AA Unity and the First Tradition – Jane W. RI the 12 Traditions in Our Groups and Personal Lives Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – Mary J.

with these problem people and problem situations. I made it. Miranda's husband is here. So, but somebody had been doing some reading about this group, this organization called the Washingtonians. And they were an organization that started way back in the 1860s and they were uncommonly successful with alcoholics. They had big, big numbers. And people were getting sober. And then they made some mistakes. They started getting involved in other issues. They started taking sides in the wet-dry. You know, there were people who, the abolitionists, they wanted to, that's a good cause, right? They wanted to get in on that too. They took sides with that. within 3, 4, 5 years they were totally out of business nobody knows about the Washingtonians anymore you can't look them up in the yellow pages they're gone they were very very successful but they got off track and when one of the early guys in New York read about the Washingtonians he recognized that we could get all messed up if we start taking sides like against liquor or something like that people would assume that we would support them in their efforts to pour it all out but that's not what we do but the worst thing that we could do would be to take sides because it's divisive and that's exactly what happened to the Washingtonians they were out of business before they were able to do much more good so this guy read about him and brought it to Bill's attention, and that's when he recognized that we could take a real lesson from this outfit called the Washingtonians here's a brief history of the Washingtonian and I'll leave that too, some of you guys are more interested in history than others, and factoids and trivia, but at any rate it's very interesting, this one happens to be written by Milton Maxwell who was a class A, which is amateur, the non-alcoholic trustees on the general service board. And this guy was a wonder. And you can kind of tell by just looking at him. He looks kind of mischievous and funny and nice, but he was brilliant. Anyway, this is, I think, a very nice one. And there's books written about them too, but this is very good information in general. so those are just some of the things that the traditions have in common and what they're all about so let's get to the very first tradition which now this is the short form our common welfare should come first, personal recovery depends upon AA unity and I've got my general service manual. I want you to report to my sponsor. Carry it with me. It's an old one, but... And this is the pamphlet that I was mentioning earlier. Do you guys have this one, the tradition cartoon pamphelet? This is very helpful. Just a thumbnail sketch of each of the traditions. But this is The Long Form And that's what I'm going to try and use today. In fact, in some cases, I'll read them both. My favorite is the second one. See, there's some people here who know. The short form of the second tradition is longer than the long form. Don't you love that? So this is the long form of The First Tradition. And we precede all of it by the way it's described in our literature. Our AA experience has taught us that, one, each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence, our common welfare comes first, but individual welfare follows close afterward. AA really sometimes I just shudder to think and sometimes like when I'm driving up to my home group meeting thinking about the first meeting that I went to supposing nobody had been there AA must continue to live or we would be in deep doo-doo but our future, our families I've got granddaughters and grandkids You know, it's very important to me to do what I can for the preservation and health of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the first thing that they point out as being critically important is our unity. And when you get into a real hassle about something, even if you're right, sometimes the better course is to let it be because unity trumps being right. I really believe that. We've got to hang together, or some of us are going to hang all by ourselves. And unity is the important thing. Most everything else can be ripped out again later. Do you have Sims stores down here? Their motto is, no sale is ever final. I always think about that at a business meeting. Because I don't know how to get my wife. But my only consolation is, you know, no sale is final. I can bring this up next month again. So don't get so attached to a position that you jeopardize the unity of a group or you get real nasty at a business meeting or something. It's not worth it. Our unity is way more important. And we were talking, you know, before I came down, John and I were talking about how you can apply the traditions, the principles in the traditions to your home life and to your work life. And this is one, I think, that naturally flows in a family. You can't let one guy eat up everything and suck the life out of everybody else. The unity of the family is very important. you've got to make sure that you're paying attention and some little kids aren't getting left to drift while you deal with the problem you know, with the fussy one you can't always do that yes, they need extra attention but they only get their turn is all unity is really important and we need to treasure it and value it and respect it and treat it like it's worth doing and sometimes I will give up a treasured position for unity because at the end of the day you know so each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die hence our common welfare comes first but individual welfare follows close afterward. There's hardly any organization that pays better attention to individuals, so we have that as well, but unity is precious, and I firmly believe that unity trumps everything else. This is another little piece of information that you might find helpful. Grapevine put this out a few years ago, A Traditions Checklist, and sometimes when some groups actually do this at the end of their business meeting, like in January, they'll read the Tradition 1 Checklist. And it just asks some questions that should be considered by the group. And I'll just read one or two so you get the hang of it. One, am I in my group a healing, mending, integrating person, or am I divisive? What about gossip and taking other members' inventories? Just the