,” the name Alcoholics Anonymous was lems of money, property, and prestige . . .” If I go overboard into the accumuin the place where the club’s name should be. Seems that the flyers were lation of any one of these, I am headed for the rhubarb. I’ve caught myself ordered over the phone and the person taking the order asked what kind of a (more often than I care to admit) sitting in an AA meeting totally absorbed club this was and the answer was “AA.” in navel-gazing -wondering how come I can feel so absolutely rotten when There were many people taking the flyers down or blacking out the AA I’m doing all these really great and wonderful things for AA. The answer name, but the damage was done. The idea that our central ofice and district inevitably comes back for me to look at my motives. And that usually means had made money from this event was all over the area. In my contact with that prestige and pride have crept back in again, and that I need to do some the club members 1 mentioned that a newcomer might get the idea that to be fine tuning in my connection with my Higher Power. a member of AA he or she would have to be a gambler, card player, or on the AIOI~OEGP

The View from Here

Simplicity Works Best A&II~,im: S~T JHM It is little wonder that Tradition Six follows Tradition Five. Yes, an AA group with its primary purpose ought never endorse, finance, or lend its name to any outside entity because money, power, and prestige would obscure our purpose. Experience taught us to stay away from all those outside interests. We learned that although we can borrow from religion, medicine, and psychiatry, we are not any one of them. We cannot run hospitals nor half-way houses, nor marry the group with a religious sect. We cannot send lobbyists to Congress and we don’t mix AA with banking enterprises. We aren’t educators nor counselors. We cannot lend our name to any other cause except our own. The more we mind our own business, the greater our influence becomes; medicine, religion, and psychiatry start borrowing from our experience and ideas. So do the fields of educati~n,research, and rehabilitation. All kinds of groups based on AA’s Twelve Steps have evolved, groups that deal with gambling, eating, drug addiction, mental illness, divorce, etc. They’ve borrowed from the AA program and made their own adaptations. We didn’t have to endorse them or lend our name. tells us strongly that the more AA sticks to its primary purpose, the greater will be its helpful influence. Early lessons of money and power have taught us that AA can work best if we have no bosses, and if there are not great amounts of money to deal with, if money is kept to the minimum, to pay our expenses and keep a prudent reserve. We’ve come a long way, and shall continue to grow if we don’t seek power, prestige, or wealth so that we may keep our minds focused on a single purpose. R&t/cl:

July 1996 .-

~hc vpq from ,@I Here: I The View from Here

needed as the donation of the rich guy or gal. If a group began to accept money from nonalcoholics in the form of bake sales or dances (for there’d be no way to check the “membership” of those who bought tickets or goods), the group and its members might never learn the discipline of being self-supporting. At one time when I was a new member and living in a small town, I was without much knowledge of Traditions or why AA even had them. The town had a fine AA group with ten or eleven regular members. We rented an old house from one of the member’s father. At first, the father wanted to let us use the house rent-free because he was grateful his son had gotten sober through AA. But the old-timers told him that as an AA group we insisted on being self-supportingand we could either pay rent or not use the house for AA meetings. He was amazed and said something like, “I had trouble collecting rent on this house for years, and now that I want to give it away, you Tradition Seven: Evey&group ought to befully self-sup- all insist on paying. No wonder your outfit works!” As time went along, some members moved away, some died and some porting, declining outside contributions. went back out drinking. The group was down to just three or four of us, and the expenses were hard to meet. We had a group conscience meeting and a couple of us said we should close shop and go to the next town’s meetings. Money Problems? Then my first sponsor spoke up. He said he was going to be there every Fn* bh%hnra &$y, ~ ? ? & M P : Tuesday and Thursday with the coffeepot going and the Big Book open, because he was sure there were drunks in this town and he wanted them to I got a call the other day from a fellow member of AA. He was concerned find AA right here. He went on to say that AA doesn’t have money prob- , about what his group had just voted to do. It’s a new group and the members lems; it was just that our group hasn’t learned the principle of the Seventh are all fairly new to Alcoholics Anonymous. A few months ago, they rented Tradition. He asked that we look at our expenses and come up with the right a building to hold their meetings in, and it seems that now they’re having solution. I

trouble meeting expenses. They had a group conscience meeting and voted The group stayed together. Sure, there were a couple of months when to hold AA dances and AA bake sales to help their finances. members had to throw an extra five bucks in the pot. But soon the drunks My friend was the only nay vote in the group. He had a feeling that maybe showed up and we grew, just as my sponsor predicted. Today the AA group they’d be breaking an AA Tradition, so he gave me a call, asking what he has fourteen or more meetings each week and they are still engaged in the should do. I told him first that each AA group is’autonomous,with the right spirit of self-support. Another reason we alcoholics need to be self-supporting to be wrong. I also told him that there is no such thing as an AA dance or an is that we need to give back what was so freely given to us -to become AA bake sale. Clubhouses may have these activities to raise money because responsible and to feel a part of Alcoholics Anonymous. they are separate entities from all AA groups that meet there. But AA The next experience I related to my caller had to do with giving back. groups need to be self-supporting for several reasons. After I was discharged from the Army, 1 went on the bum in Chicago. I The first and probably the best reason is that each member of a group drank up my pay and sold my military clothes and boots to keep drinking. I needs to be responsible,and to know that he or she is just as important to AA panhandled or stole what I could to keep drinking. as anyone else, with or without money. Their dollar or two is just as much One day I wandered into the city rescue mission looking for a way to go

The Vimw from Hmrm

home. There was a man sitting at the table. He had a Bible in front of him “no” to an outside gift which, on the surface of it, looked to be just the thing and a small wicker basket with a dollar in it. He asked me if he could help needed if we were to grow and spread the message to other potential memme. I told him 1 was tired, I was hungry, and I wanted to go home. He said, bers. I recall vividly the difficulty our group had when, in 1951, we were faced “Sit down and I’ll pray for you.” He started to read out of that book, and I with the offer of a beautiful old house where meetings could be held at no took the dollar and hit the front door. cost to our members. It was just enough to call home and get a fifty-cent bed and shower for the The group had its beginning in the living room of my home with two memnight. I called my mother, and in her wisdom, she sent me a train ticket bers -my sponsor and I. He told me that all we needed to have a group was rather than money. I got home! So when I sit in an AA meeting and see that two people and God. We were both married, and our wives met in the wicker basket going around, I make sure I put my dollar or two in, in order kitchen. At the first meeting we discussed how living the AA way of life that some other drunk can find his way home – home to Alcoholics would eventually bring balance into the work, play, love, and spiritual aspects Anonymous. of our one-day-at-a-time existence. Our topic came from a small pamphlet pro- To summarize: I need to remember that AA doesn’t have any money prob- duced by Akron AA. During the business part of that first meeting, we decided lems; I just need to learn and practice the spirit of being self-supporting. I to send five dollars to what we called the “headquarters in New York City.” need to remember that the AA Traditions are for AA members and are to be After finally getting our third member, the group grew rapidly, and soon applied not only to my group, but in my personal life as well. the living room was very crowded. Questions about where we could find a And I’d be remiss not to add a P.S.: with today’s inflation, two dollars in place for meetings and how we’d be able to pay the rent came up for discusthe hat eoiU mix with spirituality, too. sion every week. Then suddenly, in what many of us believed to be an answer qw6 8. to prayer, we received an offer that would solve this problem and allow us to expand, for the benefit of us and the many new members we expected in the not too distant future. AA was new to the area, and local newspapers had’announced that an AA group was now in existence and gave a PO box number where information about the meeting place would be available. Unknown to us, one man had been watching our beginnings with great interest. He was a wealthy man, an alcoholic who no longer had the problem. In the early 1930s, he had been committed to one of our state hospitals. While sitting on his cot in the alcoholic ward of that hospital, he had a spiritual experience very similar to the one Roland H. had in 1934. (Roland was told by the psychiatrist Jung that his only hope lay in having a total psychic change usually experienced from contact with a religious or spiritual group.) Our local man left that state hospital An Offer We Could Refuse free from the desire to drink. Although not a member of our group, he asked hoar St. C&d ltf~iw&: to meet with us. At that meeting, he expressed his admiration for what we were doing and offered us the ownership of a house for our meetings. Many “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” This saying was often used by Bill members said, “How can we refuse such an offer?” Following our Seventh and others when explaining the Seventh Tradition, and most members Tradition seemed the wrong way to go. After a lot of argument, one member understood that it would allow members of group, guided by God as suggested that wc write to our “headquarters in New York” for the answer. expressed in a group conscience, to hold fast to our sole purpose. It was a dif- The reply we received began with the words many groups are familiar with: ferent story, however, when small groups were actually faced with saying “It has been our experience. . . not to accept outside contributions.”

