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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – CENTRAL OFFICES AND INTERGROUPS Central Offices Intergroups – RS 06310.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-central-offices-and-intergroups-central-offices-intergroups-rs-06310.mp3 Duration: 01:29:39
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Perhaps we could begin one of these first meetings of the 50th anniversary international convention with a moment of silence in gratitude for the AA recoveries of the past 50 years. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level.
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and film. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker or indeed any AA member be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us.
And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personality. And this, of course, is an important issue for central offices to keep in mind as well. So it's appropriate that we read that this morning. I have not received any announcements this morning. It may interest you to know that at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, the registration was at 42,500. So I'm sure it's reasonable to assume that it's up to 45,000 by this time.
The tapes of this meeting are available at the tape sales booth in the convention center. I also see a tape sales booth out here, so I assume that you can order them there. This, as you know, is the central office workshop, and we've tried to put together a meaningful program for you here this morning. Our first speaker is a man who I've known for many years from the Toronto area. And the Toronto Intergroup was there long before the service structure, the general service structure.
And the efforts of this man, in my opinion, has bridged the gap between those two AA service entities. And we've asked him to share with you about that this morning. Will you help me welcome Tom H. from Toronto? Good morning. I am Tommy, I'm an alcoholic, and I belong to the Unionville group. I'm an alcoholic by my own admission, and my wife's admission, my mother-in-law's admission, my psychiatrist's admission.
I know it doesn't really make that much difference, unless you admit it yourself, but some of us have more confirmations than others. But I want to thank Betty and Sarah and Bob and all the people who've made it possible for this thing to go on. The magnitude of it is really fantastic, and I know that you all agree with me. I don't know whether you ever thought about it or not, but with those numbers that Betty was talking about, we must have about a third of the numbers here that were in, of the 150,000 that were in AA when I came here in 1956.
So that's, you know, really fantastic. When I talk about that, I guess I'm talking about my sobriety. I've been sober. I ended up here a few minutes ago for 29 years, 5 months, and 28 days. That probably makes me an old-timer. I don't like that term. I know what the definition is. I come from Toronto, and that means that you'll come 300 miles to speak, but you won't go around the corner to listen. Another thing is that, you know, it just means you're getting old, and, you know, to get an old-timer in AA, all you do is don't drink and don't die, and I'm a little sensitive about my age.
I was talking to my wife at my last birthday, and I said, I don't think I look 65, do I? And she said, no, you don't, but you used to. As far as this 65 thing is concerned, you know, I'm just getting used to the discount. And I took my dog to the veterinarian the other day, and I said, do you have discounts
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for 65-year-olds? He said, yeah, is your dog 65? Anyway, the reason they've got me up here, you know, is it's early in the morning, for one thing, and it's nice to see so many of you out here at this hour. Of course, AA people, you can't tell what the hell they're going to do, getting up early in the morning or staying up late at night. I guess it really doesn't make that much difference. But as far as this general service business is concerned and intergroup, I have been involved in both of those fully, and about half was almost entirely with the intergroup.
And when I say that, I'll mention more about that as I go along. And the last half has been, you know, directly with the general service structure. So I have knowledge about these problems that exist. And down our way, it's area 83, and I'm from Toronto, it's in the eastern Ontario area. It has been sensitive as far as an issue is concerned right in Toronto. As AA in Canada started in Toronto back, I guess the date was the first meeting was January the 13th, 1943.
Now I wasn't there at that one. But we had a central committee office that they called it at that time, start in 1947. And it goes back as far as that. Now as I think most of you are aware here, the first general service conference was in 1951, in April of 1951. Now Bill Wilson came to Toronto in March of 1951 to attend our Ontario Regional Conference. And they called it that at that time. And they had people attending there from New York State, Pennsylvania, and of course all over Ontario.
And he was promoting, if that's the right word, his idea of the conference. And it went across well in Toronto at the time. And it was accepted by all the people there. Now the first delegate in Toronto was a chap by the name of Adam Capeling, Panel 1, a very fine chap. And of course he's passed on, I wouldn't have mentioned his name. He was fully behind this idea of the general service conference.
And he helped tremendously to put it on around Toronto. However, there was a problem because some of the hard heads or hard hats or whatever you want to call them down that way, really couldn't see the idea that, okay, they had a central committee already established. It was functioning okay. And so they thought that really there wasn't any necessity for having the two kinds of service function. In spite of that, Adam pushed the idea and he did a really good job while he was delegate.
He was made the first Canadian trustee in 1953. And he worked at it so hard, I guess, and he had a job at the same time. He died of a heart attack in those next few years before he finished out his term. However, that was the beginning of the service in our area. In 1957, they changed the name to Toronto Intergroup and they established what they call an operating committee and they had new procedures that exist right up until now in almost the same way that they did at that time.
Now I came into AAA in 1956 and almost right from the beginning, I was kind of involved in both of these things. And when I talk about myself here, as far as my involvement is concerned, it's merely to indicate how this thing built up. In the beginning there, I belonged to some service groups where we went to the prisons down around Kingston. And we have probably the largest group of prisons that close together there anywhere in the North American continent.
There may be one other spot, but there are a great number of them. Anyway, this was handled by the general service structure. And I went down there because I was asked to and that was about the only reason. Also in Toronto, I went to meetings there that were handled by Toronto Intergroup at the mental hospitals. And so there you can see almost right from the beginning, my ambivalence as far as the two ideas were concerned.
It didn't matter to me at all. And there were other people, the same as myself, to whom it didn't make any difference at all.
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We were there to carry the message and that was it and to do the thing that we were asked to do. And of course, I think really that's what most of us are concerned with. And so it seems kind of silly that these sort of ideas have developed over the time where there is a kind of a competition or something between the two. And I got involved, there were a number of things that the two groups were involved in at that time.
So you would hardly think that this kind of thing could develop the way that it did. For instance, our regional conference had a combined group that looked after the conference and the meetings there. And it was conducted by the other areas in the province, the members from the general service, but it was mostly administered by Toronto Intergroup. So there got to be a feeling there that the thing should be handled more by Toronto Intergroup and probably it should be to a degree.
But nevertheless, there was still this idea of the two different structures being involved and yet they weren't coming that much closer together. In 1965, we had the International Convention. And again, there should have been that closeness developed. At that time, we had somewhere around 13,000 in attendance and we thought that was fantastic. And here we are talking to coming close to 50,000 here in 1985.
