Section
8
A.A.’s
Future: Adaptation or Evolution?
Bill
W, - Extracts from “Lets Keep It Simple But How?” AA Grapevine July 1960; Language of
the Heart page 303 - 307):
“We
shall be stepping over a new threshold into our future. We shall
rejoice as we think of the gifts and the wonders of yesterday. And,
as we re-dedicate ourselves to fulfilling the immense promise of AA’s
tomorrow, we shall certainly survey how we stand today. Have we ‘kept
A.A. simple’? Or, unwittingly, have we blundered? ............
Therefore we ask, has A.A. kept faith with Dr. Bob’s warning, ‘lets
keep it simple’? How can we possibly square today’s Twelve Steps,
Twelve Traditions, General Service Conferences and International Conventions
with our original coffee-and-cake AA? …… Genuine simplicity for
today is to be found, I think, in whatever principles, practices, and
services can permanently ensure our widespread harmony and
effectiveness. Therefore it has been better to state our principles
than to leave them vague; better to clarify their applications than
to leave these unclear; better to organize our services than to leave
them to hit-or- miss methods, or to none at all. Most certainly
indeed, a return to the kitchen table era would bring no-hoped for
simplicity. It would only mean wholesale irresponsibility,
disharmony, and ineffectiveness ………… A formless AA
anarchy, animated only by the ‘lets get together’ spirit, just
isn’t enough for AAs here and now. What worked fine for two
score members in 1938 won’t work at all for more than 200,000 of
them in 1960. Our added size and therefore greater responsibility
simply spells the difference between AA’s childhood and its coming
of age. We have seen the folly of attempting to recapture the
childhood variety of simplicity in order to sidestep the kind of
responsibility that must be faced to ‘keep it simple for today’.
We cannot possibly turn back the clock and shouldn’t try.”
1962
Bill W
“We
are sure that each group of workers in world service will be tempted
to try all sorts of innovations that may often produce little more
than painful repetition earlier mistakes. Therefore it will be an
important objective of these Concepts to forestall such repetitions
by holding the experiences of the past clearly before us. And if
mistaken departures are nevertheless made, these Concepts may then
provide a ready means of safe return to an operating balance that
might otherwise take years of floundering to rediscover.”
(Introduction to the Twelve Concepts for World Service.)
1958,
February, Bill W
“Now
there are certain things that AA cannot do for anybody, regardless of
what our several desires or sympathies may be.
Our
first duty, as a society is to ensure, our own survival. Therefore
we have to avoid distractions and multipurpose activity. An AA
group as such, cannot take on all the personal problems of its
members, let alone the problems of the whole world. Sobriety –
freedom from alcohol – though the teaching and practice of AA’s
twelve steps, is the sole purpose of an AA group. Groups have
repeated tried other activities they have always failed. We have to
confine our membership to alcoholics and we have to confine our AA
groups to a single purpose. If we don’t stick to these
principles, we shall almost certainly collapse. And if we collapse,
we cannot help anyone … …
…
… Therefore I see no
way of making nonalcoholic [sic] addicts into AA members, Experience
says loudly that we can admit no exceptions, even though drug users
and alcoholics happen to be first cousins of a sort. If we persist in
trying this, I’m afraid it will be hard on the drug user himself,
as well as on AA. We must accept the fact that no nonalcoholic, [sic]
whatever his affliction, can be converted into an alcoholic AA
member.” (Problems Other Than Alcohol: What Can Be Done About Them, A.A. Grapevine
February 1958. Language of the Heart page 223)
1958,
January - August, Santa Monica
Synanon
began with Charles E. Dederick. He had been an alcoholic for twenty
years, and a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. In January of 1958, he
“had no job, two cents in my pocket, and was living off
unemployment benefits, in a small apartment near the beach in Ocean
Park, California.” (Yablonsky, L. 1965. Synanon: The Tunnel Back)
He, and other friends from AA, started a regular weekly meeting. In
this meeting, mainly because of Charles,
or “Chuck” Dederick, as he became known, the discussions became
heated…. …. … This AA group met until a dramatic break that
solidified the difference between Synanon, and A.A. This is the story
as told by Chuck:
“The
break with Alcoholics Anonymous occurred about the middle of August
(1958)
It
happened right in the middle of an A.A. meeting. Our whole gang
had taken over the Saturday night meeting of the Santa Monica A.A.