The View from Here

Our group followed that suggested advice and almost immediately was The “community chest” was perplexed when its check was returned from offered a very desirable meeting place at a low monthly rent. It is a healthy the AA group and didn’t want to return the monies to the donors. But what entity today, forty-four years after that decision was made. could it do with the contributions to Alcoholics Anonymous?It decided to A&f send the check to the AA area ofice, thinking that the money could benefit AA in the whole area. The letter 1wrote returning the money was carefully drafted. I wrote that we appreciated the generous gift sponsored for Alcoholics Anonymous, hut it was impossible for AA at any level to receive outside contributions. Since this event, the AA Traditions have been a larger part of district and area workshops. The opportunity we have to carry the message of recovery from alcoholism is made possible by the Twelve Traditions. As long as AA Return to Sender unites in maintaining our Traditions and supporting them throughout the Fellowship, we’ll continue to provide a clear, single purpose message of recov- Fm flRwo,4&1a: ery to those afflicted with the disease of alcoholism. Dcctrt Several years ago, while I was serving as area chairman of Oklahoma (Area 57), the secretary of our area received a donation for a rather large amount from a “community chest” in the southern part of Oklahoma. Understandably, our area committee could have put this contribution to good use immediately, though we had no choice but to return the donation. The spirit of self-support prevents Alcoholics Anonymous from benefiting from any of these charity drives. Soon after returning the charitable donation, we made inquiry with the various AA groups in the district to find out where the donation was received. It was determined how Alcoholics Anonymous was included in the Engendering Respect drive for public contributions. It turned out that an inexperienced secretary 60.u$6 Cat.,ics,0 46: of a new group was having coffee with a non-AA friend who was on a local charity drive committee. The secretary casually mentioned that her AA When the first AA group was established in our area in the spring of 1947, group was having difficulty paying rent and buying literature. The nonalco- the newly sober alkies felt strongly the need for funding. Approaches were holic friend suggested that the AA group was doing good work in the com- made to various outside agencies, including the local city council, for money munity, and if it had problems paying its rent and buying literature, it should contributions. Soon thereafter, the group treasury swelled to several hundreds be included in the approved list of recognized charities in the fund drive. The of dollars, an amount unheard of in those davs. charities were listed in alphabetical order in the funding drive material, so Sometime later, longer established groups visiting the local group discov- , AA was first on the list. Many contributions to the fund were made by a spe- cred the situation and quickly explained that all the donors would have to be cial directive to Alcoholics Anonymous. reimbursed. Considerable heated tliscussion and arguments ensued, but all the Within a few weeks, the group secretary received a check and presented it money was reluctantly returned to the donors. Also, anexplanation had to be to her group. There was an immediate uproar and a group conscience vote given. This was such a refreshing turn of cvcnts in thc annals of all the out- ‘ I was taken. A few of the more experienced group members explained why the side contributors that a consiclerahlc amount of respect was engendered. group could not keep the contribution. Raepki:

August 1996

t The View from Hare

professionalism.” Unfortunately, that’s precisely what seems to have happened.

Here: In July 1950, Dr. Bob, speaking of AA’s beginning and growth up to that date, said, “Let’s not louse it all up with Freudian complexes and things that are interesting to the scientific mind but have little to do with our actual AA work.” Like Vincent Dole, Bob had an uncannily accurate view of our future. I Early in AA’s existence, Bill W. was offered a job at Towns Hospital as a paid therapist. Every one of those early AAs said, “Bill, you can’t do this to us.” Bill would have brought a flood of new business and made money for Towns Hospital and for himself, but what do you thi’nk would have happened to our Fellowship if Bill hadn’t remained an amateur?With a sharplyfocused vision of the real roots of our recovery process, those early members .. Iradltton &ight~lcoholics~nonymous should remain saw the perils. It seems that the farther we go in time from the experience of our founders, the farther we get from what they actually did. In large part that’s forever nonpmfessional, but our service centers may what’s happened in AA. We have endless books and booklets explaining the employ special workers. Big Book and the Steps. We have workshops on something called “relapse prevention” which overlook the obvious fact that if we work and rework the ‘ Twelve Steps, we’ll stay sober and enjoy mental and emotional health. Unquestionably, some alcoholics need medication hut most of them with Amateurs Anonymous depression, anxiety, apathy, and fear suffer from untreated alcoholism a – F&r R*&, /&cyok: result of insufficient continuing work with the Twelve Steps. The AA message is not the joy of therapy or the gospel according to Prozac, but a “spiritual The first two lines of the long form of Tradition Eight staie that “Alcoholics awakening as the result of these Steps.” The foreword to the ‘Twelve and Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional. We define professional- Twelve” says: “AA’s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their ism as the occupation of counseling alcoholics for fees or hire.” Several lines nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink further we read: “But our usual AA Twelfth Siep work is never to be paid and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.” for!’ In my experience that’s totally correct. These may be the most thoroughly ignored words in all of our Twelve Tra- In the spring of 1948,I heard Paul S. talk in Chicago. He was one of the ditions. early Akron AAs and I was sober less than a year at the time. Over and over The AA message is a message from one amateur to another amateur. AA in his talk he said, “AA is of itself sufficient.” If the quality of my life isn’t didn’t begin as one of many ways to help alcoholics. It began because there what it should be, the best place for me to go for counseling or therapy is to was nothing else that worked for alcoholics. That’s still the case. the Big Book or to an AA member who has done enough continuing work Who could possibly misunderstand those words in Tradition Eight?Just with the Twelve Steps to understand that “how it works” means precisely about everyone, apparently. When Dr. Vincent Dole retired as Class A (non- what it says. alcoholic) trustee some years ago, he said, “My greatest concern for the future Some years ago I was talking with Dr. Leonard Borman, a research associof AA is that the principle of personal service might be eroded by money and ate at Northwestern University’s Center for Urban Affairs and the director

of the Center’s Self-Help Institute. Borman, who’d spent years studyingthe talk to tomorrow.” And the other was, “When you pay a therapist, you’re development of the self-help movement, told me, “Two principles stand out ‘ buying a friend.” in AA and the self-help movement. One is that a person who has recovered The AA message is free. We don’t buy it and we don’t sell it because monfrom a problem can be far more helpful than a professional using only theo- ey corrupts the message. We give it away in gratitude for our own recovery. retical knowledge. The second is that when an individual helps another That’s the forgotten meaning of Tradition Eight. without charge, they both benefit.” We work with alcoholics for nothing because it’s our privilege to help an- ‘ The Twelve Steps provide a precise formula for sobriety and a road to other breathe deeply in the life of the spirit and enjoy the vigorous healing mental, emotional, and spiritual health. They give directions for lives of ex- generated by our program’s principles. It doesn’t work for money. panded joy and usefulness. They also point up the need for continuing work P&e/t% in the Steps for my own recovery and continuing work with other alcoholics to pass on what I’ve been given at no charge. If we work with another alcoholic a spiritual transaction takes place, and we both benefit. If, on the other hand, we’re paid for this, it becomes a monetary transaction and the spiritual component is destroyed. In the past twenty-five years, the treatment of alcoholics has become an immensely profitable industry. In a remarkable coincidence, the optimum length of treatment invariably equaled the number of days covered by insurance. The term “greed” doesn’t begin to describe what happened. Greed creates ignorance and it created monumental ignorance in the field of alcoholism treatment on what really helps alcoholics. The problem became obvious. If all that hospitals offered the alcoholic was the AA program, it , would be difficult to charge large fees for their services. Inevitably the programs were larded with whatever therapy was popular at the moment. Meanwhile, many individuals and institutions wanted to cash in on these suddenly gold-plated drunks. Countless AAs went to work in the treatment business and began twelfth-stepping for money. Not surprisingly, AA has Who’s in Charge? been increasingly infected by the professional virus. All of this is destined to befuddle a new person on what really works for alcoholics: the Twelve Steps FranBho&, Nw YwLE. as a continuing way of life. , In our eagerness to be friendly with our friends we’ve been busily trading It’s not surprising that my first insight into our Eighth Tradition was wide of our spiritual birthright for a mess of psychiatric pottage. By profession Dr. the intended meaning of that Tradition. While it’s true that during twenty Bob was a physician, but he helped alcoholics as an amateur. By profession years of active alcoholism I functioned in the real world of the arts and of Bill W. was a stockbroker, who helped alcoholics as an amateur. In the mid- making a living, it’s also true that 1 never had any conscious understanding of 1960s I spent three years as a member of a board of directors charged with the principle of unity in my transactions with other folks. In dealing with dispensing two grants from the Eli Lilly foundation. One of the members was people I knew how to hustle for instant gratification or a buck, and I tried to Dr. William Glasser, a prominent California psychiatrist and author of the be a gentleman while doing it. I was lousy at taking instruction and in relatbest-selling book Reality Therapy. A couple of things that Glasser said have ing to those in authority. always stuck with me. One was, “If all the therapists disappeared today it Early sobriety was mysterious. I was more than a little stunned by the unexwouldn’t make any difference, because people would find someone else to pectedness of having life turn from being focused on the next drink to listen-

The Vlew from Her.

