General Service and the Service Manual – 2025 AA Service Workshop – Part 11 of 27 – Billy N.

a quick question um the asl and spanish old service manual study is in the district is on the district six website the one we did for the district 6 website is it's under recordings but the aso and splish is not we did that on the side as a dcm i can pull that stuff up for you to send to you okay all right okay thanks good evening everyone i'm billy i'm an alcoholic welcome to monday night um so a couple of questions that i received it will open with the serenity prayer god grant me the serendipity to accept the things i cannot change the courage to change things i can no wisdom to know the difference which i said about 50 times at the yankee game at yankee stadium friday night to no avail i guess i was needed a lot of acceptance in my life that's what was on the plate um anyway um i have received a couple of questions lately from spanish speaking and deaf um which obviously anyone knows me knows that i am committed because it's just unbelievable the resources that are not available to those communities um so a long long time ago maybe towards the end of covid coming out of covet i don't know when it was but um we did a monday night workshop where we had a spanish interpreter when we could and we also had a professional asl interpreter someone who's paid who's a professional and so their video in their face can be shown and it is segregated just them recently a YouTube link was created by someone to be better than a Google Drive link I will find a way D&I to get information over to Roger and because I get so many questions about the deaf and deaf wanting to participate in service and it is super hard to find anything in ASL around the traditions or the concepts or the service manual so just stay tuned in the next week or two we'll announce where that could really be found because it's super important so tonight we are on the introduction to the service manual which inside the service Manuel it says a legacy of service but before we get there i just want to go over a couple of things um that obviously i'm not going to argue about oh you know what another announcement sorry before i even get to that another announcement because i know that inside um there are a lot of bobby b fans uh that i run into all over um bobby b was the national secretary in the early days of the office super instrumental in the office if you don't know about her um just google bobby be alcoholics anonymous um there's also a new book that came out last year um called the fantastic communicator um bobby b for whatever reason i wasn't there was kind of written out of our history i was really glad at the international to be in the archives room and to be at a section and to see they had a section about bobby bee and her if you want to know how influential she was the christmas and new year's letters that went out from bill and lois every year would be signed love bill lois and bobby like um during the years bill was maybe having a hard time bobby kept that office running i don't know if it's an alcoholic exaggeration but let's just say that like some of us she might have suffered from workaholism you know or when it has anything to do with aa even though she was a paid employee god knows some of us we just keep going and we don't know how to say no uh but bobby worked 12 14 16 hours a day if you were to read the history book from australia um you can go on australian general service website um and order their history book without bobby there's no aa in Australia. Without Bobby, there's no AA in a lot of countries. GSO did not have a listed number at that time. After the Saturday Evening Post article, so many letters came in. Bobby answered all of them. I can tell you personally when I was in New Zealand last October, a man showed me the original letter that bobby wrote to the guy in new zealand who wrote out for help um who then became member number one in new zealand unfortunately her workaholism and everything else she had a breakdown she wound up drinking she wound-up tragically taking her own life but none of that undoes the year after year after year of work that she did as a special worker for us maybe back then everybody was a little worried they didn't want somebody to know that the national secretary drank and had a breakdown and later on took her life I think all of us are you know we live in a much more compassionate day and age and um but the reason i'm saying all this is because there was a discovery in the last two weeks um the cemetery in brooklyn where bobby's ashes are were discovered um uh there are talks now between some aa members and her surviving grandchildren or great-grandchildren about properly getting her a headstone um no special celebration no different than bill or bob's you know just their name and the date they were alive and the day they died but um uh for anyone who is a bobby fanatic because there are a lot out there maybe because she was forgotten for so long i just wanted to let you know that a lot of work has been going on with a couple of people to really look and search for her so that being said let's start out with tonight which is what i have to say before we get to the even opening page of the forward which is aa's legacy of service is there some important things to know before we get there. Number one is if somebody is a new GSR, I'm not saying they have to be done with all 12 steps. Maybe they're still on their ninth step amends list. I don't know. I'm not their sponsor what i do know is how unfair it would be to ask someone to serve in general service before they've gotten themselves a foundation in recovery and that side of the triangle and that their life is stable and that they don't get distracted by something else because i'm sure as a lot of us know here it is easy to get distracted by other things and alcoholics anonymous never mind life and a newcomer's life is at stake um so i want to say that i'll get more about who should be a gsr when we get to gsR next week um but then let's talk about just leading into getting into the service manual um and if you are new to service or bringing people who are new through this, who are new to service, because I hope that a lot of you are going to take people through the service manual. I don't want to argue the dates. You know, A, June 10th, 1935 is our birthday. April of 1939, the first edition of the big book is published. There were no laminated sheets at that time, right? There were no white laminated cards in the coffee cabinet box. So the steps were in the big book. I don't know when all 12 were officially, absolutely adopted and written and they all agreed on them. But