Again, you would have thought there would have been this closeness developed, but it didn't seem to be. And there seemed to be this kind of perception growing there that there was a difference. And I don't know whether you've heard that story about perceptions or not, about the alcoholic who went to see a psychiatrist and geez, he wasn't doing very good with him. And I guess after a while, he wasn't doing very good with a psychiatrist either.
So the psychiatrist thought he should have a test and he had a blackboard up there and he drew a vertical line. He said, what do you see? He said, I see a sexy looking girl standing up. So then he drew a right angle. What do you see there? I see a sexy looking girl bending over. Oh, horizontal line. What do you see there? I see a sexy looking girl lying down. Well, the psychiatrist says, I have no difficulty in diagnosing your case.
You're a sex maniac. Guy says, sex maniac? You're the one drawing the dirty pictures. Now, there's two perceptions. I don't want to tie the perceptions into that, but nevertheless, there were these perceptions developing between the general service and, you know, Integrum and it was still going on and there didn't seem to be any real resolution to it. I think I mentioned that about this time, like, I got involved in the general service structure directly.
And so we began to get extremely concerned about what was happening there in Toronto with the Toronto Integrum because they didn't seem to want to get involved in the general service part of it at all. In spite of the fact that there were a couple of delegates and trustees who became very much involved down here at New York, we had Pete W., for one, as a trustee, and there were several other delegates who took a great deal of interest in the structure.
And still, it didn't seem to work out too well. One of these people had the close connections, I suppose, with Toronto. I don't think there was only one of them that actually lived in Toronto in those later years. I think there have been eight people, eight delegates that have come out of our area since 1951 from Toronto, and of course that takes up the 16 years, but most of them were right at the very beginning.
As the years went by, they gradually started to come from the other parts of our area in the province of Ontario. So we began to take a hard look at it to try to think of what could be a solution to this problem to get the two working closer together. And so at one of the area assemblies that we had, several of us got together, talking about this directly, and we thought that it might be an idea if we could get the two principal groups together in the city in some manner.
And so we decided to…
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want to call it a workshop because that seemed to create problems merely by the name. We didn't want to call it any kind of service name because that involved one side of the issue that we were trying to resolve and we didn't want to use any other term intergroup so we said it would be Information AA. And the idea of calling it Information AA was to indicate that we were going to provide information about all the services that were provided in any fashion whatsoever around the City of Toronto. At that time we had just redistricted and we had six districts covering the metropolitan Toronto area and of course there's one intergroup. Now those six districts, of them only one is completely in the in the city itself and surrounded by metropolitan Toronto. The other five extend further out into the into the province. Some of them go as far as 60-70 miles out. So consequently as far as any service structures that they developed within their own districts, they had reason to have the various committees and they had work for them to do. Now the one of course had problems because they had people in there who thought they were going to do the same kinds of things as intergroup and I know what our AA service manual says and I would try to tell each of these districts that this is the situation. And nevertheless they try some of them who become overzealous and so on want to persist in carrying out duties that are really carried on by the intergroup. And of course when we talk about that intergroup, they would go back and tell us that this thing had commenced prior to there ever being any kind of general service structure which had developed in 51 and they had commenced it in 47 and so on. In spite of all the years that have gone by, this sort of thing was still coming up. So as far as our information AA day was concerned, we started out very slowly and it began by my having lunch with the operating committee chairman.
Now the chairman there changed every six months. So I have made a point each time that those people have changed over, we have lunch together and we talk about the issues and the problems and the resolutions possibly that we might have. At that time we got together and we discussed about having a meeting with their operating committee which consists of nine people and our six DCMs representing the six districts. We got them together and it was amazing. Here I guess the real problem when you get down to it with most of the things that we have difficulties with in Alcoholics Anonymous is strictly communications.
It's just getting together and talking with somebody else about the difficulties that we see from our side. All you have to do is a little listening to find out what the problems are as the others see them. Now when I say this it sounds very simple and you know just as well as I do it isn't that simple. But nevertheless it started to grow from just that very little little bit and we I guess we started talking about it in 78 and 79. We finally had the first information a day meeting in 1980. We had the sixth one that we held this year. We had about 800 people buy tickets and we three dollars a ticket. Nevertheless it was you know about the biggest service meeting around that we have ever had. The way that it runs is that we try to get somebody from the central office here and or not the central office from GSO in New York or someone who has just left from there to come and speak to us. We have a the delegate who has just come back from the April conference. We try to get that person to come back and give a report just about as soon as he can. We have those two things as the main issues. But from there on as far as the other things that we have take place it's handled 50-50 one for one. The one person that's a represents general service and one that represents intergroup and it has to be exactly that. We we fit that together as a program and that seems to have a bunch functioned extremely well.
Now we have a number of other things that we have developed as well as that particular day over this last six or seven years. That began as I said we talked about it first of all in 78 and 79. Now as far as that conference that I
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mentioned to you before the Ontario regional conference what happened with it was there had been this kind of getting together and the way that that work was that the Toronto intergroup presented a name or names to the as we call it the the Ontario committee and they would choose the person who was to be the follow-up chairperson who would take over as the chairperson on the next year. Now they had not got together to talk about this kind of thing at all it was merely a case of putting names forward. So of course again there began to develop this feeling that perhaps the you know the proper names weren't coming in why shouldn't others come in and so on. So again very simply all we decided to do was to have people get together the people from the the operating committee and the Ontario committee with Ontario Provincial Committee get together the night before the conference takes place and sit down and talk just as simply as that. That seemed to resolve all kinds of problems right there. We also have got an archives committee going. That archives committee consists of the provincial committee representatives or from and from the area it's always somebody from the the immediate area there and of course from the intergroup and we have like people who have all kinds of sobriety. Now it's surprising when we develop that committee some of these people that are on that archives committee are people who go back many years longer than my period of time and it's surprising about the attitudes that they had and you know there are those people who go back to those very early days prior to the to the 51 and by getting them together and talking about the this kind of thing through archives it's surprising how that has changed some of those attitudes which spread back through them and the people that they know. So there there have been changes there. Our archives committee is going extremely well we're getting all kinds of things going there. We have a display at our central office in the City of Toronto. That display now is contains material from the whole province of Ontario and it's if anybody's down that way to go up there to 272 I think it's worthwhile. It's not anything like what there is at the office in New York at the General Service Office. Nevertheless it's it's it's quite a collection that we've managed to put together. Then we managed in 1982 to get the 60 CMs and the operating committee from Toronto these people that change every six months we now have them get together on a regular basis about three to four times a year. So that is the has been the final development that took place I guess in 1982. We've had ten meetings with them.