ing to stories of recovery. So I was occasionally startled when realizing that I was hearing teachers, lawyers, counselors, nurses, cops, and other professionals. Now and then I’d be put on the defensive when one of these fellow drunks would come on as an authodty. I was energized and inspired when someone trusted me enough to share personal experiences, strength, and hope – in fact, at such times I knew there was a power greater than myself in the rooms of AA -but when anyone presented themselves as a lecturer, preacher, fixer, or other specialist I was very wary. At such times my attention would wander to the window shade on which our Traditions were displayed, and more than once I was moved by the notion that we should remain nonprofessional. Early on, this was a very personal matter to me and only later did I grasp how the same principle saved our groups time and again from tipping over into autocratic behavior toward newcomers. I received and gave a lot of tough love but was always pulled up short of forcing myself or my ideas on others. , There did come a time when 1 thought there was a need for professional authority. One Sunday morning I listened to a radio broadcast by an AA We often talk about one of the great AA paradoxes: giving it away in order member who was conducting a meeting on the air by giving a talk that one that we may keep it. We receive the gift of sobriety freely, and we give it might expect to hear when public information was its purpose. This was fol- freely. Our message is so precious and life-giving that a price cannot be put on lowed by a discussion over on-air telephone. Such a public meeting was new it. It is destined to remain free. to me and I was upset, fairly certain that my Fellowship was being threatened , It has been said that nothing is more important for personal recovery in the and anonymity was being stretched to a breaking point. Somebody ought to AA program than working with others. When we share our own experience do something; but what was appropriate?I’d never found it necessary to visit with others, AA becomes a labor of love, to be enjoyed as a commodity of our General Service Office even though I lived only a few city blocks away (it great wealth. But only if we give it away. was then on Park Avenue). Now was the time, I thought, since I very much Yet we find that some AA members work at outside agencies that deal with wanted totalk to someone “in charge.” ‘ the alcohol problem. They are called “two-hatters” since they wear one hat at When I got to GSO, the receptionist listened to me patiently and assessed work and another at AA functions. Are they to be considered hypocritical? my concerns as relating to Public Information. I was introduced to the staff Are they violating our Tradition of nonprofessionalism?Years of experience person on that assignment and soon realized that I was chatting with an AA tells us no, that members who elect to work full-time in the field of alco. member like myself. We reviewed the facts to determine if there were actions holism do not professionalize AA’s Twelfth Step. needed to protect AA. I’d come looking for someone in charge only to find I know of a very dedicated member of AA who became employed in the myself deep into weighty matters with a special worker who had a great deal field of alcoholism by a government agency. Never was it heard of him’that of experience in our Traditions. he broke his anonymity, nor did he wear the hat of his job to any of the meet- In the aftermath of that encounter I accepted our Eighth Tradition to a ings. He kept the two separate; in fact, he even became a delegate. After all, depth not available to me before. Yes, we must remain nonprofessional in who is best suited for this employment: the lay person who has learned of the matters affecting recovery but we should have special workers as needed to alcohol problem from a book or classroom, or an alcoholic who has lived the provide essential services. problem? Bop B. hdh?

S e p t e m k e r 1996

The View from Here

Tradition Nine which states that “rotating leadership is the best.” It is incumbent upon groups to choose their trusted servants with care and

Here: further, to let them know what’s expected of them. Before coming to AA, I’d never made one hundred cups of coffee in my life. I knew how to make six or eight or ten -but one hundred? I’m grateful to the members of my group who showed me how (we wrote the recipe on the cardboard box that held the supplies; I still make coffee according to that recipe.) Too often, we assume others already-know what we know. But what should we do with the errant treasurers who “borrow” AA funds? Individual or collective anger directed toward the perpetrator could divert the group from its primary purpose. Some groups may attempt to recover funds by initiating legal action, forgetting that we avoid public controversy. Is the group harmed by the loss of money -or a bruised vanity?Should the group take the opposite tack -forgive and forget?In my opinion, the lraddion A n e : &, as such, ought never be organized; but answers lie within the group conscience itself. Perhaps the group should take we may create service boards or committees directly respon- its own inventory, bearing in mind that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a punitive society -we punish no one. We don’t have to. Bill W. writes in sible to those they serve. Warranty Five of Concept XII, “When we of AA fail to follow sound spiritual principles, alcohol cuts us down.” AI0IP0a8 Ncohol Cuts Us Down’ t ‘ b

h a Piib+dt PWIS~~&IU: I recall an incident that occurred some time ago in a group whose treasurer was a professional money person. The group trusted her implicitly. At each group conscience meeting, the treasurer assured the members that they had Meetings, Meetings, Meetings plenty of money to meet expenses and everything was shipshape. Nobody FnrBnUF/ V,NWW questioned her until an unpaid invoice for coffee came to the attention of As my life got increasingly unmanageable during the last years of drinking I another member. When it was brought to the treasurer’s attention, she again withdrew more and more and became isolated from meaningful interactions assured everyone that it was an oversight and the bill would be paid in short with others. That this was happening in midtown Manhattan made life all order. But it wasn’t. Suspicions were aroused and the group continued to ask the more lonely. So it was with amazement that in early sobriety 1disiovered for an actual accounting but the treasurer somehow avoided compliance with AA’s meeting book for the greater metropolitan area. While it was as confustheir request. Shortly thereafter, the treasurer rotated out of her group service ing as a train schedule at first, I was like a kid with a new found toy, running position and the group learned that the bill had been paid and the money around town to meetings in a great many unlikely places at all hours ofthe was accounted for. It seems the treasurer was guilty only of procrastination. day and night. Here was a listing that said a particular sort of AA meeting But while their collective conscience was relieved, the group carefully chose would be held at a certain time and place, and behold, therc it was -and their next treasurer and instructed him on how to do the job. Rotation was run by drunks that 1would guess hadn’t always been reliable for keeping their saving grace. The principle of rotation is expressed in the Long Form of commitments. This world was a radically different place from where I’d so

The Mew from H m

recently lived and drunk. A whole different set of principles were guiding Well, when our kids were growing up, our household was very much “orgathese mostly sober folks who, while they seemed pretty laid back and casual, nized.” Mom and Dad made the rules, and the kids toed the line -or else. were well enough organized to be there when the meeting book said they One member in Humboldt recently shared how he set up his home in the would be. unorganized way. Different areas of the house were designated either “pri- A couple years later when doing a weekly stint as a telephone answering vate” or “communal.” For the most part, each individual was solely responsivolunteer at our intergroup office, I was able to see how the information ble for his private area of the house -unless it infringed on the common was gathered, updated, and regularly published. The meeting lists hadn’t welfare. The common areas were the joint responsibilitiesof all the people just happened miraculously. They were the result of well-organized effort living there. Problems were handled by a committee (usually a family conferand just plain hard work. At last I came to understand that while AA itself ence). They would arrive at a group conscience solution (not personally must never be organized, there were some jobs in AA that need to be well- punitive) which was aimed at harmony and kept the,common welfare foreplanned. most. Definite consequences were put in place for failure to stick to the group As a member of our general service area, I found myself working on the conscience solution. How did it work?Some days good; some days just so-so. planning committee for our annual area convention, and saw how AA 4t0tpw members find strength in getting together to enjoy the broadest community 11, aspects of our Fellowship. So our convention has become an annual custom that provides much joy in living and sharing. It needs a lot of careful planning and organizing to make it happen and to provide for the needs of an unbelievably diverse range of tastes, spirits, and temperaments. The going was not always smooth as we planned and did the necessary tasks, but the results were beyond our wildest dreams. And we all stayed sober right through the Sunday morning meeting that closed the event. We had treat- “We ought never be organized.” What does that mean? How come we orgaed a committee directly responsible to those who need our services. nize meetings -public information meetings, for example – in which we Boy& i?, need some kind of organized committees, to get the meeting place, to * T b I announce it, to get the speakers, to schedule it, to make an agenda, to chair it, to get the coffee and cookies, etc.? Well, yes, all these need to have some degree of organization, yet the members that are selected for such tasks do not govern, and nobody can impose restrictions or penalties on others. The The Good, the Bad, and the SO-SO responsibility of leadership is left to our trusted servants whom we elect and they are accountable to the Fellowship. We need leadership not government. FNRSMA~&WM; This can only come about if our leaders are led, by the spiritual principle of Tradition Nine says we ought never be organized. I don’t know how many humility, to do the best of their ability without expecting anything in return. people read that and think it means that confusion and chaos is the way to Since the privilege and opportunity of serving this Fellowship helps us to go. I once did. But it is not so. “Organized”‘here means that one individual remain sober and grow, all other praise or recognition by our fellow members or group makes the rules, imposes those rules on another individual or is “icing on the cake,” not the goal of our efforts. Our GSO staff, for example,, group, and has the power to punish that individual or group for not follow- customarily replies to requests from members who ask their advice in some ing the rules. So therefore, not being organized means that no person shall matters in a very humblc way: “It has been our cxpcricncc,” or “Experience have unqualified authority over anothcr; and no action taken shall he per- by previous groups in these matters has been . . .”sonally punitive to another.

September 1996

Is the sky falling? AA has borrowed liberally from From SpnngviUe, Utah: our friends in religion, medicine, education, and other fields of Recently I’ve become aware that endeavor. The principles described even among our trusted servants at in our books and literature aren’t the district and area level, there’s a original. We’ve simply taken existgreat deal of confusion about what is ing spiritual principles and applied “real” AA. If a group is conducting them to the problem of alcoholism. its affairs along a different format, if I’ve been known to “view with a member is using “outside” material alarm for the good of AA” as I saw as part of her personal program, if changes occurring in the meetings I non-Conference-approveditems are attended. I still believe that some of sold at a convention, some of our the changes are detrimental to our leaders cry, “That isn’t AA! We primary spiritual purpose. But I’ve can’t do that!” also come to believe that when I 1remember when I came to AA, run around like Chicken Little, crymuch of the same confusion was ing in alarm, “The sky is falling! present but the strident objections The sky is falling!” I’m doing a disseemed far less. We used many writservice to the Fellowship. My cries ten materials that weren’t are more apt to bring about further “approved” – in 1963, AA didn’t division and rigid opposition than a have its own meditation book! favorable resolution to the problem. There was far less literature avail- After watching the process work able from AA and many of us for a number of years, I’ve learned sought spiritual growth through that those things which don’t work materials available from other will usually eliminate themselves. sources. And for those changes which still trouble me, 1 find it far better to ask the question, “Is this change good for AA as a whole?” and let the group conscience be heard through a reasoned discussion. Mickey H.

October 1996

The View from Her.

when I’d occasionally respond to a question in such a way as to make AA appear to have opinions on outside issues, I’d be very uncomfortable.

