Question
1:
“Would
the Fellowship share experience and make recommendations on how to
make AA more visible to the general public, particularly by
increasing awareness and understanding of how the AA programme
works?"
Extracts
“Suggestion
6
Suggest
encouraging a greater awareness within the fellowship of one of AA
public information’s most challenging problems in communication;
explained by Bill W:
“..We
much regret that these facts of AA life are not understood by the
legion of alcoholics in the world around us. Any number of them are
bedeviled by the dire conviction that if ever they go near AA they
will be pressured to conform to some particular brand of faith or
theology. They just don't realize that faith is never a necessity for
AA membership; that sobriety can be achieved with an easily
acceptable minimum of it; and that our concepts of a higher power and
God as we understand Him afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of
spiritual belief and action.
How
to transmit this good news is one of our most challenging problems in
communication, for which there may be no fast or sweeping answer.
Perhaps our public information services could begin to emphasize this
all-important aspect of AA more heavily.”
(Bill
W. Extract from “God As We Understand him: The Dilemma of No Faith” The Language of
the Heart p 251. AA Grapevine April 1961)”
“Suggestion
7
Suggest
AA groups hold group consciences on whether newcomers are being
turned away from AA by symptoms of what Bill W. described in 1961 as
“spiritual pride” and “rank aggression:”
“We
can also take a fresh look at the problem of "no faith" as
it exists right on our own doorstep. Though three hundred thousand
did recover in the last twenty-five years, maybe half a million more
have walked into our midst, and then out again. No doubt some were
too sick to make even a start. Others couldn't or wouldn't admit
their alcoholism. Still others couldn't face up to their underlying
personality defects. Numbers departed for still other reasons.
Yet
we can't well content ourselves with the view that all these recovery
failures were entirely the fault of the newcomers themselves. Perhaps
a great many didn't receive the kind and amount of sponsorship they
so sorely needed. We didn't communicate when we might have done so.
So we AAs failed them. Perhaps more often than we think, we still
make no contact at depth with those suffering the dilemma of no
faith.
Certainly
none are more sensitive to spiritual cocksureness, pride and
aggression than they are. I'm sure this is something we too often
forget. In AA's first years I all but ruined the whole undertaking
with this sort of unconscious arrogance. God as I understood Him had
to be for everybody. Sometimes my aggression was subtle and sometimes
it was crude. But either way it was damaging--perhaps fatally so--to
numbers of nonbelievers. Of course this sort of thing isn't confined
to Twelfth Step work. It is very apt to leak out into our relations
with everybody. Even now, I catch myself chanting that same old
barrier-building refrain, "Do as I do, believe as I do--or
else!".
Here's
a recent example of the high cost of spiritual pride. A very
tough-minded prospect was taken to his first AA meeting. The first
speaker majored on his own drinking pattern. The prospect seemed
impressed. The next two speakers (or maybe lecturers) each themed
their talks on "God as I understand Him." This could have
been good, too, but it certainly wasn't. The trouble was their
attitude, the way they presented their experience. They did ooze
arrogance. In fact, the final speaker got far overboard on some of
his personal theological convictions. With perfect fidelity, both
were repeating my performance of years before. Quite unspoken, yet
implicit in everything they said, was the same idea--"Folks,
listen to us. We have the only true brand of AA--and you'd better get
it!"
The
new prospect said he'd had it--and he had. His sponsor protested that
this wasn't real AA. But it was too late; nobody could touch him
after that. He also had a first class alibi for yet another bender.
When last heard from, an early appointment with the undertaker seemed
probable.
Fortunately,
such rank aggression in the name of spirituality isn't often seen
nowadays. Yet this sorry and unusual episode can be turned to good
account. We can ask ourselves whether, in less obvious but
nevertheless destructive forms, we are not more subject to fits of
spiritual pride than we had supposed. If constantly worked at, I'm
sure that no kind of self-survey could be more beneficial.”
(Bill
W. Extract from “God As We Understand him: The Dilemma of No Faith”
The Language of the Heart pp 252-253. AA Grapevine April 1961)”
For
the next batch of conference questions we will be including a section
on the aacultwatch forum specifically devoted to these but with
considerably fewer constraints on members' contributions, and with
considerably more licence to cite sources directly in support of
their arguments (currently not possible on the AA website). Moreover
members will be able to to exchange private messages via our forum (a
facility which is currently denied on the AA website). Anyone may
join in the discussion.
Cheers
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