We've had 20 meetings with the archives people, ten meetings with the the regional conference people and we've had six of course information AA days. Now when I say six for them there it takes all kinds of meetings of course to get the thing together but you've got those people getting together all the time talking about their their various difficulties and that has helped us down our way just tremendously. Now it isn't totally resolved by any means I'm sure that you're aware of that we people in AA don't resolve things that simply about anything but nevertheless there has been a tremendous improvement but we have made this concentrated effort to attempt to improve the situation by doing these kinds of things. They're simple it's just a matter of communicating and Betty told me I was only to have 20 to 25 minutes here she first of all said 15 to 20 I see that I'm carrying on I usually do I like to talk anyway but I hope I've said the the right things here we don't always say the right things I have a story about that too these kind of corny stories of mine but they illustrate things to me about the drunk that got on the on the bus and boy he left a mess and he had he smelt bad he had lipstick on his collar and anyway got on there and he sat down beside a priest and started to read his newspaper and as they traveled along on the bus he finally said to the good father he said what causes arthritis and I guess the good father thought here was an opportunity to do a little missionary work so he said well he said drinking to
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excess running around with loose women smoking cigarettes staying up late not eating properly that's what causes arthritis the guy says oh and goes back to reading his paper and on they go it's a long journey and finally the poor old priest I guess he thought he'd been too rough on this chap and he said young man he said I'm sorry that you have arthritis and the fellow said the drunk said geez he said I haven't got arthritis I was just reading the paper here I see if the Pope has arthritis anyway I hope I've said the right thing not like the priest this morning so thank you very much for listening and it's been interesting to us down our way as to the resolution of this and I say the resolution you know an improvement on the kind of problem that has existed thank you very much thank you very much Tom I'd like to share with you that I've had the privilege to participate in an information AA day in Toronto and it is a tremendously effective tool in bridging this gap I mean in the workshops for public information or CPC or whatever the service particular service effort is they had the central office person and the general service person and as Tom has pointed out the big thing is that we continue to talk to each other about these things I worked in the advertising business that's that's what made me a drunk and there was there was a fellow in one of the one of the ad agencies I worked for used to say repetition is reputation and and I think that's true about communicating in AA we just have to keep on doing it so thank you very very much our next speaker is certainly a friend of mine for many many many years and he must have found a way to bridge this gap because I met this man when he was a delegate from Southern California to the General Service Conference in 1971 for 72 and he went on in his AA life and in his service life to become the manager of the Los Angeles central office and he was a past delegate to the General Service Conference and I know he has a lot to share with us about a day in the life of a central office with all its problems and all its joys and all its results so will you help me welcome Dave well my name is David I'm an alcoholic and a wino it's good to be here this morning and I tell you I'd rather be standing up here this morning telling you about how the miracle of AA has worked in my life and in such a sound a subject a business subject such as this but I also would hope that it's just too bad that we don't have the forum to talk to all the rest of those 45,000 people that we have out here today because some of the things that involved this subject of the central office is really affects AA on a daily basis it not only has it affect us in the past but it will also affect AA in the future I'm a product of Alcoholics Anonymous when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I came here October the 22nd 1965 and when I got here the only thing that I had was a shirt a pair of pants and a pair of shoes with a hole in it and no hope and I walked up with a skid row in Los Angeles and I walked into a central office the one fact that you people has kept your word you said you didn't care who I was where I come from or what I had done and you have allowed me to be a delegate to the General Service Office and and also you now allow me to run your central office in Los Angeles which I have done for the last nine years so I am very grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous and also to the trust that you have given me what I did when Betty asked me to to make this presentation was in our area we have
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four other ones that are now in the stage of just starting or just struggling along. And I sent out a request to each one of these to contribute information to me that I could pass on to you. And I've tried to combine that information into these things that I will be talking to you about today. Some of the responsibilities of a central office or intergroup is accountability and being responsible for all the funds coming into a central office.
Now a central office of our size, we have four permanent staff members, we have two part-time people, we have people on the telephone within the office 24 hours a day, plus we also have, the office is open seven days a week from eight in the morning to eight at night during the week and on the weekends from nine to five. So to have an operation this requires a considerable amount of money. We supply the literature for approximately, well in excess of 1,500 groups in our local area.
Of course those other central offices that I'm talking about, some of them are just over the hill from us. So the central offices do a tremendous job of distributing literature that we receive from New York. So there is a lot of money involved and there is a lot of responsibility. And we, you know, we're responsible for the maintenance of all the records and the ledgers necessary for the legal and financial reports.
And over the, since this past year, I, in the California area, I sometimes think that maybe we should have took the attitude that one of the presidents of the United States thought he should have in retrospect and burn all of our records. Because one of the things that we're facing, now I'm here today, I hate to be a heavy, but I'm going to tell you that we have some problems, at least in California, and it would behoove me to, it would be that I tell you that of these problems, because you're the only people that can really help us solve them.
In the Los Angeles, California area, all of a sudden, after this office has been in existence for about 43 years, the State Board of Equalization came along and said, look, we, you owe us sales tax on everything that you have sold, all the literature. And we've been trying to resolve this thing for over a year, and it doesn't look good for us. And this will eventually, as far as, if they should happen to go through on this and there's no way that we can resolve it with the state, it will literally bankrupt the central offices in our areas.
So you know, I mean, we're here, we have 50,000 or 45,000 or 50,000 people, we're all up, we're positive about it, but we have real problems. And we should address those problems and the only way that we can inform you is to stand up here and tell you about them. I tell you, I hate to be negative because the AA program itself is nothing negative about it. But I do know from the experience the only way these things are resolved is when they brought out into the open.
Some of the other responsibilities is to provide all correspondence that is requested by intergroup, it's officers and committees. Central office has also received requests for correspondence from overseas, from the individual members, so it's a tremendous job that is involved within central office. There's also responsible for the mailing and the distribution of our daily news, I mean monthly newsletters and of the various reports to the secretary.
We try to give the financial report and a report on the operation to all of our secretaries every month. And incidentally, talking about responsibility, we exchange newsletters with nearly all of the central offices around the country. And if you happen to be here and have a newsletter and are not receiving ours, please write us and we will be glad to exchange it with you. But in reading these newsletters, I see that a lot of our central offices and intergroups are having a variation in financial problems.
I've seen some of them that are in such bad financial shape that there's a good
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possibility, unless the fellowship rises to the occasion, that they may fail. Also as an executive secretary of the Los Angeles central office anyway, I attend all business meetings and intergroup meetings so that I can be aware of what is happening. I attend the area assemblies so that we can establish a better understanding and communication. It's the responsibility of the secretary of the office to administer the smooth operation of a central office, and that includes ordering and maintaining a full inventory of approved AA literature.