Here: Learning restraint of tongue has saved me a lot of grief. I’ve learned to practice Tradition Ten in all my affairs – in particular, those that affect, AA as a whole. Bop 8,

Live and Let Live Fma S ~ h h h w : Tradition Ten tells us we have no opinions on outside issues. To me this is another specific application of the “Live and Let Live” principle. We’ll Traclitiort Grt:Jlco/tolic:(iflito1tyrt1o~~shas r to opirriou or 1 live our lives the way we want to without interfering in yours; you live outside issues; hence the& name ought never be drawn your lives the way you want to without interfering in ours. You can eat only vegetables and go to the Ironman triathalons if that’s what turns into public controversy. your crank. For me, I’ll just sit in my sailboat and feel the invisible power of the wind in the sails. It is not up to me to convert you to anything at all. And anyway, I never knew what was good for me -so how could I Learning Restraint possibly know what is good for you? FHMB m 0 4 , f l g: AIO~MO~B AA has no opinion on outside issues as I learned during the years when 1 was going into schools to fulfill requests that our intergroup received for A Stiff Elbow information regarding Alcoholics Anonymous. Usually this took the form Fm $ 2 ~6’1%h a : of speaking to students about what AA is and what it is not. Then there’d be a discussion that often became lively, as ideas came forth and questions A few years back in our monthly open meeting, someone was passing a were asked by some pretty lively kids. Nearly always there’d be at least petition around for signatures. When I saw that it was a petition to’raise one question that began “What does AA think of -?” or “What is AA’s the drinking age to twenty-one, I put my elbow on it and kept it there policy about -?” You name it, it got asked. until the end of the meeting. Some lady (a nonalcoholic) said that she Now I have some pretty strong opinions and am entirely able to see the could have had the paper filled out if I’d passed it along, even if I didn’t world in terms that affirm or support my point of view. So, even when ob- want to sign it. My response was that this had no place in an AA meetjective enough to catch what I was up to, 1 was capable of making a srateing, and I cited from the long form of Tradition Ten which says that we ment about what AA does and docs not do, that when examined have no opinion on such topics as politics or alcohol reform. She represented my opinion rather than AA’s. I didn’t intend to lie, and so thanked me for the information and took away her petition. &$ K

November 1996

t The View from Here

anonymity. The sports writer replied that our hockey player had indeed explained about our Tradition of anonymity relating to the media, but

Here: the writer had felt it was such a magnificent story of recovery that he must give credit to someone. The hockey player had done his part to try and protect our Tradition. The sports writer did what he thought was right under the circumstances. We in AA had met our goal, which was to reinforce our Tradition of anonymity at the public level. And we didn’t alienate anyone in the process.

Tradition el ever^: Our public lelulio~~s policy is I~usc’clor1 attraction rather than promolion; we need alwatjs wlaintain personal artortgr,ti1y a1 h e lcvd of prcss, rwclio, cctr~dj1m.s. An AA Magnet Fma X~eoXe,hwai:

Attraction rather than promotion: it was this life-giving principle practiced by the local AA group that kept the door wide open when I first arrived at the doors of AA. I’d been drinking for years with the same group of friends who all enjoyed a lively bender now and then. I’d been working, playing, and drink- We had an example of the breaking of Tradition Eleven in the early ing with one particular “partner in crime” for several years until he went nineteen-fifties. One of our greatest local hockey players had found AA. to his first AA meeting. He really needed to sober up -he was starting He’d been in a slump and was now making a comeback. Sobriety was pay- to get mean when he drank and had lost his ability to control himself. ing off for him. There were no more drunken escapades for our hero. After he’d been to several meetings, I noticed a distinct change in his de- The local sports writer who covered the hockey beat was describing meanor and his attitude toward life. Although I didn’t like losing a drinkthe exploits of our man of the hour in glowing terms. And then he went ing buddy, I knew it was’best for him. His change had no effect on my on to say that the player owed it all to AA. It was an obvious break of drinking habit. I continued to use drugs to get up and get going in the 1

our anonymity Tradition. morning and drank myself into oblivion each afternoon and evening. The General Service Office in New York, through its Public Informa- Each day I’d ask my friend if he’d like a drink. Each time his reply was tion assignment, wrote a beautiful letter to the newspaper, which was “No thank you, not today.” It was a strange answer,’with no detectable neither punitive nor aggressive in nature, explaining our Tradition of condemnation in his tone.

The View from Were

My drinking soon became nightmarish and my behavior resembled letter to her (and to the newspaper) explaining the importance of that of an uncontrollable two-year-old. My wife and family had finally bid anonymity, and my main question was, “Who gets credit for sobriety me adieu, and my ability to function was quickly dissipating. I was now the treatment facility, the woman, or AA?” I emphasized the spiritual efliving in my truck and working now-and then -but mostly then. I came fect one receives when giving and not expecting praise, compensation, or to one morning and found myself at the moment of truth. I sought out m) even acknowledgment. I included a copy of “UnderstandingAnonymity” friend and surrendered to him, asking if he would sponsor me into AA. and encouraged her to call me. I’ve found that when dealing with At the very mention of my desire to seek help, he lit up like a Roman anonymity breaks, treating the AA member with love and respect usually candle. He’d been patiently waiting for me to utter those words of help. gets good results. In fact, as I later found out, the whole Tuesday night AA meeting had &#K been waiting for me to surrender. It seems that the group had been helping my friend practice attraction not promotion. My case was discussed in detail at several meetings, and the group had decided that the best way to twelve-step me was to be an example of love and tolerance. I know today that if my friend or other members of that group had triec to “sell” me on AA or point out my bad ways, I’d have reacted exactly as I always did -by throwing up another wall so they couldn’t get close. Today I try to live the AA way of life so that people may be attracted to me and seek help when it’s their time to receive the AA message of hope. $A

Shining for All the World to See Fkr Sflhhbm: What Tradition Eleven means in my personal life is that I can be an in-, fluence in other’s lives by being a tool in the hands of the Higher Power who guides us all by quietly living my life to the full without pretense and without grandstanding. It is the simple example that is the great Getting Results moving force. Fm Siw & i h a : The people who achieve greatness don’t broadcast their accomplishments – they simply shine for all the world to see. In this regard, I con- Our local newspaper printed the recovery story of a fairly new member of stantly need to remind myself that greatness here means simply the AA, along with her picture. The paper stated that she was an active ability for me to be me – the best me that I can be today. member of Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous. I wrote a One of my biggest problems always has been graciously accepting

The View from Here

recognition when it comes. And 1 know that’s false modesty, a form of pride, just the other side of the coin from arrogance. (It’s still hard for me to just say thank you and to let it go at that.) A&po~s

AA members involved in public information arc sometimes accused of “promoting” AA when in fact they have few “promoting” opportunities. For example, the AA booth at a community awareness day is rarely crowded by the public clamoring for information. In my experience, most of the visitors to the AA booth are 1) people in AA, 2) people who know someone in AA, or 3) people who know someone who should be in AA. I can recall one occasion at a local shopping mall where my sponsor and I were staffing an AA information booth. Two spry senior citizens who looked like they might have been “drugstore cowboys” in another day or age -were scanning the health fair booths. They were probably (we conjectured) waiting for their wives who were (we conjectured again) on a shopping spree. They snickered like teenagers as they boldly approached our table and checked out the AA membership poster. With an impish grin, one spoke up and said to us, “We’re not ready for AA, yet!” “That’s okay,” we confidently replied, “we’ll keep the doors open till you’re ready.” I’m still sober and yaiting. , LO/? e,

December 1996 –

People Who Normally Would Not MIX

K e e ~ i n athe Focus ventory in Steps Four and Ten makes like now, twenty-eight consecutive that clear. Individually, we have a case years since I took what I hope was my of terminal mortality, of being human. last drink. But for help with narcotics Alcoholics Anonymous does not solve or pill problems, I direct that person these problems but shows us how we to more qualified sources. Sober dual can get through difficult times and addicts have a very special gift which build better lives, if we work all the is sorely needed as more and more per- Steps and follow the program for re- sons hooked on alcohol and narcotics covery offered us. seek help. That help should be ex- .

w Here are some possible reasons for tended on an individual basis, not in y have so many open Alco- A woman at a discussion meeting AA straying from its primary purpose: group meetings. holics Anonymous meetings announced immediately that she had 1) Failure of individuals and groups The Fifth Tradition tells us that become public confessionals, no drinking problem but was a manic- to study the Traditions and abide by “each group has but one primary puror Oprah-type sessions, far outside the depressive and then described her them. pose – to carry its message to the alscope of our experience in sobriety,and problems with her employer. “I come 2) Sponsors seen more as coffee coholic who still suffers.” The I light years beyond our ability to offer here because you’re so nice,” she said. buddies than experienced guides discussion of Tradition Five in Twelve guidance? Perhaps it’s a sneaky desire “You listen to me.” who’ve lived through adversity and Steps and Twelve Tradirions tells us that to be titillated by the lurid details of At a large, open-mike meeting we who can pass on to newcomers our it is “better to do one thing well than the past. Perhaps it’s because we live in heard all the juicy details of a difficult primary purpose. many badly.” Tradition Six recounts a nation populated hy more and more relationship. Others had unfeeling 3) A tendency to use the group as a the travails of early AA members who victims, and talk show hosts who make bosses, sick pets, dishonest mechanics dumping ground, instead of working attempted to start hospitals and take a splendid living off their misery. or other afflictions thrust upon them by with a sponsor or a spiritual adviser on on many other worthy projects for I’d like to suggest that it’s time for a a cruel fate that kept them from “feel- those troubling specifics that bug us which they weren’t qualified. massive A A group conscience, a re- ing good.” all. “Our stories disclose in a general It’s humbling to admit we don’t examination of where we are, how we All these meetings were of what I way” – remember? have all the answers. It takes courage’ got here, and where we’re going. call the “dead cat” variety: the victims, 4) Our own success, world-wide, for a group to politely but firmly ad- Maybe your group has seen something slouch into the meeting, carrying shown bv the number of twelve-step vise the uninformed that “we don’t try like these recent examples: loadedsacks, and toss their problems programs that have been started tb to handle your problem. We deal only A Sunday morning breakfast speaker out on the table like so many dead cats. deal with problems other than alco- with alcohol.” It takes persistent foldetailed his narcotics problems and his Those attending either decide which hol. There are also well-intentioned low-through to tell well-intenrioned compulsive incestuous relations with his cat smells the worst or play “I Can TOR AA members whose good-hearted de- parole officers, social workers, treatten-year-old stepdaughter, his vocabu- That Cat.” The emphasis is on prob- sire for a perfect world leads them to ment centers, and others about what lary salted with words that would get lems instead of recovery or -a prefer- counsel all types of the afflicted. we do and don’t do. We certainly need him tossed out of many a tough bar. A able term -sobriety. It’s bad for them and it’s bad for us. to stay friendly with our friends, but young girl of about the same age as the I’m not for a moment suggesting that I’m not qualified to advise anyone on experience shows that we will do ,the described victim, brought to the meet- problems stop the moment we put the how to kick narcotics or get over a pill most good for us alcoholics if we keep ing by her mother, turned scarlet, shift- plug in the jug. And there are usually problem. I can share with the dually- our primary purpose clear and undied nervously, and obviously wanted to many more things wrong with us than addicted person my experience with luted. I

