Uncontroversial controversy!

"When I've raised the concerns I've discussed in this article (Big Bookery, indoctrination, druggie talk in meetings , chanting and hand-holding etc) at group conscience and intergroup meetings I've been accused of violating Tradition Ten by stirring up controversy. But Tradition Ten is about public controversy - i.e. outside issues. There has always been controversy in AA, for example read Bill W's essay on Tradition Three in 12 Steps and 12 Traditions. Another time, commenting on the turbulent 1958 US Conference, Bill observed, "If individuals were deeply disturbed - I say, 'This is fine'. What parliament, what republic, what democracy has not been disturbed? Friction of opposing viewpoints is the very modus operandi on which they proceed. Then what should we be afraid of?" (from As Bill Sees It). A GSB trustee speaking at the 1971 US Conference said, "Honest differences of opinion should co-exist in AA. I suppose it is a miracle there isn't more controversy inside AA." Or as the chairman of this year's British Conference (2007) reminded delegates, "We can disagree without being disagreeable." In 1971 the editor of Grapevine said, "A magazine would be terribly bland if there was never any controversy. In AA there are as many opinions as there are alcoholics. We welcome diverse points of view."

In AA we seek unity - not the unanimity of the graveyard. In any case it is the dissonant practices I have described which generate controversy.

Bill W wrote in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, "Within AA I suppose we shall always quarrel a good bit. Mostly, I think, about how to do the greatest good for the greatest number of drunks ... Surmounting such problems, in AA's rather rugged school of life, is a healthy exercise." ...

Grapevine's Statement of Purpose reads in part, "The awareness that every AA member has an individual way of working the program permeates the pages of Grapevine, and throughout its history the magazine has been a forum for the varied and often divergent opinions of AA's around the world ...."

(Share, July 2007)

PS: The US 1971 references are from Not God: a history of AA, by Ernie Kurtz (Hazelden)."

(our thanks to this member for pointing us in the direction of the article)

Cheerio

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)