That's a big job. Within our office, we maintain about $26,000 to $30,000 worth of literature. We process over to our office anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 a month, publishing a meeting directory. Of course, all of these things are relative to the size of operation that you have. In our particular case, we have a meeting directory that has about 2,300 groups listed in it, and as you know, groups are always shifting and changing and time-changing and name-changing, and sometimes I'd like to give my own name to them, but we're there to serve.
That is the purpose of a central office. We are out there to establish policy or to do anything else except to be of service to you. And maintaining a directory as accurate as we can of the meetings that are within the area is one of our primary responsibilities. And then maintaining a listing in the telephone directory, serve as a communication center for local groups and keeping them informed about the activities.
And also keeping those phones open and seeing that the requests that come over those phones are properly answered and with adequate and proper information. We maintain a 12-step list, and we are very fortunate. We have a few years ago found a need. We have over 5,000 12-step workers in our bank, people who are available that we can call when someone calls in and wants help. And the only way that we do that, we continually ask for 12-step workers, and we don't have the response that we used to have at one time.
And I see that in some of the publications that I'm getting from other areas. Some of them are really calling out for people to be on their list to make 12-step calls. So I would suggest that when you go back to your areas, and I know all of you people wouldn't be here today unless you were interested in this operation, or unless I asked you to be here so I made sure that I had at least two or three of you.
And we get all kinds of calls, and we have to train and supervise volunteers, and that is also a real necessity to make sure that the information that goes out is the information about Alcoholics Anonymous and not some other type of a treatment facility. A lot of times, and nowadays, we have so much going on in the field of alcoholism that even some of our dedicated members get confused, and they don't realize the difference at times unless they really stop and think about what is Alcoholics Anonymous and what is alcoholism.
And there is a definite difference, and it's a basic difference that makes all the world to the new person coming in and his ability to see this program as it really is. We get all kinds of calls for information. Where can we buy bumper stickers and chips? And that sometimes takes up a lot of time that we should be spending for other areas, but in our office, we don't supply any of those things. Our Central Service Committee has determined that our office is there for the purpose of distributing AA literature that is conference-approved and some of the stuff that we print that deals
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with our local area. So the only thing that we have in our office is AA-approved literature. That way, when a newcomer comes in and wants something, he doesn't get confused about what is AA and what is not. Another question, where can my husband go for detox? Now these are all questions that come up, and we have to address them, and we do the best we can. Where is your next class? These people going through these various treatment centers, they don't really know, they don't really have a real understanding of an AA group.
So they call us up and ask about, and how does my friend stop drinking? And how do I stop drinking? We don't have many of these anymore, unfortunately. And come or send someone to take my drunken boyfriend away. We have a lot of those. And I'm doing a paper on the evil of booze on teens for schools. Can you answer my questions? And that is what a lot, now that is a thing, believe it or not, can really take up a lot of time, because you have these young people that are interested in, they may have trouble at home, or their teachers have given an assignment, they tell you, call AA.
And we do our very best to answer those questions, because you never know how they may influence someone that has a real problem. And hey, there's an anonymity break, and man do I get a lot of those. I'll have AA members call up and say, what are you going to do about this? And I try to be tactful and explain to them what we can and cannot do, and that usually is never enough, because you have an angry AA member and they don't listen.
And a member calls from a distant city and they have all kinds of requests, sometimes they want to make sure that AA is in your city, sometimes they want to just have you see if you can locate somebody that they have lost during the last twenty years, and all of these questions, but they're all requests for information, they're all important to those particular people they're calling at that time. And so that's one of the things that we do.
We are, and I'm very thankful to those members of Alcoholics Anonymous that are dedicated and give their time and help us out in these offices. And, you know, during all these telephone calls that I've just been talking about, we have visitors to the office from other countries and local members in other cities, and we're always glad to see that. On the West Coast we've got a lot of people from Australia, in fact I see my good friend Father Dan back there, and we have people from New Zealand and from China, from Singapore, and from Japan, and from all over the world, India, and they share their experience, strength and hope with us, and that's some of the rewards of working in this office.
And to see the miracle of AA, how that it has really spread over the world. We get calls for speakers from various non-AA, and for people who want us to talk at their particular facility, at fairs, and so on and so forth, and we, in our particular office and intergroup, we have our own public information that has been very active, we have professionals that participate in these activities, that deal with the professional community, with the movie and TV industry, and they know what they're doing.
And as long as the individual members will use that facility, we don't run into any trouble. But from time to time we have people that go out on their own, and then we have all kinds of problems. And then we have, and we're saying, while all of this is going on, we have members arriving to buy literature, members giving us the name of group changes, new addresses, and also their group contributions, thank God, and their personal contributions, we have to issue receipts for those, so as I said earlier, dealing with taxes and bookkeeping.
And in our particular case, we have a newsletter that we are very proud of.
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We have to see that that newsletter is, the mailing is properly done. We have volunteers that, and one of our people that is here today that heads up a staff of volunteers that come in once or twice a month or whatever is necessary. They sort them, they letter stuff them, bag them, and send them out to the post office in the way that the post office requires us to do this. And their contribution monetarily to our particular operation is anywhere from $500 to $600 a month that it saves us maybe a thousand at times that they save us in postage.
And this particular group has been doing this now for nine years. And we are very grateful for that. Otherwise we could not set up that line of communications that we presently have. There are also questions about H&I. We, our central office does not handle the H&I meetings. They are a separate entity, so, but we are the center of communications. So we, people call to us and ask us how they can get in contact with the H&I.
We have to deal with printers and contracts with them and see that we get the best, the price that we can. We charge letters to all the groups that we have names of secretaries on. We service about, right in the immediate area of the Los Angeles County, we have between 1,400 and 1,500 groups, and any of those groups are eligible to charge literature to our office providing we have the group name, their address, at least one of their officers.
And from time to time, as an AA, we do have problems, but not very much really. And we have to send out a done letter to them asking them to pay their bill. But it's really amazing and very gratifying to see how well our people are responsible in that area. We never have too much trouble. And we're frequently getting contact, as I earlier said, with the press and TV media. We supply cooperation with them to see that they get the proper information.
We have a large number of roundup and conventions in the Southern California area and neighboring states. And we send out flyers to our groups to all of those people. I'm always getting questions about AA's traditions and AA meetings. We are having a lot of that now in the Los Angeles area. And it's my policy that I never, never give my own opinion whenever I'm expressing, when I'm called about a tradition break or something that is bothering one particular type of group.