be anywhere but at this AA meeting. abusing alcohol. The emphasis on in- alcohol, what happened, and what I’m Bob L., Albuquerque, New Mexico

December 1996

The Only Requirement for Membership f&Pa4rh4 Cah+wi: Online AA gatherings do raise I found your online article to be some other concerns. Personally, I’d both informative and interesting. be more comfortable in keeping I’m currently not online, though with our Fourth Tradition if the onperhaps in the future I’ll have that line,gatherings refrained from callopportunity. Do I feel excluded? ing themselves AA meetings until it Only in the sense that 1do in not could be determined how they will being able to attend a meeting in affect other groups or AA as a Akron, Ohio because I can’t afford whole. to travel that far; or in the sense Online meetings also raise a conthat I can’t attend a men’s stag cern for anonymity. Assuming that meeting because I’m a woman. As AAs online choose to use their full long as I have AA available to me names, where on the Web ought where the only requirement for they be able to do so?Anywhere? membership is a desire to stop At closed meetings only?Not ever? drinking and there are no dues or Do we need alwaysmaintain perfees to pay, I’ll be eternally grateful. sonal anonymity at the level of Face-to-face meetings have taught me to get out of self through press, radio, films and computers? Thank you for allowing me to exactive listening; how to think criti- press my opinions and concerns. 1 cally and concisely in the time I trust that the trustees of our General have available to share my experi- Service Board will humbly lead and ence, strength, and hope; how to so- guide us through this new challenge cially interact again; and how not to and share with us their wisdom. prejudge someone by the way they If God is everything, then God look or speak (or what to do with must be everywhere . . . . including that judgment once it’s formed). Af- the Internet! ter all, if I’m not patient, loving, Lat& 6 and understanding offline, how can I expect to be online?

Dec’ember 1996,

People Who Normafly Would Not Mix

Telling the,: , For instance, I’ve learned in meet- we don’t know what we’re doing ;and ings that not only bars and cocktail find ourselves on a bar stool again. parties are slippery places: sitting in a I believe in AA’s singleness of purclosed room or vehicle with others pose. But I reserve the right to share all smoking pot is a slippery place for me. my experiences in recoverv. And if I One woman told include hbw I can’t how her contact take any mind-afhighs led her right fecting chemicals back to beer. She I learned in my early because it leads me had a slip for me. back to booze, and if “Learning from days that we were to that offends some other’s mistakes so people, I’m sorry. I we don’t have to don’t want to offend make them” only ‘practice these prin- you; I simply want conveys meaning to live. And in

Iwent to a meeting last night and as tion several drugs besides alcohol. For when others can keeping with our the topic of singleness of purpose him, that’s a violation of our singleness share their mis- ciples in all our purpose of carrying was being introduced, one man of purpose. For me and many others, takes. this message to othstood up and stomped out. It’s an old not to talk about what will lead us right It was at an AA er alcoholics, I want battle in AA, one that began long be- back to alcohol is a violation of our meeting where I to help other alcofore 1 got sober in 1969. The recurring pur&se at a meeting. And therein lies heard that putting holics live. – theme is that unless members discuss our dilemma. If we know that to smoke any mind-altering Back in 1969, problems relating only to alcoholism in a joint, take a hit of acid or coke, or use chemical in my those who took ofa meeting, they’re violating Traditions. tranquilizers will lead us right back to body would affect fense at my sharing But what exactly does that mean? a drink, insanity, and death, it bccotncs my mind, cloud my would ask me to The singleness of purpose statement our responsibility to talk about it both judgment, and leave. Now, they most often read at meetings ends with for our recovery and in the spirit of car- could lead to a slip. leave. 1 don’t want I the words “confine your discussion only rying the message. In these cases, it re- It was in a meeting any alcoholic leavas it relates to alcoholism.” Although I lates directly to our recovery from where I learned ing a meeting. Sinsupport our singleness of purpose, I’ve alcoholism. that the alcohol gleness of purpose always felt that this was an unfortunate What I’ve learned about recovery in and codeine in shouldn’t come choice of words. I’m not particularly in- twenty-six years clean and sober has cough syrup was like playing with fire across as singleness of predjudice. If we terested in what or how much you come from the Big Book and from the for an alcoholic. It was in a mecting just rethink that statement and say drank, which is what that statement experience, strength, and hope of those where I learned about the subtleness of “confine our discussions only as it resounds like. I am interested in how you at our tables. I learned in my early days a disease that can sneak us back to a lates to recovery from alcoholism,” we keep from drinking today – recovery that we wcre to “practice these princi- drink with something as simple as not will understand that we’re not violatfrom alcoholism, not just alcoholism. ples in a11 our affairs” -but there’s no explaining that we are alcoholic to our ing Traditions. We are all here for the The man who stomped out of our way to do that if all our affairs can’t be doctor, who then unknowingly pre- same reason. Sobriety. meeting left because he heard us men- talked about. scribes medicines that drug us so that Shelly M ., West Point, Virginia

December 1996

they be able to do so?Anywhere? The Only active listening; how to think criti- At closed meetings only?Not ever? Requirement cally and concisely’in the time I Do we need always maintain perhave available to share my experi- sonal anonymity at the level of for Membership ence, strength, and hope; how to so- press, radio, films -and computers? FMI Pa&&, flat@rwh: cially interact again; and how not to Thank you for allowing me to exprejudge someone by the way they press my opinions and concerns. I 1 found your online article to be look or speak (or what to do with trust that the trustees of our General both informative and interesting. that judgment once it’s formed). Af- Service Board will humbly lead and I’m currently not online, though ter all, if I’m not patient, loving, guide us through this new challenge perhaps in the future I’ll have that and understanding offline, how can and share with us their wisdom. opportunity. Do 1feel excluded? I expect to be online? If God is everything, then God Only in the sense that I do in not Online AA gatherings do raise must be everywhere . . . . including being able to attend a meeting in some other concerns. Personally, I’d the Internet! Akron, Ohio because I can’t afford be more comfortable in keeping ht%C. to travel that far; or in the sense with our Fourth Tradition if the onthat I can’t attend a men’s stag line gatherings refrained from callnieeting because I’m a woman. As ing themselves AA meetings until it long as I have AA available to me could be determined how they will where the only requirement for affect other groups or AA as a membership is a desire to stop whole. drinking and there are no dues or Online,meetings also raise a confees to pay, 1’11 be eternally grateful. cern for anonymity. Assuming that Face-to-face meetings have AAs online choose to use their full taught me to get out of self through names, where on the Web ought

December 1996

The from MHere: V The Viaw from Hare

the other hand, if I make that same call and don’t make a big deal of it, the chances of the message reaching home are much greater, and I’ll end up with ongoing benefits beyond my imagination -for example, “We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace.” In an article on the Twelfth Tradition in the November 1948 Grapevine, Bill W. writes, “The Twelve Points of Tradition are little else than a specific application of the spirit of the Twelve Steps of recovery to our group life and to our relations with society in general. The recovery Steps would make each individual AA member whole and one with God; the Twelve Points of Tradition would make us one with each other and whole with the world around us.”

Tradition Twelve:dnonynrity is t/w s/~iritualjouv~dation OJ

all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles bejbre personalities.

