DISSENT WITHIN AA
FROM BOX 459 APRIL/MAY 2007
“Box 4-5-9 is published bimonthly
by the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous, 475 Riverside
Drive, New York, NY 10115, © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services,
Inc., 2007 Mail address: P.O. Box 459, Grand Central Station New
York, NY 10163
Dissent Within A.A.:
The System Provides the Means to
Handle It* Dissent is commonplace within A.A.—particularly, in this
country, when A.A. was young; and in other countries, where A.A. is
still learning from experience. Our co-founder Bill W. enjoyed
relating stories of the disagreements and pretty squabbles, the
controversies and the dissensions that so often marked the early
years.
Many sober alcoholics do not handle
dissent well— either individually or collectively. As individuals,
some of us can be emotionally immature, with our emotions on the
surface, raw and exposed. We can be quick to anger, and prone to
resentments. But our Big Book warns us that, as alcoholics, anger and
resentments will destroy us! Often we express our dissent by sulking
or by cutting ourselves off, or we “get even” by taking some ill-considered action.
For example, if we don’t get that
raise we think we deserve, we quit the job! Thus cutting off all our
pay! Or our A.A. group goes against our sage advice: “Mark my word,
if you change the meeting time from 8:30 to 7:30, nobody will come.…”
So we leave in a huff to try other groups, taking our grumpiness with
us. Meanwhile, back at the home group the new meeting time is a huge
success!
“Given enough anger, both unity and
purpose are lost,” wrote Bill W. in a 1966 letter. “Given still
more ‘righteous’ indignation, the group can disintegrate; it can
actually die. This is why we avoid controversy.” (As Bill Sees It,
p. 98.)
In A.A. Comes of Age (p. 79) Bill
wrote, “Ours is…the story of how…under threats of disunity and
collapse, world-wide unity and brotherhood have been forged. In the
course of this experience we have evolved a set of traditional
principles by which we live and work together…the Twelve
Traditions.” And, later, the Twelve Concepts.
How, then, might we handle dissent in
A.A.? By the grace of God, we have been provided with three tools
which provide the means of expressing dissent and bringing about
change without taking precipitous action. They are: the Traditions,
the Concepts and the service structure. Let’s see how these tools
might be used.
“Twelve Traditions Illustrated”
The guiding principle should be
Tradition One, “Our common welfare should come first; personal
recovery depends upon A.A. unity,” and Bill, in Twelve Steps and
Twelve Traditions, says it more eloquently than we can: “The unity
of Alcoholics Anonymous is the most cherished quality our Society
has. Our lives, the lives of all to come, depend squarely upon it. We
stay whole, or A.A. dies. Without unity, the heart of A.A. would
cease to beat; our world arteries would no longer carry the
life-giving grace of God…Back again in their caves, alcoholics
would reproach us and say, ‘What a great thing A.A. might have
been!’”
He goes on to point out that the A.A.
member “has to conform to the principles of recovery. His life
actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles.” As he
recovers in a group, “It becomes plain that the group must survive
or the individual will not. So…how best to live and work together
as groups became the prime question.” And finally, “On anvils of
experience, the structure of our Society was hammered out.”
The dissenter, then, can use the tool
of the service structure to bring about the desired change. The whole
system was devised to make that practicable, because in A.A., the
groups “hold ultimate responsibility and final authority”
(Concept I). The groups in each area elect a delegate to represent
them at the annual General Service Conference; and through their
general service representatives (G.S.R.), the groups make their
“group conscience” known at the area assembly, and, if the
assembly agrees, the delegate carries that particular concern to the
Conference itself. The Conference, in turn, represents the group
conscience of A.A. as a whole. Its recommendations, arrived at by
substantial unanimity, are binding on the trustees (who are also part
of the Conference) and through them, on the General Service Office.
This system, which is described very explicitly in the Twelve
Concepts, ensures that the only power in Alcoholics Anonymous is “a
loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience”;
i.e., through the groups.
Furthermore, if the dissenters feel
that they have not been given a fair hearing or their views have been
misrepresented or that a mistaken decision has been made, they are
given “a traditional Right of Appeal…thus assuring us that
minority opinion will be heard and that petitions for the redress of
personal grievances will be carefully considered.” The words of
Bill again: “We recognize that minorities frequently can be right;
that even when they are partly or wholly in error, they still perform
a most valuable service when, by asserting their ‘Right of Appeal,’
they compel a thorough-going debate on important issues. The
well-heard minority, therefore, is our chief protection against an
uninformed, misinformed, hasty or angry majority.” (Concept V) This
suggested recourse for the dissenter is not just theoretical, it
works.
Dissent in Alcoholics Anonymous is
not only tolerated, it is encouraged. But how that dissent is
expressed and handled becomes, in the final analysis, a spiritual
matter. “Our common welfare should come first,” states Tradition
One — even though it means we must submit our personal wills to the
authority of “a loving God as He may express Himself in our group
conscience.”
*First printed in April/May 1987 issue.”
Cheerio
The Fellas
(Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
