Section 7
Inventory
Extract
from Bill W’s address to the 20th anniversary St Louis convention
(AA Comes of Age page 231 -233):
“In
the years ahead we shall, of course, make mistakes. Experience has
taught us that we need have no fear of doing this, providing that we
shall always remain willing to confess our faults and to correct them
promptly. Our growth as individuals has depended upon this healthy
process of trial and error. So will our growth as a fellowship.
Let
us always remember that any society of men and women that cannot
freely correct its own faults must surely fall into decay if not into
collapse. Such is the universal penalty for failing to go on growing.
Just as each A.A. must continue to take his moral inventory and act
upon it, so must our whole society do if we are to survive and if we
are to serve usefully and well.
I
have great faith that we shall never embrace and persist in a fatal
error; and yet we still might do so, fallible human beings
that we are. This is the area in the future life of A.A. where we can
never be too prudent or too vigilant. Let us not suppose, just
because A.A. as a whole has never had a grievous problem, that it
never will……..
Within
A.A, I suppose we shall always quarrel a good bit……. We shall
have our childish spats and snits……... Any bunch of growing
children (and that is what we really are) would hardly be in
character if they did less. These are the growing pains of infancy,
and we actually thrive on them. ……
But
there are nevertheless certain areas where anger and contention could
prove to be our undoing. We know this because stronger societies than
our own have been undone. The whole modern world is in fact coming
apart as never before because of political and religious strife;
because men blindly pursue wealth, fame, and personal power,
regardless of the consequences to anyone, even themselves. These are
the destructive drives that are inevitably spurred on by self –
justification, and in all their disastrous collisions they are
powered by righteous indignation, then by unreasoning anger, and
finally blind fury. With the most heart felt gratitude I can report
that we have never yet had to endure any such trials by fire in A.A.
In all these twenty marvellous years no such thing as religious or
political dissension has touched us. Very few have tried to exploit
A.A. for wealth or fame or personal power……..”
This
year, 2011 marked another A.A. anniversary, which a few might have acknowledged.
This, the 40th anniversary in which A.A. has stood without Bill W’s
ever prudent, ever vigilant “Stop Look Listen” (Concept 1) leadership. This passed away with him on January 26th 1971. As
we can survey the fellowship today, perhaps it is now time to “Stop
Look Listen.” Perhaps we have taken our eyes off the ball with “Our
promoter friend”. Perhaps it is time to look very seriously at our
Traditions, not as suggestions, but the very principles upon which
the survival of our fellowship depends. Just to the degree that we
deviate from these principles is precisely the degree to which the
fellowship disintegrates.
Perhaps
it is now time to look very closely at Concept IX. And ask ourselves,
to which party do I belong to, the politician’s or the statesman’s?
A
‘statesman’ is an individual who can put the principle of A.A.
Tradition before their own personality; self sacrificing, ever
vigilant, prudently on guard, with an integrity that brooks no
compromise; like the Statesmen who encountered Chuck D. in 1958.
“A
statesman is an individual who can……..even in a small minority
take a stand against a storm…… stick flat footed to ones
convictions about an issue until it is settled…… face heavy and
sometimes long-continued criticism………gobs of rumours, gossip,
and general scuttlebutt…” (Concept IX)
Examples
of non alcoholic Statesmen in A.A. history:
“Much
later we realised what Mr. Rockefeller had really done for us. At
risk of personal ridicule, he had stood up before the whole world to
put in a plug for a tiny Society of struggling alcoholics” (Bill W.
referring to the help given to A.A. by John D. Rockefeller Jr.) (A.A. Grapevine May 1955. Language of the Heart page 147)
“Dr.
Silkworth let me work with a few people in the hospital at the risk
of his reputation.” (Bill W. AA Grapevine July 1968. Language of
the Heart page 285)
“At
very considerable risk to his professional standing Harry Tiebout
ever since continued to endorse A.A. and its work to the psychiatric
profession.” (Bill W. A.A. Comes of Age page 4)
The
following paragraph is an example of the voice of one of today’s
Statesmen; though it is unfortunate the review committee could not
come out with a unified voice on this principle:
“Finally
Tradition Two tells me we have but one ultimate authority – a
loving God as He expresses himself in our group conscience. It seems
to me if we allow interpretations of the Big Book through study
guides we will also undermine our ultimate authority.” (From A.A.
World Services “Big Book Study Guides: Reviewing a position paper' – AA Service News, No.127 Summer 2006 / Box 459, vol.51, No.6. December2005)
A
‘politico’ is an individual who carries a principle only so far
as for it not be of personal cost to himself; he absolves himself of
his delegated responsibility and authority by trying to keep the
peace, trying to please the people, one “who is forever trying to
‘get the people what they want” (Concept IX), by twisting sayings
like “I have no opinion. I neither endorse nor oppose” “Live
and let live!” “There’s nothing we can do, each group is
autonomous.” “Keep your side of the street clean.” “Hand it
over” “God will sort it out”, “Its God’s will!” “Vote
with your feet!”