The Greatest Safeguard Fmfibni Feordi: The first two sentences of the “Twelve and Twelve” on this last Tradition say, “The spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrifice. Because AA’s In recent years, some groups have begun closing their meetings with the Twelve Traditions repeatedly ask us to give up personal desires for the first few words of Tradition Twelve: ” ‘Anonymity is the spiritual foundacommon good, we realize that the sacrificial spirit -well symbolized by tion of all our traditions . . . .’ which means I don’t tell anyone I saw you anonymity – is the foundation of them all.” and you don’t tell anyone you saw me.” Please! The “anonymity card” The common understanding nowadays for “sacrifice” is to give some- put out by our own General Service Office aids and abets this ridiculous thing up, and that’s how Bill talks about it here. But it is interesting to statement. It says: “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Tranote that the Latin origin of the word sacrifice -sacrum ficere -literally ditions. Please respect this and treat in confidence who you see and what means “to make holy”; that is, to give soniething a spiritual dimension. you hear.” There’s not a word about humility which, expressed by Anonymity seems to be the key that transforms an ordinary kind act into anonymity, is the greatest safeguard AA can ever have, and not a word something spiritually significant. Anonymity is real humility at work. about what comes after the comma in the Twelfth Tradition “. . . ever re- If I go on a Twelfth Step call, I’ve already received whatever good I’m minding us to place principles before personalities.” going to get from it. There’s no point in blowing my horn about it. On Hwbtt

The View from Here

I

A Human Difficulty An amazing thing to me are the comments made by newcomers, visih a Mi04&ti DAtb: tors (we’re an open meeting), and the people who show up to get their paper signed who are there only because some civil authority forces them I iemember that during my beginning days of sobriety and attendance at to attend. These people are impressed that we aren’t alcohol witch- AA meetings, there was a member who just by his presence made me feel hunters, don’t demand money or ask for anyone’s name, and don’t try to uncomfortable. This Tradition has helped me to return to AA’s princi- hustle them. They may not want to know about God, surrender, and ples, leave out the personalities, and say a little prayer. I like to share with moral inventory, but they are surely impressed that we are not “holier new members that AA is not personalities; I suggest they shop for a group than thou.” where our primary purpose is very evident and overcomes our human dis- I’ve been going to this meeting for nine years and have been in AA approval of personalities. and active in service work for thirty years. It’s always a temptation to pontificate but I’ve learned that we teach best when we relate our own Ada B. personal experiences. The Traditions brought me to AA -though I didn’t know it at the time. I was a manager in a specialty sales organization in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. One of my salesmen had a drinking problem. Pat said he drank beer because he “didn’t like water.” A fellow sales rep told me he knew two men in Miami who were members of Alcoholics Anonymous. He thought that they might come to see Pat. I thought it was a great idea! This was 1949. AA membership was small; groups were few and far between. How did I know about AA, that it was good, that members would respond?Well, I grew up in Ohio, forty miles from Akron, fifty miles from Cleveland. The Ckveland Plain Dealer was delivered to our door every day. We subscribed to Liberty magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. The articles in these publications were doing AA’s public service work for the fledgling groups in those early years. The editors respected the members’ anonymity, AA’s single purpose, and the noncontroversial approach. The articles symbolized attraction not promotion in their reporting of drunks helping drunks stay sober. I attend a Tuesday night meeting which uses Twebe Steps and Twelve Tra- I can still see those two men who drove all the way from Miami (no inditim’as a text. We read and discuss the Twelve Steps for thirteen weeks terstate roads in those days) to call on our friend at his house. Several of (Step Twelve in two parts) and then the Traditions for twelve weeks. us fellow sales reps were standing in the shadows outside the house on The Steps are popular but for a long while attendance would drop off this warm Florida night, and we watched as those men went up the steps when we switched to the Traditions. In recent years, however, there’s and into the house. I can’t tell you if Pat got sober. I never met those been a growing interest in the Traditions. Conflicts in service meetings AAs face to face. I never knew their names. I can only say that the picabout who is and is not a member, anonymity breaks by celebrities, treatture of those two men entering Pat’s house to carry the message is indeliment center influence, and public service announcements have caught bly engraved in my mind and my heart. It was my first real introduction the attention of our membership.,

The View from Here

, to Alcoholics Anonymous. It would be sixteen years bef~reI called Alcoholics Anonymous and two men came up my walk to see me at my house. I was then living in Chicago. Their faces were happy, eager, just delighted to call on some newcomer. They were all “washed and ironed,” as a lady member in Chicago used to say, and their pockets were bulging with AA pamphlets. I knew that I’d done the right thing in calling Chicago’s central office. I knew I wouldn’t have to drink anymore. What I didn’t know was that it was the Traditions that brought me to sobriety. It certainly wasn’t the Steps. If I’d known I had to admit I was wrong and go help others, I might not have called. In looking back I can see the Traditions at work. The journalists who wrote about Alcoholics Anonymous were attracted and amazed at an organization that helped drunks in a manner unheard of. In a society filled with organizations which claimed to help people but always wanted something in return -money, publicity, endorsement of political agendas the Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous surprised and intrigued the folks who first publicized the successful phenomenon of one drunk helping another. Here was an organization whose members wanted no personal recognition, didn’t proselytize, asked for no outside contributions, and had no political agenda, no controversy, no fees or dues, no bosses. Half of our name is a tradition; “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions. . . .” (Tradition Twelve). 1 found and maintain my sobriety through the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous protected by the Traditions. NmA.

January 1997

One of the despised? nor need it do so. These are outside ciently worked the Twelve Steps. I Lion’s Bay, Ontario: also want to mention that if Dr. issues for which I’ve needed outside Paul (interview,July 1995) treats help. My wonderful sponsor, whose dcpression as a character defect and A f t e r being an avid Grapevine eighteen years of sobriety I greatly reader for the last nine years, I’ve it works for him, hooray. But his admire, isn’t a therapist. She tells bought my final copy. I can’t do words carry weight and I was almost me how she lives sbber and encourshamed out of taking needed medanything about the kind of articles ages me in getting the professional ication by what he said. Thank God you choose to print except choose help I need. not to read them. Why the um- 1 was too ill and desperate to heed After eight years of sobriety, havhim. I wonder how many AA membrage? I’m unhappy with articles ing been continuously in a Step bers die or end up in hospitals belike Paul M.’s contribution on Tra- meeting and working the Steps, cause they feel condemned for dition Eight (August 1996). It was sponsoring several women, and beneeding more help than AA profull of opinion not the sharing of ex- ing active in service, my life was perience, strength, and hope. How vides. I’ve lost one such friend to coming apart. An AA friend told suicide and am afraid for another did Paul M. come to the conclusion me she couldn’t bear to watch me that most alcoholics suffering from friend who’s spiraling downward suffer and shared her personal expedepression, anxiety, apathy, and fear into deep depression but won’t get rience with clinical depression and suffer from untreated alcoholism? help because it’s “not the AA way.” acute anxiety. There’s a large “un- Has he done an in-depth survey or derground” network of people like AA has no opinions on outside is that just his judgment? her and me, people for whom the issucs?Yet too many of its members AA’s singleness of purpose is to Steps weren’t the whole answer. are irresponsiblyvocal about mental carry the message of recovery from I’m now on antidepressants and illness, medication, and the treat- I

alcoholism. It hasn’t healed my cx- in intcnsivc therapy. Now I’m one ment of depression. perience of sexual abuse nor has it Let’s stick to what we know best: of the despised, one of those AA alleviated my suicidal depression – helping each other stay away from a members judged as not having suffidrink one dav at a time.

March 1997

AA Grapevine . So, is corporate poverty a spiritual and practical principle that will assure AA’s future?Of course it is. “At that In the Seventh Tradition, when talking about how AA acted when it found out about the be- moment, we quests that were coming its way, Bill wrote, “The pressure of that fat treasury would surely tempt believe, the the board to invent all kinds of schemes to do principle of ‘ good with such funds, and so divert AA from its primary purpose. The moment that happened, corporate Tbw article daptea our Fellowship’s confidence would be shaken. The board would be isolated, and would fall un- poverty was from a predentathn der heavy attack of criticism from both AA and given by Gary A. Glynn, the public. Then our trustees wrote a bright page firmly and in AA history They declared for the principle C h d A (nonahobolic) that AA must always stay poor. Bare running finally embedtrutee at a general expenses plus a prudent reserve would henceforth be the Foundation’s financial policy.” He ded in AA ‘ dbaring deddhn of the went on to say, “At that moment, we believe, General Service Boar4 the principle of corporate poverty was firmly and tradition. ” finally embedded in AA tradition.” -Bill W. October 1994 That sounds pretty simple: avoid schemes that divert us from our primary purpose and only have enough money around to meet bare run-

T he subtitle for this sharing session on corporate poverty is: “spiri- ning expenses and maintain a prudent reserve. I tual and practical principles that assure AA’s future.” That got don’t think anyone in this room would object to me thinking. I think in AA, spiritual and practical are the same those statements, so why are we sharing about thing. Imagine someone coming into service who wanted to have some them?The reason is that they mean different influence in AA and promoted some practical-sounding idea that had things to different people. no spiritual merit. The Fellowship would quickly put a stop to that. The Concepts try to help us a little more in Such a person would have to find some idea with a spiritual basis – making these principles concrete, but the Coneven if he didn’t believe it. So anything that is going to be of any prac- cepts can be confusing, especially about the tical use to us has to be spiritual as well. 1 power of thc purse and our prudent rcservc, At the same time, it looks to me as if AA, beginning with Bill W., has which usually are at the center of debates about quickly dropped any spiritual-sounding ideas that don’t pass the practi- corporate poverty. In the first warranty, Bill tells cal tests of keeping alcoholics sober or keep’ing AA together. us why a dictator wouldn’t last a year: “And in

