Question
2:
With
specific regard to the history of our AA service structure, can the
Fellowship share experience on how we can best strengthen unity by
trusting and valuing the decisions of the group conscience at all
levels of the Fellowship?
Background
‘The unity, the effectiveness, and even the survival of AA
will always depend upon our continued willingness to give up some of
our personal ambitions and desires for the common safety and welfare.
Just as sacrifice means survival for the individual alcoholic, so
does sacrifice mean unity and survival for the group and for AA’s
entire Fellowship’.
AA Comes of Age, pp. 287-288 (Quoted in
As Bill Sees It, p. 220)
Consider the contribution to the
carrying of the message, financial and practical implications when
deliberating each question.
See
also:
Extract:
“
Suggest
the book “The Language of the Heart” is given a higher profile
within the fellowship and put in group and intergroup guidelines for
suggested literature reading for those in service at these levels.
First published in 1988 it contains virtually every article written
for the AA Grapevine by AA co-founder Bill W. In more than 150
articles, written over a span of twenty-six years, Bill documented
the painstaking process of trial and error that resulted in AA’s
spiritual principles of Recovery, Unity, and Service, and articulated
his vision of what the Fellowship could become. He reminds us of what
it used to be like, documenting what happened and why it happened,
and he gives each new generation of the fellowship a timeless insight
into how to overcome present and future difficulties, with the wisdom
of AA’s experience in its first thirty years. The role of “The
Language of the Heart” in strengthening unity for now and future
generations is yet to be fully recognised. Besides being available
from GSO (GB), it is also available as an eBook from:
https://store.aagrapevine.org/Showgroups.aspx?
“YOUR
THIRD LEGACY” by BILL W. (Extracts) (AA Grapevine December 1950, The Language of the Heart page
126):
“WE, who are the older members of AA, bequeath to you
who are younger, these three legacies--the "12 Steps of
Recovery," the "12 Traditions" and now the "General
Services of Alcoholics Anonymous." Two of these legacies have
long been in your keeping. By the 12 Steps we have recovered from
alcoholism; by the 12 Traditions we are achieving a fine unity. Being
someday perishable, Dr. Bob and I now wish to deliver to the members
of AA their third legacy. Since 1938 we and our friends have been
holding it in trust. This legacy is the General Headquarters Services
of Alcoholics Anonymous--the Alcoholic Foundation, the A.A. Book, The
A.A. Grapevine and the A.A. General Office. These are the principal
Services which have enabled our Society to function and to grow.
Acting on behalf of all, Dr. Bob and I ask that you--the members of
AA--now assume guidance of these Services and guard them well. The
future growth, indeed the very survival of Alcoholics Anonymous may
one day depend on how prudently these Arms of Service are
administered in years to come……
Suppose
then, all these years, we had been without those Services. Where
would we be today minus the A.A. Book and our
standard literature which
now pours out of Headquarters at the rate of three tons a month?
Suppose our public relations had been left to thoughtless chance?
Suppose no one had been assigned to encourage good publicity and
discourage the bad? Suppose
no accurate information about AA had been available?
Imagine our vital and delicate relations with medicine and religion
left to pot luck. Then,
too, where would thousands of AAs be today if the General Office
hadn't answered their frantic letters and referred them to help? (Our
New York Office received and answered 28,000 letters of all kinds
last year.) Or in what shape would hundreds of distant AA Groups now
be if that Office hadn't started them by mail or directed travelers
to them? How could we have managed without a world Group Directory?
What about those foreign Groups in 28 countries clamoring for
translations, proved experience and encouragement? Would we be
publishing the A.A. Book at Oslo, Norway and London, England? What of
those lone members on high seas or in far corners of the earth, those
prisoners, those asylum inmates, those veterans in service or in
hospitals? Where might we one day be if we never had the A.A.
Grapevine, our mirror of AA life and principal forum of written
expression? How grateful we are for those Secretaries and those
volunteer Editors and those friendly Trustees who have stood sentinel
all these years over our principal affairs. Without all these things,
where would we be? You must have guessed it. We'd be nowhere; that's
sure.
So
it is that by the "Steps" we have recovered, by the
"Traditions" we have unified, and by our Headquarters
Services we have been able to function as a Society.
Yet
some may still say--"Of course the Foundation should go on.
Certainly we'll pay that small expense. But why can't we leave its
conduct to Dr. Bob and Bill and their friends the Trustees? We always
have. Why do they now bother us with such business? Let's keep AA
simple." Good questions, these. But today the answers are quite
different than they once were.
Let's face these facts:
1.
Dr. Bob and Bill are perishable, they can't last forever.
2. Their
friends, the Trustees, are almost unknown to the AA movement.
3.
In future years our Trustees couldn't possibly function without
direct guidance from AA itself. Somebody must advise them. Somebody,
or something, must take the place of Dr. Bob and Bill.
4.