question. You don't have to write down an answer and submit it. Just think about it, just the question, what am I doing? Am I part of the solution or am I part of the problem at a business meeting? Am I trying to find common ground and the right thing? And if not, I might want to think about that for a little while. Next one is, am I a peacemaker or do I with pious preludes such as just for the sake of discussion plunge into argument? You know what I mean? For the good of AA, which anything that starts out with that rarely is. Just a tip-off. So just for example, that's the kind of thing that you would find if you have these, and Grapevine makes these available. They also have a checklist on the general service, The concepts for world service, they have this kind of a spot check thing. Is that enough on one, or does anybody have any comments, questions, or anything that you want to? Are we good on one? We can go on to two. This is our AA experience has taught us that too. For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. And that's the long form. Now I'll read you the short form, which is longer. Only in AA. Tradition two, for our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God. Excuse me. As he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern. That's really important. the thing that jumps out at me in this reading today is group conscience I hear that battered around an awful lot these days and a lot of people want to make the vote at a business meeting sound fancier or more important than it is and so they say well it's our group conscience no it's just a vote you know a group conscience is a deliberate thing we know what we're doing we try really hard to involve everybody because that's what makes up the group conscience and you know anybody can have the best idea that night and if you really have a group conscience it has the opportunity to surface or tips you off to the right solution or how we ought to be on the right track and it only happens if everybody is not only in general invited to participate but you all know the people that aren't going to speak up and so if you're chairing it you can say Frank do you have anything to add to this Or, Alice, are you troubled by anything that we're talking about tonight? Really try and engage everybody in the process. And some people will wait until they're invited. Not all. But a group conscience is really important. But that's why, are we going to use Maxwell House or Folgers? We can use a vote for that if you want to. Or trust our trusted coffee maker to pick whatever's on sale that week. But, you know, that's okay, you know? But if it's really, like if the group is going to go non-smoking, that was huge. And everybody had not only an opinion but a very strong feeling about it one way or the other. And everybody was worried about the new guy, which has nothing to do with it. You know, if a new guy comes in and you say, you can't smoke in here, he says, okay. You know, they were really worried about, they weren't going to be able to smoke in there. But so if it involves money and even not a lot of money, it's important to the group. They are not going to want you to spend money without being consulted. So the rent or whatever those kind of things are. Those things ought to be available for discussion. People have the right and responsibility to discuss things. I always feel like that when it's something I don't want to talk about. I not only have the rights, I have the responsibility. Sometimes I may have a piece of the puzzle that has to be part of the data, you know? And as bad as... You know, because sometimes after a business meeting, I've been doing this for, you know, oh. And yet something else comes up and I think, oh, jeez, you don't have to say something. But not so. But sometimes, you Know, I can let some go. And I really try hard not to. But do you guys have a place inside of you when you know you have to speak? I have one of those. and the worst thing you can do is not pay attention to that and then you get in the car on your way home and you think, I needed to say it I don't need to defend it I just needed to Say It so don't be that guy that feels uncomfortable on the way home either if you have something to contribute it's not only your right but it's your responsibility in AA because it's all us, we do not have a ruling class We really don't. And so if there's something that's troublesome and you really need to bring it up, then have at it. There's nobody that makes me feel better than like at, say, a regional forum or at an area meeting where they have the open mics, and there'll be somebody there with a little piece of paper whacking against the microphone you know they didn't want to stand up but they made themselves do it because it's something that they feel strongly about it's not comfortable all the time to speak out but it is our responsibility we're the deal we are AA so as uncomfortable as that is sometimes but that's what constitutes It's the group conscience. God has all these folks and what they've brought to the discussion to use as direction for how we should go. But if it's just one voice, I can't see God being able to. Because I don't think God will wrestle anybody to the ground over it. But if we all contribute, I think that God's grace has the opportunity to prevail. And as for our group purpose, important things. And just the whole idea, though, I Think of group conscience is just one – it's a term unique to AA and needs to be respected. And I don't know, anybody want to talk anything about tradition two? The key word, tradition two, authority, our ultimate authority. And you know, usually when we do, after we haggle around for a period of time and all of a sudden one thing does emerge, it does feel right. And almost everybody is satisfied. and the rest of them are at least to a place where, well, at least you heard me. You didn't change, but you heard. And that's respectful and that makes you feel okay too. That's all I'm asking most of the time. You heard me? I don't have to say it slower and louder. You heard my voice. You heard what I said. You just don't agree with me. And then that's okay. I can live with that. I can go home and bring it up next month but really is everybody good with our ultimate authority for our group purpose a loving God yes our group toyed around with the idea of having a steering committee within our monthly group conscience or group business