h “

the brief time he did last, what would he use for money?Our Delegates, cial stability of GSO for granted and assumes it directly representing the groups, control the ultimate supply of our ser- I will always stay that way. vice funds.” Sounds here like the power of the purse is supposed to be Bill wrote about how Alcoholics Anonymous immediate, doesn’t it?That’s on page 63. On page 65, in the second got the outside world’s attention when the world warranty, writing about what hard iimes might do to AA, Bill says, “Our realized AA was going to be self-supporting.He He pointed, present ieserve and its book income pointed out that most people viewed alcoholics could see us through several years of as financially irresponsible. When I tell people out that most hard times without the slightest who don’t know much about AA that we accept diminution in the strength and no outside contributions, and are self-supporting people view quality of our world effort.” Sounds and solvent, the reaction is amazement and ad- , here as if immediate wasn’t what he miration. AA has such a solid reputation with alcoholics as had in mind after all. the public. When we discuss the idea that it Throughout Bill’s writings, there’s might be sound to lower our Reserve Fund to financially . ‘ the sense of his recognizing the bal- come closer to some supposedly more spiritual ancing act he was asking us to take level of corporate poverty, we should recognize irresponsible. on. Too much, and we argue over that we would also be coming closer to the point perilous wealth and power and lose of running out of money if we run into hard sight of our primary purpose of car- times or if some of those “possible demands on rying the message. Too little, and the Reserve Fund” occur at inconvenient interwe risk losing the ability to carry vals. The lower our Reserve Fund, the higher the message at all. So he spoke for the risk of some financial accident where we run both sides in different vlaces. out of money. What would we do if we ran out What are the issues here? AA groups a p formed and dissolved all the of money?A financial failure of AA would do time, and a reserve of one or two months for a group seems adequate to incalculable harm to our reputation with the a lot of people. I’ve been asked if one or two month’s reserve is okay for public, the Fellowship, and with some poor a group, why do we need ten or twelve at GSO?For one thing, it is drunk who’s looking for a reason to believe AA probably easier to form a new group than it is to form a new GSO. doesn’t work. There is no alternative GSO to turn to if ours goes under. The services I If we ran out of money, we might have to borwe provide have been built up out of many year’s collective experience row from a bank temporarily to keep the doors I and would be hard to recreate. Also, despite the eagerness of others to open. If we did that, we would lose some mea- . publish some of our literature, GSO needs to continue to publish regu- sure of financial independence. A strong Relarly without the threat of interruption so the message of sobriety will serve Fund is one of the prices we have to pay to continuously be available, both through the written message itself and assure that no one but the Fellowship sets our fi- , the services supported in part by literature profits. Many of our projects nancial policies. And continually debating extend over a considerable period of time, like financing new transla- whether the Reserve Fund is perilously large is tions or planning a convention. I think the Fellowship takes the finan- part of the price.

AA Grapevine ,

,b L’. l

One counter to that argument is that if there ever was a real emer- level. That’s the main reason we’ve been disgency, AA groups would increase their contributions and rescue GSO. playing our financial numbers on a per-group This argument says, in effect, that we should rely on our Higher Power basis as well as in total, like $156 per group for No one is operating through the groups to save us from our own imprudence. the amount in the Reserve Fund. This is not a Maybe that would work. If we rely on that, we wouldn’t have to worry trick; it’s a way to point out to the Fellowship going to send about the accuracy of our budgets, our accounting, or much of anything how large we are. A large Fellowship will show really. This may be the place to invoke large absolute dollar numbers. us money if Bill’s comment in the Ninth Concept Bill W. solved the question of whether a pruabout casting the whole idea of plan- dent reserve inhibited contributions. He wrote, we are perning for tomorrow onto a fatuous idea “It is said that the impression is created that of Providence. I don’t believe that be- AA Headquarters is already well off and that ceived as cause God looks after AA, it doesn’t # hence there is no need for more money. This is matter what we do in the practical not at all the general attitude, however, and its wasting realm. It’s risky to ask our Higher Pow- effect on contributions is probably small.” I er to bail us out of trouble when we can wish I could get away with simply asserting t h a ~ money or avoid it ourselves by budgeting solidly, conclusion the way Bill did,.but I don’t think I spending it in running GSO and the Grapevine in a can. businesslike manner, and keeping at I think the keys here are first, we must be marginally ‘ least ten month’s expenses in our Re- true stewards with AAs money, acting as if we serve Fund. I know that some responsi- were poor even if we have a prudent Reserve effective ble people in service think nine or Fund. No one is going to send us contributions even eight months might be okay. The if we are perceived as wasting money or spend- ways. treasurer probably should be a bit more ing it in marginally effective ways. I have said conservative than most of you. elsewhere that there were two ways to avoid I also think that if we ever had to go to the groups and say for exam- going over the twelve-month limit on the Reple, “If you don’t send us $500,000 of contributions within the next serve Fund: spend more money or reduce literathree months we’ll have to lay off half of our staff and cancel the Con- ture income. I said, “We will not increase ference,” the reaction probably wouldn’t be, “Oh, aren’t they spiritual at spending above ordinary amounts unless the GSO, practicing corporate poverty. Well, anyone can make a mistake. Fellowship clearly indicates a desire for new Let’s send them more money.” I think the actual and proper response services. We must control spending, despite the from the groups would be that GSO didn’t know what it was doing and presence of a large Reserve Fund, with the shouldn’t be trusted with any money at all. same sense of stewardship that we would exer- But it is true that some groups are reluctant to contribute to GSO , cise if the Reserve Fund were small.” I believe when they see a $9 million Reserve Fund. The problem with focusing on that truly and think it’s a reasonable descripthis amount is that the dollar amount low enough to counter that reluc- tion of corporate poverty in practice. And in tance is so low that we would be running severe risks if we got to that fact that’s what we did, reducing pamphlet and

other literature prices in a way that makes’ it easier to carry the message cause we have a prudent reserve. My experiand helps groups’ finances. ence at board weekends, the Conference, and The other two keys to more contributions, and what I think is much AAWS and Grapevine corporate board meetmore important -the number of groups contributing -are, first, ex- ings is that there is no danger of that. First of , plaining what the money is spent on, which we are now able to do with all, group contributions pay for three-quarters A reserve our new reports, and second, emphasizing the spiritual benefits of mak- of services spending. But even more important, , ing contributions. Contributions are as important to the contributor as we listen because we know we should and fund is one . they are to the recipient. Contributions are very important for AA unity must. because making contributions gives the of the One advantage of having a sound prudent regroups an opportunity to know that they are serve is that it makes it easier for us to sign a few ways a part of carrying the message of AA around lease for office space on good terms. A reserve the world. fund is one of the few ways a nonprofit has to nonprofit has Group contributions are important to us show a landlord that it is creditworthy. Anothand they must always be at a high enough er big advantage is that it lets us plan with bet- to show level so we hear the Fellowship directly, but ter budgets. The year 1994 is a good example. I’ve never understood the equation that We used best estimates throughout the budget. a landlord group contributions equals self-support but If we had had only five or six months’ expenses literature sales do not. I agree completely in reserve, we would have had to use more con- that it is with Bill W. that book profits are “actually 0 servative budget estimates, which would have the sum of a great many contributions meant either cutting expenses or raising litera- creditworthy which book buyers make to the general wel- ture prices to balance our budget, which we I fare of Alcoholics Anonymous. The certain1 never had to contemplate. 1 wouldn’t have and continuous solvency of our world ser- been able to support reducing literature prices vice rests squarely upon these contributions. at mid-year, even though it was the right thing 1 Looked at in this way, our Reserve Fund is to do from a service point of view, if we had actually the aggregate of many small sacri- only had a six months’ Reserve Fund. fices made by the book buyers.” I started out by saying that if it wasn’t spiritu- What I’m trying to say is that corporate poverty is more a state of h a1 it wouldn’t work in AA and if it wasn’t prac- ‘ mind than the size of our bank account. We all know people and organi- tical, it wasn’t spiritual. A solid, prudent zations that extravagantly spend money they don’t have, living beyond Reserve Fund and good business management their means either by ignoring the facts of their finances or by assuming skills are both spiritual and practical. It is neia rosy tomorrow. So you can in fact be poor and not practice corporate ther practical nor spiritual to accumulate more poverty. It happens to museums and opera companies all the time. The or spend more than we need to. It is also neiopposite is also possible, that we can maintain a prudent reserve without ther practical nor spiritual to run out of money. falling into the temptation of spending it just because it’s there. One fear As usual Bill has a good phrase for what we 1 hear expressed is that GSO might ignore the will of the Fellowship be- need. He called it fiscal common sense.

April 1997

How much anonymity? From Minnesota Lakes, Minnesota: needed help would have a hard A s a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and a devout believer time getting in touch with me.” Dr. in its Twelve Traditions, 1 have just Bob used to say it was important recently distovered while rereading not to be “so anonymous that you can’t be reached by other drunks.” Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, that Without having anyone’s last each time I’ve spoken at any A A name, you really could get in a jam. meeting, I have violated our Since reading how the first one Eleventh Tradition. This came after ten-plus years hundred alcoholics did it, I will from now on do the same. and hundreds of meetings – butJ am changing my ways. Bobby T T o the point, when introducing myself in meetings I’ve always used my first name only. I did this, looking back, because that was what you all did. Now, reading pages 264-65 in Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, I understand why those “good oldtimers” introduced themselves using their full names. An early Cleveland member, Warren C., remembered Dr. Bob saying, “If I got up and gave my name as Dr. Bob S., people who

June 1997

Spotlight on Service H tions in the “Twelve and Twelve” and whether I should serve again. But, as Spotlight had gone to other meetings that were they informed me, some of the ideas more akin to my experience. Night af- which I’d been ranting about were in- On Service ter night, we would stand outside after strumental in getting us this far, so it the meetings and talk about groups, seemed logical for me to fill this p i – Traditions, service, and that connect- tion. I accepted reluctantlv. edness that AAs feel The early business when they are a part meetings were formaof something. After Most of the tive and informative. several months, he We were flying blind, and I and two other men were successful people there relatively speaking. We held a group inin getting a business ventory which was meeting set. were new, and well attended. We