Alcoholics Anonymous is out of its infancy. Grown up, adult now, it
has full right and the plain duty to take direct responsibility for
its own Headquarters.
5. Clearly then, unless the Foundation is
firmly anchored, through State and Provincial representatives, to the
movement it serves, a Headquarters breakdown will someday be
inevitable. When its old-timers vanish, an isolated Foundation
couldn't survive one grave mistake or serious controversy. Any storm
could blow it down. Its revival wouldn't be simple. Possibly it could
never be revived. Still isolated, there would be no means of doing
that. Like a fine car without gasoline, it would be helpless.
6.
Another serious flaw: As a whole, the AA movement has never faced
a grave crisis. But someday it will have to. Human affairs being
what they are, we can't expect to remain untouched by the hour of
serious trouble. With direct support unavailable, with no reliable
cross-section of AA opinion, how could our remote Trustees handle a
hazardous emergency? This gaping "open end" in our present
set-up could positively guarantee a debacle. Confidence in the
Foundation would be lost. AAs would everywhere say: "By whose
authority do the Trustees speak for us? And how do they know they are
right?" With AA's Service life-lines tangled and severed, what
then might happen to the "millions who don't know."
Thousands would continue to suffer on or die because we had taken no
forethought, because we had forgotten the virtue of Prudence. This
should not come to pass.
That
is why the Trustees, Dr. Bob and I now propose the "General
Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous." That is why we
urgently need your direct help. Our principal Services must go on
living. We think the General Service Conference of Alcoholics
Anonymous can be the agency to make that certain.” (Bill W.)
“LETS
KEEP IT SIMPLE – BUT HOW?” by BILL W. (AA Grapevine July 1960, The Language of the Heart page 303):
This
Grapevine will be read as we celebrate AA's Twenty-fifth Anniversary
in July at Long Beach, California. 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 rededicate ourselves to
fulfilling the immense promise of AA's tomorrow, we shall certainly
survey how we stand today. Have we really "kept AA simple"?
Or, unwittingly, have we blundered?
Thinking
on this, I began to wonder about our fundamental structure: those
principles, relationships, and attitudes which are the substance of
our Three Legacies of Recovery, Unity and Service. In our Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions we find twenty-four definitely stated
principles. Our Third Legacy includes a Charter for World Service
that provides thousands of General Service Representatives, hundreds
of local Committeemen, eighty General Service Conference Delegates,
fifteen General Service Board Trustees, together with our
Headquarters legal, financial, public relations, editorial experts
and their staffs. Our group and area services add still more to this
seeming complexity.
Twenty-two
years ago last spring, we were just setting about the formation of a
trusteeship for AA as a whole. Up to that moment, we had neither
stated principles nor special services. Our Twelve Steps weren't even
a gleam in the eye. As for the Twelve Traditions--well, we had only
forty members and but three years' experience. So there wasn't
anything to be "traditional" about. AA was two small
groups: one at Akron and another in New York. We were a most intimate
family. Dr. Bob and I were its "papas." And what we said in
those days went. Home parlors were meeting places. Social life ranged
around coffeepots on kitchen tables. Alcoholism was of course
described as a deadly malady. Honesty, confession, restitution,
working with others and prayer was the sole formula for our survival
and growth. These were the uncomplicated years of halcyon simplicity.
There was no need for the maxim "Let's keep it simple." We
couldn't have been less complicated.
The
contrast between then and now is rather breath-taking. To some of us
it is frightening. Therefore we ask, "Has AA really kept faith
with Dr. Bob's warning, 'Let's 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?"
For
myself I do not find this difficult to do. Genuine simplicity for
today is to be found, I think, in whatever principles, practices and
services that can permanently insure 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 could only mean wholesale irresponsibility,
disharmony and ineffectiveness. Let's picture this: there would be no
definite guiding principles, no literature, no meeting halls, no
group funds, no planned sponsorship, no stable leadership, no clear
relations with hospitals, no sound public relations, no local
services, no world services. Returning to that early-time brand of
simplicity would be as absurd as selling the steering wheel, the gas
tank and the tires off our family car. The car would be simplified
all right--no more gas and repair bills, either! But our car wouldn't
go any place. The family life would hardly be simplified; it would
instantly become confused and complicated.
A
formless AA anarchy, animated only by the "Let's 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 always be faced to "keep it simple" for today. We
cannot possibly turn back the clock, and shouldn't try.
The
history of our changing ideas about "simplicity for today"
is fascinating. For example, the time came when we actually had to
codify--or organize, if you please--the basic principles that had
emerged out of our experience. There was a lot of resistance to this.
It was stoutly claimed by many that our then simple (but rather
garbled) word-of-mouth recovery program was being made too
complicated by the publication of AA's Twelve Steps. We were
"throwing 'simplicity' out the window," it was said. But
that was not so. One has only to ask, "Where would AA be today
without its Twelve Steps?" That these principles were carefully
defined and published in 1939 has done (only the Lord knows) how much
good.