meeting Do you have any experience with that? Actually, yeah. Does it allow some exclusion for some group members? Good. Or is it you want to be able to speak on that for others? Thank you. Steven? Evan. Evan. Thanks, Evan. Yeah, I do. I told you about this new group that I belong to, the steps we took. Only a couple of guys put it together, three, four. And so they decided that they would be the steering committee. And it really, and it was, we really harangued about this for about a year because we're saying, you know, we're not the Pacific group. There's not 3,000 people in here. We're lucky if we get eight for a business meeting early on, you know, a steering committee of these three, four guys? We could understand it if it was hugely unwieldy, but we could manage. And it was way better off that we brought everything to the whole group. But we did make allowances, and we said, if the group ever gets so big, and the point of the steering committee, and it does talk about there's reference to the AA group pamphlet. That's just one of the best pieces of information that we got. And I've got one of those, too, but I hope everybody's got a copy of that. It's in one of my little show-and-tells here, but it's the AA group. And it describes what is an AA group and the makeup of an AA group. And it talks about it, but it says in a large city or big metropolitan area, the group may have its steering committee. That's very, very helpful. Suppose this was a business meeting. It would be very difficult, I think, to conduct business unless – Wow. Well, that's tough, so you may – I would leave it open to the possibility that the day may come sooner rather than later possibly for your group if you're growing that much. But be careful because I think the function of the steering committee is to make sure that nothing gets left out. They plan an agenda, things that were left from last month that got tabled or whatever. Or because of the calendar year, there are things that have to be decided in February because such and such is going to happen in March or April. Well, you don't want to leave your whole business meeting and not have addressed that which was time sensitive. So the steering committee can be helpful. In this size, I would think pretty soon you may want to think about it just for planning an agenda and making sure that balls don't get dropped and things don't gets lost or messed up. But it's not a decision-making body. The group, it has to be the AA group and a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. But it's always worth talking about, and I always used to be afraid when people would bring up something that I was really opposed to or that I was afraid of. And I would just kind of silently go, oh, why did you say that? Now we're going to get in an argument, we're going to get in a mess and you know and besides that it's monday night football or something you know so but and and i don't know about here but rhode island's getting worse and worse and worse about that a good business meeting is done in 30 minutes and boy they start getting itchy after that they're you know they're they're looking at their watches and or whatever you And they just can't get out of there fast enough. It's just once a month, and I don't think a group is healthy if it doesn't have a business meeting that really addresses its business. So that's my feeling about it, but I'm right. But I love that you guys are talking about it at any rate. But you lose something when you allow a ruling class or you allow some people to take care of things for you. One group I went to one time, we were talking about having it catered, for crying out loud. You don't get it caterED. You fix stuff. You cut up the cheese and crack it. You don'T get it CaterED. It's AA for goodness sake. The more people you can involve, the better, the best. But it's good to talk about. But if you do go down that road at some point in time, it's a good idea, I think, that the group determines what is the responsibility of the steering committee and that the steering community serve the group, not their own thing. And you have a mechanism for shutting it down too. You'll notice everything in Alcoholics Anonymous. us. We can shut down the general service office if you want to. Anything that quits serving us can be cut away. The groups really are the most important thing. It's not easy, but anything can be done by the groups. And so you want a mechanism and you want the steering committee to get the idea that that's how you feel about it. They serve the group or they're out of business and determine how long they will serve and that kind of stuff as well because rotation takes care of a lot of stuff as well if the steering committee and why are they on it and what they should be just like the people who are on the steering committee should be like for example the past secretary and or the past treasurer or somebody like that, somebody who has some continuity in history of the group that can explain when something comes up. You say, well, you know how that started was blah, blah. Well, that's no longer in effect. Okay, well then we don't have to worry about it anymore. Thanks for the information, Fred, whatever. So that slot is automatically, when the jobs change, that slot will be then filled by the immediate past secretary. But you just determine the categories and how many people you want to serve on the steering committee, three, four, five. But it has to be manageable, but somebody's going to be absent every month, so you wantto make sure that it gets covered. But anyways, the group determines all of that. The steering committee doesn't tell you what they're going to do. You tell the steering community what you want from them. But it's interesting, isn't it? But we can get into a hassle over anything. But I think that that is a big one. And ours is not totally resolved. Our steering committee won't go away, but we just don't listen to them. Because they really feel like it's one of those elitist things. They really feel Like they're the ruling class. I'm on the steering committee. but question yes you know how it turned out to be longer the second time around than it did the first no I don't I don' t I really don't google it I already did oh you did can you tell us I was tempted to make something up, but I don't know. Okay. Break time, guys. And we're going to start up again as close to 11 as we can. Is that 11 or 10? Okay. Good.