Flying ~ l i d d Attendance at the business meeting was sparse compared to they didn ‘t began to send representatives to the area and district meetings the total of people at- and to our local centending the meetings. know or seem tral office meeting,

A fter moving to this area ten years ago, I looked for a group to be’a part of. I attended a ‘ meeting at a new “club” that was called an AA meeting. There was no and they were taking the money and accumulating it so that they could pay rent and operate the club. Not being satisfied with this explanation but unfamiliar with such goings-on (my prior Elections were held; one of the members who was instrumental in starting the club was elected as GSR. to care where the money and we obtained and passed along the information we received there. We then set aside specific group, no mention of the Traditions, experience was with a small group in a We got the meeting meetings for purposes and no connection through the struc- ruralarea), I resolved to get more in- formats changed to of reading and disture to the rest of AA. The meeting formed about what was going on. eliminate the refer- went. cussing the Tradihad a format which said, in part, that I went back to meeting after meet- ences to club pledges. tions, using- Con- “pledges” were due, followed almost ing, and talked about the Traditions A semblance of a ference-approved litimmediately by the Preamble state- and my then-limited experiences with group began to be formed. A year and a erature as a basis. Later, we discussed ment, “There are no dues or fees for them. My comments were not gener- half later, the group formally was sepa- and read the Concepts. We studied AA AA membership.” When the chair- ally accepted by the membership. I was rated from the club. We made a deal to Comes of Age. Gradually we began to . person asked for a subject, I said, feeling very isolated and alone but I pay rent and began participating see that our experience was paralleling “Where does the money from your bas- didn’t feel good about just going down through contributions to the service that of our predecessors. It became ket go?” Most of the people there were the street to find another group. Little structure of AA. By this time, the orig- clear that things were clipping along in new, and they didn’t know or seem to by little, they got used to me. Then inal GSR had resigned. I was sccrctary conformity with prior experience of the care where the money went. After the one day, somebody came up to me af- and the group wanted me to be GSR. Fellowship. And people were coming, meeting, a couple of guys came up and ter a meeting, and we started talking. Having already served in that capacity and getting and staying sober. The explained to me that the club was new This man had read about the Tradi- earlier in another area, I wondered newcomers began working with others. 943

We were growing and prospering. We accommodate this. Some members had 240 meetings of this group each perceived this as a threat to unity. month. Others left and started groups else- Then, suddenly, we went the other where or went to other meetings. way. The business meetings began to Over a period of six months, five be attended by members from only one groups emerged from this single group. or two of the meetings; we tried to get One group moved out within a year representatives from each meeting to to another location, dissolved, and attend but were faced with apathy. was reformed several years later. An- Meanwhile, some people wanted other group was viable for about a closed meetings, some wanted format year, then failed when several of the changes for their particular meeting, members moved away and didn’t pro. some resented the lack of intimacy vide for a succession of leadership. which resulted from the sheer size of Three groups survived and remain the many meetings. Some began to healthy, although one of these had a talk about moving to another location. further split over the issue of smoking Concern for newcomers waned as peo- versus nonsmoking. We found out ple got caught up in their grievances. that, although all it takes to start a We began to lose our unity. The club group is “a coffeepot, a resentment, itself, faced with overwhelming and a Big Book,” it takes a lot more growth, had leased additional space in than that to keep one going. the building. This required more and I can see now that all along, the more rent, then paid help and higher forces embodied in our Traditions operating expenses. Many of the listed were at work. How fortuitous that Bill meetings weren’t supported or attend- took it upon himself to gather the coled well; this created problems when lective experience the groups were new people showed up for meetings having during our formative years, that weren’t held. Huge numbers of distill it into the essays on the Tradipeople were being represented by only tions, and then persuade the Fellow- I one GSR at area and district levels, ship of the necessity of adopting these and often it was difficult for the GSR principles. He let us know that we’re to get informed about the conscience not alone in our struggles and that of the group with its divergent nature. there are answers for us in the Fellow- People willing to serve the Fellowship ship’s history and experience. It’s up in general service found few opportu- to us to find the parallels in the colnities. Members of several of the meet- lective AA experience, identify the ings began to clamor for autonomy; solutions that were applied, and apply they wanted to have their own groups. them ourselves. Various business meetings were held to Gary K.,, Lakewood, Colorado

August 1997

One primary purpose F m MnryLmd:

1 have been meaning to write to the Grapevine for a long time and I guess the article “Pass the Tissues, I’ve Got Issues” gave me the motivation to do it. As a recovering a\coholic, who happens to be a gay male, I can’t stress enough the importance of gay special-interest meetings, in addition to non-s~ecialinteresL4eetings. This is Dartcv due to some of the iery issues krouiht up in the article. An important part of my recovery has been the ability to tell my story, unabridged. Due to my own character defects and my perception that there are prejudices in the world, I find this difficult to do at non-special-interestgroups. Tradition Five says, “Each group has but one primary purpose -to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.” I would like to say that this is true at gay as well as nonspecial-interestmeetings that I attend. Jim S .

September 1997

Spotlight On Service our troubles.” It is not for nothing that enough so that I am serviceable the service Step, Step Twelve, comes enough to fill this service position? after eleven other Steps – these How trustworthy am I ? How consiseleven are supposed to make my ego tently do I distinguish between princismaller so that I can serve better. ples and personalities in all of my The Third Step Prayer in the Big affairs? Book says “Relieve me of the bondage If I’m standing for election as a of self, that I may better do Thy will.” leader, I ought to see to the “common ,And the Big Book, in welfare” of a group of treating Steps Eight and Nine, clearly If I want t o AAs, so it is necessary that I know the states the ultimate Twelve Traditions. I Leadership in AA purpose of our program: “At the mo- stand for ought to have experienced how they are ment we are trying to as a being applied. It’s -get our lives in order. even better if I’ve learned to apply them But this is not an end

T he Second Tradition states: “For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -a loving God as He may express Himself in out group conscience. Our leaders If I want to stand for election as a leader, I ought to take an inventory of’ my motives. Do I truly want to be the executive arm of the group conscience? Do I want to serve – or do I want in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and . leader, 1 ought myself, both in my group and in all my affairs. I ought to take an inventory of my the people about us.” knowledge of the are but trusted servants; they do power?Am I searching for status?Do I not govern.” think that a service leader in AA is a Because a leader ought to see to the t o take an Twelve 5aditions. What do I know – From this I deduce that there ought higher class of member than the ordi- “future functioning about the Twelve’ to be leaders in AA; that these leaders ought to consult the group conscience nary members? If my answers aren’t clear, it may be better for me and for and safem” of an AA inventory – of Traditions? Which group (Cbncept IX), . . Traditions have I regularly; that these leaders ought to be trustworthy; and that these leaders AA that I don’t stand for election. , A person’s sobriety does matter ke eight to be’in AA my tives experienced being applied?Which Tralone” enoueh ” to have ought not to be governors, dictators, or but not length in years. (My observa- done as many of the &;ions have I myself prescribers. This brings to mind the tion is that some members who are, Twelve Steps as possible, so that his ego applied consciously! To which Tradiword “good”in the Ninth Concept for say, ten years sober are in fact only one is troubling him minimally, and he has tions does my group not pay enough at- World Seniice: “Good service leaders, year sober, ten times repeated.) What become as serviceable as possible. If I tention?(With what results?)To which together with sound and appropriate really matters is that I’ve used my time want to stand for election as a leader, I Traditions do I not pay enough attenmethods of choosing them, are at all to work on my ego. The book Alco- ought to take an inventory of my prac- tion? (With what results?) levels indispensable for our future func- holics Anonymous says that “selfishness ticing of the Twelve Steps. How much There are degrees of responsibility in tioning and safety.” and’ self-centeredness are the root of have I really worked on my ego?How AA: in the beginning I’m responsible many of the Twelve Steps have I really only for myself and my own sobriety. done consciously? Is my ego small After a while, if I’ve worked sufficient-

Spotlight On Sorulce B ly on my ego, I’m fit to function as a I must remember: enthusiasm is no service leader in my home group. substitute for talent or skills. When I’ve worked in my AA group for If a leader-to-behas asked himself or a while (and my ego hasn’t been mor- herself all the questions above, then tally wounded by criticism), I’m fit to quite possibly he or she may exclaim: function beyond the group level. And “What an order! I can’t go through after I’ve served, it’s good for me to be- with it.” But I keep something in mind come a very ordinary member of my from “How It Works”: “Do not be disgroup once again. couraged. No one among us has been ‘ If I want to stand for election as a able to maintain anything like perfect leader, I ought to take an honest and adherence to these principles. We are humble inventory of my true talents not saints. The point is, that we are versus the talents demanded by such a willing to grow along spiritual . .” service position. For example, the sec- lines. . And so I come to what, for retary of a group must be able to spell me, is the most important characterisand must have overcome procrastina- tic of an AA leader: does he or she tion. The chairperson must know continue to be willing “to grow along something about meeting procedures. spiritual lines”? , A member of the literature committee John C., must know something about printing. Stellenbosch,South Afnca

November 1997

How anonymous? From Las Vegas, Nevada:

Today I came home to a menage on my answering machine from a member of our Fellowship from Indiana. He was in town and wanted’ information on meetings. He left his hotel, room number, and name AA style: first name, last initial. I knew this was trouble but I called the hotel anyway. The switchboard operator said, “I’m sorry, sir, but if you don’t have the full name I can’t put you through.” Anonymity may be AA’s Twelfth Tradition but last names are rule one at most hotels in Las Vegas. So if you’re coming to Vegas and need a meeting I’ll be here for you. But you’ll have to tell me your last name. Kevin D.