group at Twenty Sixth and Broadway and built it up from its
attendance of ten people to an attendance of about forty five or
fifty. There was some objection on some issue by the members of the
Board of Directors of the A.A. club. I recall the leader stopping the
meeting. They didn’t like us. The alkies didn’t like the addicts,
and they didn’t like me in particular… … and they didn’t like
my gang because they were mostly addicts. They made things difficult
for us. I remember getting up in the meeting and saying, ‘All
right, let’s go home-the hell with this.’ So the whole meeting
got up, and we all got into our automobiles and came down to the
club, and we never went back to A.A. again…. … … We were
building something new and different… … … We have a live-in
situation, with family characteristics. We emphasize self-reliance
rather than dependence on a higher being. We assumed a
responsibility; we had to get up the rent, we had to feed the people
when they came in, and so on. This was the point at which the few
alcoholics in the club began to fall out. They didn’t want any
responsibility. In fact, it was even verbalized. ‘We don’t want
to do this; we want to have a lot of fun; we want to have a club as a
club.’ The alkies began to say, ‘Well, it’s our club,’ and I
said, ‘No, it’s my club.’ I became the champion of the addicts,
chucked the alcoholics out, and Synanon was then fully launched for
addicts.”(Yablonsky, L. 1965)
(From
the Desk of Juan Lesende: How Drug Abuse Treatment Turns into Mistreatment By Juan E. Lesende - September 18th 2009)
The
Washingtonian
movement evolved into multi purpose activity and collapsed. The
Oxford Group
evolved renaming itself Moral Rearmament in 1938. The cult of Synanon
evolved into multi purpose activity and collapsed.
AA
has stood the test of time because it cannot evolve like other
organisations, Traditions and Concepts prevent this. The direction of
AA evolution was from diversity to simplicity. AA cannot evolve to
get any simpler than groups with meeting rooms, single purpose,
single affiliation, and a service structure to support them.
It
is important to distinguish between adaptation and evolution. The
service structure must organise and adapt to changes in society, but
the A.A. group is bound by A.A. Tradition, its teaching of the twelve
steps through least possible organisation.
Tradition
Nine (Long form):
“Each
A.A. group needs the least possible organization. Rotating leadership
is the best. The small group may elect its secretary, the large group
its rotating committee and the groups of a large metropolitan area
their central or intergroup committee”
Bill
W, New York 1939: “They were structured to the extent that there
was always one speaker and Bill- maybe half an hour each - and then a
long coffee session, a real get together. We were often there till 12
o’clock, started at eight.….. At this time there were no 90-days
requirements. No birthdays – no recognition was made if you were
sober a week or a year, If you felt you would like to speak in a
year or in a month or two weeks they let you get up and speak, and
they didn’t throw you out if you were drunk, either. They felt
it was encouraging, hoping some word would stick.” (Ruth Hock, the
first secretary of the New York General Service Office. Pass it on
page 219)
AA.
Grapevine 2010
I
struggle to understand the "Twelve and Twelve," even with a
college degree and help from my sponsor and other AAs. Meanwhile, my
room-mate, also newly sober and with a grade school education, can't
make any sense of her Step workbook and is about to give up. How many
people do we lose this way? How many, when asked to read from the Big
Book at a meeting, stumble through a few sentences, acutely
embarrassed, and never come back? A literature-based program
effectively shuts out people who desperately need help but do not
have good reading skills”. (Dear Grapevine, Shut Out; A.A.
Grapevine November 2010)
“Education
will not only pay off in numbers treated; it can pay off even more
handsomely in prevention… … it is both a community job and a job
for specialists… … but AA as such cannot, and should not, get
directly into this field.” (Bill W. AA Grapevine March 1958. Language of the Heart page 186-187)
Norman
Y, 1977, joined AA in 1939
“‘I
never read a word in A.A.’ he said. ‘You don’t have to read.
You don’t have to have all these pamphlets they put out. You can
learn to live this program by learning to think. A.A. is a wonderful
thing to know and apply’ he said, ‘- but in your life. You’ve
got to live it out in the street. You see somebody having a little
problem, help them, no matter who they are. That’s A.A.” –Norman
Y. (Dr. Bob and The Good Old Timers page 251-250)
“We
have no doctrine that has to be maintained. We have no membership
that has to be enlarged. We have no authority that has to be
supported. We have no prestige, power or pride that has to be
satisfied.” Bill W. (Concept 12, warranty Five)
What
worked structurally in 1938 wouldn’t work in 1960, what worked in
1960 doesn’t
appear to be working very well in 2011. Perhaps there needs to be a willingness
to be open to change.
There
are the new dynamics of non-AA published literature, global internet communication;
the fellowship is much larger and yet the new communication channels
make it more intimate.
If
the fellowship has grown too big for the Trustees in the UK and USA
to cope with the numbers of those who exploit the fellowship, perhaps
some of this responsibility could be passed to the groups via
communication to them.
There
needs to be new thinking to suit new situations. The way in which
groups are registered could be considered. The passing of
responsibility of group registration from GSO to the intergroup would
free the A.A. group conscience to discern whether a particular group
that is operating outside the service structure is operating
according to Tradition and warranties of Conference; whether it is
one that is simply exercising its right to group autonomy by not
being part of the intergroup; or whether the group is misusing the AA
name by other purpose or affiliation. These matters could be settled
locally by intergroup conscience.
Improved
communication in the fellowship could be encouraged.
Where
internationally affiliated cult groups exist, AA groups and
intergroups could be encouraged to communicate with each other
directly across regional and international boundaries instead of
being isolated, giving information exchange and cooperation. As
responsible individuals any A.A. member is fully entitled to act
freely according to his or her own conscience. Letters or emails
could be sent to any Traditions violator, group, or company that is
misusing the A.A. name.
“I
am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want
the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for
that: I am responsible.”
(our
emphases)
Cheerio
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