I've tried to make myself familiar enough with the AA literature, the philosophy of AA, and where it's found that I refer the individual asking these questions to that particular literature. And I do it for two reasons. One is that I'm not a know-it-all. And sometimes my opinions are jaded, and I know that. And so I try to let them read where it really is found. And I'm a firm believer in the group conscience.
So if you're given a forum group conscience, I believe that they have an opportunity to discuss this with their group if they have some reference to it. We provide information of all type, hopefully that the new elected secretary will read. We make up a secretary's kit and send out to them. It's quite an extensive kit. How many of them read it, I don't know, but at least we make the effort to do so.
One of the things that the central office has to do is continually encourage the groups to contribute to our local central office. And right at the present, our central office is in the black. But I am making a survey of the contributions from the groups that we serve. You know, we have less than a third of them that run our office. And our budget, the amount of cash flow through our office to run it is between $350,000 to $400,000 a year.
So that's a lot of money, and we don't waste any of it. Believe me, I'm talking about the cash flow. That's what it costs to run it.
[00:50:01]
And yet we have less than a third of the groups that are presently supporting that operation. All of them use the service. So the attitude is, I guess, that, you know, let somebody else do it. But we can only do so much in that area, and that is, I said, I'm the heavy here today, and I guess I'm built for the job, physically, but not always spiritually, believe me. And we have questions concerning incorrect information given to hospitals and drunk driving schools.
You know, so often we have well-intending A.A. members or people that just really doesn't know. They're running into these treatment centers and drunk driving schools, giving out information about A.A. that we're not involved in with all. And these people, these professionals out there, and sometimes they're A.A. members that are doing this, that are working for these facilities. And then we have to take the blunt of it by people calling us with misunderstandings and misinformation and expecting us to do things that are not in the realm of our program of Alcoholics Anonymous, of the things that we're supposed to be doing.
Some areas of concern. Workshops for secretaries have not been successfully getting any attendance. We had had secretary meetings here about eight years ago, and they got down to absolutely nothing. Nobody was showing up, so we had to do it. And although I know that there are other offices now that try to do it, my understanding is that they are having the same problem. The problem is getting attendance at intergroup meetings.
You know, our representation at intergroup meetings sometimes are about the representation here today with the 40,000 people we have. It's very difficult, and we try to make it attractive and be informative and not be negative, but we just have not been able to attain that. And we also have become the dumping grounds for the court systems and others. They are sending everyone to us who are having a problem, and not only alcoholics.
And this terrific influx of court cards, clients, treatment facility, patients, to group meetings causes a great financial stress on some of our groups due to the fact that these people do not give to the Seventh Tradition, and therefore some of these meetings are no longer self-supporting. And the reason for that is rent for the meeting places are greatly increased. You know, since we have gotten so big, and so many people know about us, and we are an image of attraction, the facilities that have been renting those to us do not look at us in the same light.
And they have increased the rent. Some of our groups are paying as high as $600 and $700 a month for rent. So these are restricting our ability to find places to meet. And all of that reflects back onto the central office. In some cases, liability insurance has been required. And that is also a strain on the group funds. And then when we get so many people there that are not there necessarily for their drinking problem, the founding members leave the groups because they can no longer find a fellowship that they require for their program.
So when you get the people, the old-timers who know how to stay sober, leave your group. I don't know about you, but when I have come to understand about Alcoholics Anonymous, that I had to learn how not to drink. I had to learn how to stay sober. My higher power gave me the grace to have the compulsion taken away with me, but I had to find out how to stay sober. In most cases, chemical dependency is indoctrination disease on alcoholism of the patients coming out of treatment centers and hospitals.
And the strength of AA is single-mindedness. The mission of AA is freedom from alcohol through the teachings and the practice of the Twelve Steps. So you say, what does this have to do with the operation of a central office? This has a great deal to do with the operation of a central office because we are the people that get the backlog of all these things that are coming in, all the frustrations of the individual AA member, all the frustrations of the individual that is trying to find a way to go.
There's another area of concern for me. The financial guidelines for finances out of GSO are being developed
[00:55:01]
without input from the central office or intergroup. Never once, since I've been in the central office, whenever financial guidelines have been developed, has ever the central office or intergroup been contacted for an input on these particular things. Local general service assemblies and area committees are developing programs for local service that in most cases are already in existence and being conducted by the local central office or intergroup.
In our area, we have a well-established PI and CPC committee and the local level, the central office. And all of a sudden, we are also having the area assembly developing a PI and CPC committee. And that is developed into all kinds of concerns and duplications and misinformation. And even though that is pointed out in the service manual that if these things are already being done by a local entity, that we should not be duplications.
We are in communication with the area assembly. We have always had good communications with them. But there is a concern here. The thing that concerns me most is the increasing lack of interest and support for the central office and intergroup at the same time the increasing demands for service of all kinds from them. And that is a real concern. And another thing is without adequate volunteers, the job of answering phones, counting literature, is left to the staff who can ill afford the time with all the other demands that are made upon them.
We are having a group of PI. We do not get the same type of enthusiasm in the volunteers that we once had five or six or nine years ago. So I don't know what we have got to do with that. We have tried in every way that we know how to say that you have to realize that service is part of our growth and part of our spiritual heritage, that we have to learn how to give and not to get. And we are not having that because, I don't know, maybe it is where we are getting the majority of our AA members from these days.
And will central office and intergroup survive the changing face of AA? We can if we bring these concerns out in the open where they are discussed. And that is why I am doing this today. I may never be able to ask to speak at another AA. But I felt enough obligation and a love for this program that I needed to bring these things out into some forum and hopefully to have it discussed at all areas in our fellowship.
I am sure none of these troublesome thoughts are unique. I would like to see a renewal of dedication in all areas of service in Alcoholics Anonymous for us to remember where we came from and when we are giving thanks for our sobriety that we give thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous and to some other entities. You know, I have been at AA meetings to speak and I have heard people get up and take birthday cakes and never once they thank their sponsor, they thank the facility that they got their sobriety at, never once hear them thank Alcoholics Anonymous.
Never once. And that is all too frequent now. So I am merely expressing these areas of concern. But I am sure that if we have lasted 50 years and we talk about these things and we continue to have the spirit that is exhibited here today, that all of these things are just things that need to be taken to be solved. And if we can get off a skid row and stand at a convention like this, it will be all right. Thank you.