Codification has vastly simplified our task. Who could contest
that now?
In
1945, a similar outcry arose when sound principles of living and
working together were clearly outlined in AA's Twelve Traditions. It
was then anything but simple to get agreement about them. Yet who can
now say that our AA lives have been complicated by the Traditions? On
the contrary, these sharply defined principles have immensely
simplified the task of maintaining unity. And unity for us AAs is a
matter of life or death.
The
identical thing has everywhere happened in our active services,
particularly in World Services. When our first trusteeship for AA was
created there were grave misgivings. The alarm was great because this
operation involved a certain amount of legality, authority, and
money, and the transaction of some business. We had been running
happily about saying that AA had "completely separated the
spiritual from the material." It was therefore a shocker when
Dr. Bob and I proposed World Services; when we urged that these had
to head up in some kind of a permanent board, and further stated that
the time had come--at least in this realm--when we would have to
learn how to make "material things" serve spiritual ends.
Somebody with experience had to be at the steering wheel and there
had to be gas in the AA tank.
As
our Trustees and their co-workers began to carry our message
worldwide, our fears slowly evaporated. AA had not been confused--it
had been simplified. You could ask any of the tens of thousands of
alcoholics and their families who were coming into AA because of our
World Services. Certainly their lives had been simplified. And, in
reality, so had ours.
When
our first General Service Conference met in 1951, we again drew a
long breath. For some, this event spelled sheer disaster. Wholesale
brawling and politicking would now be the rule. Our worst traits
would get out in front. The serenity of the Trustees and everybody
else would be disturbed (as indeed it sometimes was!). Our beautiful
spirituality and the AA therapy would be interfered with. People
would get drunk over this (and indeed a few did!). As never before,
the shout went up, "For God's sake, let's keep this thing
simple!" Cried some members, "Why can't Dr. Bob and Bill
and the Trustees go right on running those services for us? That's
the only way to keep it simple."
But
few knew that Dr. Bob was mortally sick. Nobody stopped to think that
there would soon be less than a handful of old-timers left; that soon
they would be gone, too. The Trustees would be quite isolated and
unconnected with the fellowship they served. The first big gale could
well bowl them over. AA would suffer heart failure at its vital
center. Irretrievable collapse would be the almost certain result.
Therefore
we AAs had to make a choice: what would really be the simpler? Would
we get that General Service Conference together, despite its special
expense and perils? Or, would we sit on our hands at home, awaiting
the fateful consequences of our fear and folly? What, in the long
run, we wondered, would really be the better--and therefore the
simpler? As our history shows, we took action. The General Service
Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous has just held its tenth annual
meeting.
Beyond
doubt we know that this indispensable instrument has cemented our
unity and has insured the recovery of the increasing hosts of
sufferers still to come.
Therefore
I think that we have kept the faith. As I see it, this is how we have
made AA truly simple!
Some
may still ask, "Are we nevertheless moving away from our early
Tradition that 'AA, as such, ought never be organized'?" Not a
bit of it. We shall never be "organized" until we create a
government; until we say who shall be members and who shall not;
until we authorize our boards and service committees to mete out
penalties for non-conformity, for non-payment of money, and for
misbehavior. I know that every AA heart shares in the conviction that
none of these things can ever happen. We merely organize our
principles so that they can be better understood, and we continue so
to organize our services that AA's lifeblood can be transfused into
those who must otherwise die. That is the all-in-all of AA's
"organization." There can never be any more than this.
A
concluding query: "Has the era of coffee-and-cake and fast
friendships vanished from the AA scene because we are going modern?"
Well, scarcely. In my home town I know an AA who has been sober
several years. He goes to a small meeting. The talks he hears are
just like those Dr. Bob and I used to hear--and also make--in our
respective front parlors. As neighbors, my friend has a dozen AA
cronies. He sees them constantly over kitchen tables and coffee cups.
He takes a frequent whack at Twelfth Step cases. For him, nothing has
changed; it's just like AA always was.
At
meetings, my friend may see some books, pamphlets and Grapevines on a
table. He hears the lady secretary make her timid announcement that
these are for sale. He thinks the New York Intergroup is a good thing
because some of his fellow members were sponsored through it. On
World Services, he is not so clear. He hears some pros and cons about
them. But he concludes they are probably needed. He knows his group
sends in some money for these undertakings, and this is okay.
Besides, his group's hall rent has to be paid. So when the hat comes
by, he cheerfully drops a buck into it.
As far as my friend is
concerned, these "modernizations" of AA are not a bit
shattering to his serenity or to his pocketbook. They merely
represent his responsibility to his group, his area, and to AA as a
whole. It has never occurred to him that these are any but the most
obvious obligations.
If you tried to tell my friend that AA is
being spoiled by money, politics and over-organization, he would just
laugh. He'd probably say, "Why don't you come over to my house
after the meeting and we'll have another cup of coffee." (Bill
W.) ”
(our
emphases)
Cheerio
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
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