Politicians,
please be aware, the disaffected are “voting with their feet.”
“No
society can function well without able leadership at in all its
levels, and A.A. can be no exception……but when he too meekly
becomes an order- taker and exercises no judgement of his own –
well, he isn’t a leader at all…. A ‘politico’ is an
individual who is ‘forever trying to get the people what they
want’…… Good leadership never passes the buck”…… “As
individuals and as a fellowship, we shall surely suffer if we cast
the whole job of planning for tomorrow onto a fatuous idea of
providence. God’s real Providence has endowed us human beings with
a considerable capacity for foresight and He evidently expects us to
use it”. (Bill W, Concept IX).
Extract
from the Conference Charter - Great Britain:
Article
3. Conference in relation to A.A.
“The
Conference will act for A.A. in Great Britain in the perpetuation and
guidance of its services and it will also be the vehicle by which
A.A. in Great Britain can express its views on all matters of vital
A.A. policy and all hazardous deviations from A.A. Tradition…….”
(A.A. Service handbook for Great Britain section 9.1)
The
General Service Board
“The
General Service Board is the custodian of the Twelve Traditions of
Alcoholics Anonymous in Great Britain. As such it has the
responsibility to ensure that the Traditions are preserved intact and
that the fellowship of A.A. In Great Britain acts in accordance with
the Traditions.” (A.A. Service handbook for Great Britain section
9.1)
Perhaps
it is time to reflect on all previous Conference recommendations
regarding the use and display of non A.A. published literature and
trinket business in A.A. meetings and in A.A. conventions, events;
and also, recommendations on special purpose groups. Have previous
recommendations stuck firmly to the principle of A.A. Tradition or
have they deviated? Can the fellowship afford Conference to make
compromises on Traditions? Is the fellowship suffering the
consequences?
“The
Conference, as we know, is the ‘guardian’ of the A.A. Traditions”
(Concept 12, warranty five)
Is
the broadside of A.A. Tradition being delivered in Conference
recommendations, or is it the narrow side “To get the people what
they want”?
Extracts
from conference question and committee response:
“Can
Conference make suggestions on how groups and Intergroups can work
better to carry the message to the still suffering alcoholic? - There
is evidence that strained relationships between some Groups and
Intergroups could be inhibiting the effectiveness of our primary
purpose.” (AA Service News 145, 2010)
“All
service bodies are reminded that AA is an inclusive fellowship.
Adherence to AA Traditions, concepts and warranties ensures
inclusivity. This committee found that strained relations between
some groups and Intergroups can inhibit the effectiveness of our
primary purpose. The principles of Unity, right of participation,
that minority opinion must be heard and that no service body has the
authority to take punitive action were emphasised to help resolve
some of the difficulties encountered.”(Committee 4, Question 2) (AA Service News 147, 2011).
Another
side to A.A. Tradition:
“In
AA, the group has strict limitations, but the individual scarcely
any.”
(Bill
W. AA Grapevine February 1958 - Language of the Heart pages 222-225).
Tradition One: “Our common welfare should come first…”
Tradition
Two “There is but one ultimate authority…”
Concept 12 warranty six: “That our conference will be ever prudently be
on guard against tyrannies great and small, whether these be found in
the majority or in the minority.”
Concept
12, warranty five “Feeling the weight of all these forces, certain
members who run counter to A.A.’s Traditions sometimes say that
they are being censored or punished and that they are therefore being
governed…..”
Tradition
Two: “A few haemorrhage so badly that – drained of all A.A.
spirit and principle - they get drunk. At times the A.A. landscape
seems to be littered with bleeding forms.” (Tradition Two; Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions page 137-139).
Concept
12, warranty 6: “Finally, any two or three alcoholics gathered
together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group provided
that, as a group, they have no other purpose or affiliation”.
(Concept 12, warranty 6)
Concept
12, warranty five: “These examples illustrate how far we have
already gone to encourage freedom of assembly, action, even
schism…….If they can do better by other means, we are glad.”
“A.A.
started in a riot. It grows in riots” (Warren C. ‘Good Old
timer’, joined A.A. 1939)
(Dr.
Bob and the Good Old Timers, page 209)
There
can be no peace without justice, no serenity in anarchy, no unity
without adherence to Tradition. Our history and Traditions tell us
that we need never fear internal controversy, argument, split and
schism. But what we do need to fear is a false unity at the price of
Traditions and false pride at the expense of humility. We do need to
fear public controversy caused by the communication of a garbled
message and deviance from Traditions. The integrity of A.A.
Traditions and warranties of Conference must be preserved in their
active principles, because if they are compromised it will lead to
our disintegration.
A
quote of Dr. Bob on humility:
“...a
thing which not too many of us are blessed.” This was not the “fake
humility of Dickens’s Uriah Heep” Nor was it “the doormat
variety.” (Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers page 222).
Cheerio
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