Thank you. There are a lot of problems in running a central office, but there are also results, and our last speaker is a friend of mine from New York area.
[01:00:01]
Last night I heard enthusiasm defined through its Greek roots, meaning in God, and she demonstrates that. Let me introduce Peggy. Thank you, Betty. Hello. Oh, don't go. Don't go. Good morning. My name is Peggy Byrne. I'm an alcoholic. And you can be assured, David, I thank Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, I think that a long time ago, I must have done something nice, you know, maybe when I was 10 years old, and I was rewarded with this disease. I really believe that.
Of course, I didn't know that 12 years ago. I'm class of 73. It was a very good year in New York for alcoholics. But I came into the program as a result of a visit to a doctor three months prior to my first meeting, and I found out I had cirrhosis of the liver. And that was a very heavy number for someone like me. I had never had a bad cold. And the reason I went to this doctor was because I was not eating, and I was feeling terrible, but I think primarily vanity saved me.
I wasn't looking good. I was starting to look… I had these little things under my eyes, little lumps under my eyes. And I wasn't eating any food, and I was becoming very strangely shaped. And I'll tell you, I really didn't think it had anything to do with the fact that I was… most of what I considered nutrition was alcohol. And I, like Betty, worked in advertising, and everyone was drinking. In fact, I could always compare. You see, they were all drinking more than I was. And how would I know that I had… I mean, how could I possibly have a problem? I mean, I went to work. I showed up every day. I was there. I wasn't in very good shape, but you could count on me to be there.
And a lot of things happened. I'm not going to go into a drunkologue, but a lot of things happened in my life to lend credence to my drinking, to allow me to drink. I had a failed marriage. I had quite a stressful job. In fact, I was mentioning to some friends this week that as my alcoholism was just soaring in one direction, my professional life was also… I mean, I kept getting promotions, and I kept thinking, why don't these people leave me alone? I mean, I needed rest.
But you see, people out there don't know. They don't really know. And thank God, in my case, I had a lot of years of unalcoholic drinking. And when I passed that line, of course, I raced over it. And I assume everyone knows what passing over that invisible line is, where you go over the line, never to return from social to… From alcoholic drinking, you can never get back to social drinking. But anyhow, after my marriage failed and I divorced, I met a gentleman, and one night I said to him, do you think I could possibly have a problem with alcohol?
And he didn't fall off the chair and say, no. He said, you know, I think you may have, but I'll tell you something. I work with a number of people that belong to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, he worked for a very large newspaper in New York City, and I said, what? You know, aghast. And he said, yes, they do. And he says, they have lots of literature. He said, I'll get you some. And I… Well, he gave me that literature. And I hid it in the bottom of a dresser drawer. And it was there, before I picked it up, it was there at least a year, over a year. But every time I went near that drawer, my hand would burn. Believe me. Anywhere near it, I mean, it had rays, but I didn't throw it away. I kept it.
And it was a number 10 envelope. In fact, I still have it, and it has his name on the front of it. Now, I went… Now, I'm speeding along, of course, and I see this doc… I was always going to doctors, and doctors were always willing to prescribe lots of Valium. And at that time, of course, the big thing was Miltown. It wasn't very strong, and you could take lots of it, and you could drink with it. I mean, we all drank with it. I mean, everyone I worked with was taking Miltown in the morning and having, you know, four martinis for lunch.
[01:05:11]
But doctors never really asked me what I drank. And I didn't tell them, because I didn't really think, you know, that… In fact, I was… Even at the time, I was seeing a psychiatrist. And when I decided to tell him that I was concerned about my drinking, he said, listen, if you're an alcoholic, I won't be able to treat you. Do you know what I did? I never told him again. We just never discussed it.
Because I thought… See, I really thought that this man could help me. I mean, I believe that if I would have sit there, he'd be able to see through me. I mean, I didn't know anything about sharing, believe me. I mean, I think I… Even in the beginning of the… My first months in the program, I was so mocus that if I heard the word share, I would not have known what it meant. I mean, I was brought up not to share anything. You don't do that.
I mean, you share things, of course, but you never share… There was no such thing as sharing feelings. I mean, if you were feeling wonderful, you told people, but if you weren't, you didn't tell anybody. Certainly nothing negative or anything that would depress anyone, because when you left, the world left with you. When you cried, you cried alone. And I was the product of that kind of upbringing.
So, I really didn't have anything to say in therapy either. Anyhow, I had to find someone that was going to help me. And again, I keep stressing that. I didn't know it had anything to do with what I was drinking. Every now and then, a fleeting thought would come, well, maybe if I didn't drink. But I really didn't have any choice, you see. I really didn't. Well, I went to this one doctor in December of 1972, two weeks before Christmas, and I decided to tell her the truth. And I said, doctor, I drink quite a bit. I thought because she was a young woman and she was new out of medical school, I don't know why I thought she had a fresh point of view and she would be able to tell me. And she said, oh, I'm sure you don't.
I said, yes, I drink quite a bit. She said, well, what is quite a bit? So, I lied. I said, about a quarter of a bottle, maybe. Now, of course, it was more than that. But of course, I didn't have to count what I was drinking, because when you're ordering drinks at lunchtime and then in the evening, and I knew that I bought all my alcohol by the cab. I never ran out of alcohol. I never ran out of alcohol or cigarettes, ever.
I wouldn't. I'd run out of milk and food, but never, you know, those two vital things. I asked her to give me a test. I had read an article about how they really can test for alcoholism. If there's any damage to the body, it had nothing to do with alcoholism, the article. Anyway, it was something about how they test the liver, and I asked her to give me this liver function test, and she said, well, no one's ever asked me for a liver function test. Well, I got one, and guess what? I had cirrhosis. Cirrhosis of the liver. Me. You know. I mean, I wasn't on the Bowery. That happened to people down on Houston Street and Broadway. Not, you know, not to someone like me.
And I was very, very frightened, and I tried now for the next three months to drink away the fear of death, and it didn't work. It absolutely didn't work. In fact, now I couldn't even, I couldn't even get a buzz. Nothing was happening, and before this, alcohol, up until that point, always cured all ills. I mean, I had, I suffered from tremendous anxiety attacks, but alcohol, alcohol would turn off the switch for me.
It really would. That first drink of the day would actually, from this body that would be motorized, it would just calm it down. Now, my friend wasn't working. It wasn't. I was as anxiety-ridden after three drinks as I was with Son, and I didn't know what to do. And I was always stopping drinking on Monday, and every Sunday night, I went out in a blaze of glory. You know, everything in the house, I'd drink. Well, anyway, it got to be a Monday, and I didn't drink. I didn't drink on Monday, and I didn't drink Tuesday, and I went to bed at six o'clock at night, because what do you do when you're not drinking?
When it got to be Friday night, I will always remember this. I walked into that apartment, and I got into the center of my living room, and I stopped, and total resignation. I knew I couldn't do it. I said, I can't. And I remember that feeling of actually shrinking in size, like I can't, I can't do it.
[01:10:08]
And I thought I had been, I was so wonderful, and I had this tremendous willpower. All week, I had this feeling that it was okay. I wasn't drinking, even though I wasn't doing anything else except, you know, working and bragging, of course. I was in, yeah, telling everyone I don't drink anymore. You know, and they said, Peggy, you have lunch today. I don't drink anymore, ever again will I ever drink.
And I thought that I meant it, and that I didn't want to. I want, you know, I was really very, very worried about myself. And again, I didn't tell anyone about this medical problem, because if I did, they'd take the alcohol away. I mean, I'd be cut off, and then what would I do? So, it was Friday night, and here I was. And that was the moment of surrender. I walked from the center of my living room, five feet into my bedroom, and opened that drawer, and took out that envelope that always burned my hand. And I had never looked at that literature before, and I took it over and sat at the right side of my couch, and I took the leaflets out.
Now, I had been in advertising for years. I looked, and I saw the printing, and I said, could it be that there are many people that have a problem? I imagine that there might be a few, but could there be, I mean, why would they have all these printings? Where would they be sending this stuff? And I read it. Thank God I read it. And there was a meeting book that a fellow that was sober at that time, I guess about 20 years, and I think the meeting book was 20 years old that was in that envelope. I mean, it was, you know, coffee stains and egg yolk, and thank God for that meeting book.
See, that meeting book had, I didn't notice Intergroup's, that was Intergroup's number. It was on the meeting book. Now, I had not prayed in 100 years, and I sat and said, 10 Hail Mary's, my God, and dialed Intergroup, and sat up very straight. And I did that, ready, and this voice said, A.A., can I help you? And I said, what I thought was the absolute right thing to say, I said, yes, I have a friend that needs a meeting. And he said, that is exactly what I said three years ago. And I don't know what happened. He told me his name was Adam.
And he shared, you know, for about 10 minutes, and asked me questions. And as he asked, I sat up straight and put that phone close to my ear, because it was an interview. He was interviewing me, and I thought he was writing down the answers, and I lied. You know, he said, how long have you been drinking? I said, about six months. And how much have you had to drink today? And I was insulted. I said, nothing. He said, now, come on, you can tell me, or something like that. I said, no, I hadn't had anything to drink. And he said, well, I think we ought to get you to a meeting before the bars close. Well, I must tell you, I mean, I was insulted.
First of all, that wasn't where I was doing it. See, I was committing suicide very elegantly on the right side of my couch. I wasn't doing it. See, people that had to drink in bars needed alcohol to laugh and to have fun. That wasn't why I was drinking. I was drinking to live, believe me. I was drinking to blot out, to blot it all out. I wanted oblivion. That's what I needed. So I said, no, I won't go to a bar, I promise you. He said, well, I'd like to have a gal call you. Now, I don't, I can't imagine, you know, I thought about this later. How did this all evolve? I mean, this woman, I found, that lady was never home on a Friday night. But she was there. He called her, and she called me, and she made a date with me to take me to my first meeting the next day.
And she said, what I, I remembered it all the next day, and for weeks later, she said, we are so lucky because there's a beginners meeting tomorrow night. So, which led me to believe there were four beginners meetings a year, maybe, and I was lucky to be at one of them. And she took me to that, well, anyway, to, you know, all day Saturday, I couldn't wait because I was going to meet an alcoholic, you know, a real alcoholic. And she met me and took me to a meeting, and we were, we took a bus for about 50 blocks.
We took a bus for about 50 blocks, and she asked me lots of questions, and I was very careful how I answered. And we got to a meeting, it's a group in Manhattan on 73rd Street and Madison Avenue, and we went up the elevator,
[01:15:02]
and she said, as we, as the elevator door opened, she said, Oh, I know I'm home when I smell that coffee, and I thought, oh, I guess that's it. I guess this is Saturday night now in the big city for you. And I'll tell you, I would have been very happy with that on Saturday night. Because I had a lot of terrible Saturday nights. We sat at that meeting, and I was so angry that I didn't have a notepad to take notes, because I was hearing all these wonderful things, and I didn't think I'd ever hear them again. You know, I thought, well, there are four meetings like this, you know, it was a beginner's meeting.
And I stayed for the open meeting. And during the breaks, everyone that I was introduced to was handing me a piece of literature. And I said, well, I guess that's it. I guess you drink coffee, you go to meetings, you drink coffee, and you read literature. And that's what one does for the rest of their life. You know? And I was very happy. I was very, if that's what I was going to do for the rest of my life, it was okay.
I looked around that room, and people were smiling, and they had whites. I had these varicose veins in the eyes. And they had wonderful whites. And everyone looked as though they had stopped into this meeting on the way to a party. They looked so happy. Well, of course, what I know today is that the true serenity was in their faces. I mean, they were there, they were at a meeting, and probably they were going to a party later on.
And I left that meeting, I remember the speaker at the beginner's meeting suggesting 90 meetings for 90 days. And I left that meeting thinking, well, maybe I'll go to another one the next day. And I went to one the next day. And it was another group up on Madison Avenue, and it seemed to be very social. And I didn't know if I approved of that. I mean, people were laughing a lot. And it seemed as though they would be going to another room to dance.
I mean, that's how it appeared to me. And I thought there were 5,000 of them. I mean, I thought the room was just tremendous. And they seemed just a little too happy. But I stayed for that meeting, and I was so impressed with everything I heard. I mean, people telling their stories, and of course I kept nodding my head. My God, I couldn't believe all these people were talking about despair and desperation and suicide and wanting to die and coming into this program and having hope.
And of course I felt as though someone took 100 pounds off my shoulders that day. And that 100 pounds, of course, got a little lighter for me every day. By Tuesday of that week, there wasn't anywhere else I wanted to be but at a meeting. I mean, it was the only place. It was the only safe harbor for me. It's still that safe harbor for me. Now, if you would have asked me what I wanted in my life for the next 12 years, I would have written this very simplistic little list of things or how I wanted to feel.
And that's… I didn't write that list, and good thing I didn't. You know, it may have happened that way. Wonderful things have happened to me. I've become really the person that God wanted me to be. So, I am so lucky to be an alcoholic, and that's why I started. You know, I talk with that. I really believe that I've been gifted with that. I came into a group that is very step-oriented. We sit around small tables, and we have a table leader after someone qualifies, and we take one step a week.
And it's wonderful, and we have a first-step workshop. It's a wonderful group. I joined it that first week, and I'm still a very active member there. I remember when I was sober. I couldn't wait to be sober 90 days so that I could go to intergroup. I wanted to meet this man, Adam. I thought that you had to be very, very special to be chosen to answer those phones at intergroup. And I wanted an audition.
And actually, I would have taken a course. I wanted to do that. Now, I heard early on that this program really is two things. It's love and it's service. And I wanted to be part. I wanted to be well. They told me that it was an important part of my recovery, to love everyone in those rooms.
[01:20:00]
I didn't have to like them all. It was very important that I loved them all. And to serve my group. And I wanted to be well. Believe me. It wasn't that I thought I was the best coffee maker in Manhattan, but I made coffee at a lot of meetings, and I washed a lot of ashtrays because I wanted to be well. I did. I didn't want to die of this disease. And then worse than that, I didn't want to live with it, active.
I saw people go out and drink that were in this program. I went to funerals in this program. I didn't want to be one of them. Now, I was as impressed now with that kind of thing as I was when I was very new. I did answer. They did. They let me answer phones at Integra after 90 days. And I did it for the next three years on Wednesdays. And it was wonderful, and I remember being so nervous about the beginning because I had to have the all-encompassing truth for everyone that called.
And there were some strange people that called. Now, before I got to this program, you know, what I didn't know I made up. But I didn't do that here. I don't do that here. I don't. The only thing that's valid is my experience. I followed, my God, I followed directions in this program. You know, I was willing. I mean, that's when we talk about willingness. I was willing to be honest. I was willing to do it the way you said, but not the way that I thought because my way, of course, didn't work.
I was nervous answering phones in the beginning until someone said, Listen, if they don't want it, you can't say the right thing. And if they do, you can't say the wrong thing. And, of course, that was so simple, and it made such wonderful sense. Now, I had the opportunity to meet some of the people that called Intergroup, not necessarily my call, but, you know, they'd come and they'd visit us, you know, or they'd come in and they're on their way to a rehab, and then we'd see them three months later.
And they were, I mean, as you know, I mean, how people recover and how wonderful they look. A very funny thing happened. This one woman would call. I thought she called me every Wednesday. Of course, she was calling everyone, and she had this thick Irish brogue, and she'd say, Don't be sending these men to AA, because Rose will take them home and Alice will be taking them home. And I said, Well, is your husband an alcoholic?
And she said, Oh, he's dead for 10 years. But, of course, that's one of the resentments, you know, that we talk about. And, of course, she was calling everyone, but I thought, you know, she waited for Wednesday for me to be there. Anyway, to sum it up, I guess I'm representative of how an intergroup office works. I like to think that. There are many of me out there, but I am very grateful and truly grateful.
And to think, I mean, that I am living in a time where I can be in a city like Montreal with 45,000 people that are not here, you know, to learn about sex tapes or a seminar on how to make a killing in real estate without any money down. We're all here to be, I mean, well, you know, I mean, we're reaching out to each other. And we're, I mean, just last night, I mean, to be in a city where people are, you know, walking up to me and saying, Hello, Peggy.
And I, of course, in the beginning say, Oh, do you know me? No. But I haven't cleared up yet, and that's OK. I want to maintain my humility. If I've given you the impression that I'm grateful to be here, it's true. I am. And I am one of those people that owe it to intergroup. And to all those intergroup and central offices in the world, thank God they're there for us. And thank you. To show you what a great chairman I am, we have six minutes for questions.
Thank you, Peggy, very, very much.
[01:25:00]
And I would like to open it up because we can take a few minutes now if anyone has any questions that they would like to ask of any of the panelists. Here comes a question. Or is he just leaving? No, he has a question, too. Thank you. Yes, it does. I think it was working before we tested it. Now, huh? All right, why don't you just speak up loud. Give it to him. Hi, Ted. I'd like to first thank the speakers for their presentations.
I have two questions. The first one is for Tom. Being a person that's elected as the next AECOM officer, working at the very senior level, I'm just wondering what you feel the significance of the AECOM person is to you. Second thing, the second question I'd like to present to Peggy. I'd like to know what are the guidelines that are set out in the level of achievement. Are those the guidelines that are set out in the law?
And if so, does any of the other literature available in New York help people understand more? I find that a lot of people in working areas, I don't understand exactly what's there. Well, in addition to that, the other thing is that communication is only other than a guideline. No, there is not anything other than a guideline that is published at the General Service Office on intergroups and central offices.
And that is because the feeling is that it's something that should be done by intergroups and central offices. They are apart from the General Service structure. But it's an interesting question. And I think it's a point of view that if you feel that the General Service Office should provide more, that you should tell your delegate this. And you should ask your delegate to the General Service Conference to bring this point of view to the conference.
Because they're the ones that control what's printed and published by the General Service Office. I think in our area, there's a lot of people who don't understand and are opposed to this. And they feel that it's something that should be done by districts. I don't see what's in it. It's something that's for the mainstream. Well, look at this. Right. This is not something you can take over. I urge you to bring this to your district meetings and through them to your area meetings so that it can come to the General Service Conference in that way.
Can we first ask Tom to answer his second question? And then we'll get to you, Tom. I think that your problem is the opposite one to what I was addressing. I think that the district, like your intergroup started after your districts had been in existence. And I've talked to Conrad and so on up your way about this. But as I understand it and having, as I recall, talking to him, I think that what the liaison should be doing from the intergroup to the area committee is just finding out what's going on and taking it back to the intergroup and passing the information along.
Now, I also understand, as I recall it, that you have not been in existence all that long. Is that correct? So that merely with time, you know, it'll gradually fit into what's going on. Our problem in Toronto, of course, is quite different. It's the fact that the intergroup was there first. It's a very organized intergroup and it runs well. And the problem there, of course, was that the intergroup wanted to and does continue.
And what we told them when we have our meetings together is that intergroup is the focal point. For instance, your telephone number for the whole of the city of Toronto for Alcoholics Anonymous is the intergroup number. Consequently, it doesn't make any sense to have six separate districts trying to run something out there all differently and having different phone numbers. So the thing is make the intergroup the focal point.
And we have got the intergroup people at the present time inviting.