let's just say somewhere between 1936, 37, 38, 39, you know, they get that book ready to be published. And those 12 steps became the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous for sure. And those steps, AA has given permission to other fellowships to use them. And they're the foundation for recovery in many 12-step fellowships. That is the – that's just a fact. And we can't – you know, there was nothing else at the time. There was that book and the steps. um the traditions you know what first appeared in the grapevine in 1946 but what i want to tell you is bill w didn't write a connection between step one and tradition one or step six and tradition six now there's probably people here who are way more talented than me and if you are doing a presentation and weaving together the spiritual webs or connection between step one, tradition one have at it I would just ask that if I or anybody else does that that we share with people that that's our own interpretation that that is not AA history, that's not how it was written And the reason it's important that I talk about 1946 and the traditions appearing is that it's so important to let the person who you're going to take through the service manual know that as powerful as the steps are, are between 1939 when we published that book and 1946 when the traditions came out we were almost successful at burning a down to the ground like since the beginning of time whatever that is for you i'm not debating anyone else's beliefs about the world i don't care if you think the earth is round flat i don t care who your god is i don't care how old you think the earth is i don't what calendar you use based on all the calendars i can make myself available to i think we can all agree that for thousands of years there was lots of alcoholics and no aa and then all of a sudden in 1937 i'm sorry in 1939 that book is published And between that book being published and a short seven years later in 1946, we did everything we could to burn AA down to the ground. All having to do with money, property, prestige, ego. And when you think about how powerful the steps are, it's amazing to think then how powerful alcoholism is. No, I'm not doubting for a second that God is more powerful. I believe that in my heart. but we are a class of people that my book tells me that money power and prestige and ego can divert us from being connected to our god or our higher power and that when we lose that connection all bets are off that's what happened in aa in the first seven years after the big book was published lots of crazy ideas lots of rules rules so many rules how many times you were allowed to slip when you could be permanently banned from a group all kinds of things and so when you think about that how powerful the steps are but yet without the traditions we would not be here today this would have left a long time ago and the reason i say that tonight is because the number one question you have to ask a person you're taking through the service manual before you do it is, where are you in the steps with your sponsor? Even do you have a sponsor that you're in regular contact with? Do you have a home group? And have you been through the traditions? Because you could read this early part of the service manual before we get to the concepts but without knowing the traditions it's so hard to make sense of any of the rest of this the traditions are weaved you know we we talk about the concepts, but you know the concepts didn't get published until 1961. The traditions published in 1946 the conference charter you know in 1955 six years before the concepts even existed before anyone even knew to put the word concept before the number 12 and say concept 12. before there was a concept 12 there was article 12 of the conference charter if you look at article 12 of the conference charter it is concept 12. and one of the fascinating things about that concept and concept 12 which is the six warranties how important is tradition 10 it became warranty five in article 12 of the conference charter like not being personally punitive but we could debate that about what tradition that falls in but what about the second part of that that the conference should never do anything to incite a public controversy that's all about tradition 10 so these things happened historically but when bill wrote the twelve concepts again he did not go back and weave it together with step one tradition one concept one all of these spiritual principles run vertically not horizontally now I just used a very interesting word principles the best I can the best i can do of reading as much a literature as I can read is there are in fact 36 spiritual principles the 12 steps the 12 traditions and the 12 concepts those are the principles now i go to enough aa events i'm not immune i wander into the drunk store drunk junk store i see what the latest jewelry out is latest wristband my current one is pause right it's a perfect one you know i love this wristband uh it's so effective in so many different situations right um but i want to see the latest leather big book cover i wantto see the lastest thing thing to carry like a notebook upside down briefcase your big book and your 12 and 12 and your service manual together i get it i get drawn into those places myself but sometimes people see things in there that they mistake for our literature so there are no one-word principles assigned to the steps the traditions or the concepts i kind of think about an old school speaker named father martin i got to hear him once in person it seems a lot of people who went through rehab at a particular time saw a video of his called chalk talk um but i remember him talking about that he had seen a calendar with the principles of the steps and i remember him saying that for step nine they had justice and he said wow thank god we didn't get justice because for people like us justice might not be a good situation um and so when i use the word principles i'm talking about all 36 principles and the actual principles so the the beginning of a legacy of service i love because one of my pet peeves as someone who's been a general servant in general service for a long time is when we kind of brand certain service as the only service or a better than service, right? Kind of like the military, right, you have the Navy, then you have SEALs, then have people talk about oh seals but then you could be in seal team six dev group right like humans love things that are better humans love to always be you know elite at something um you know sometimes i get a little worried when i hear people ask somebody are you in service because sometimes what they're implying is are you in general service. And I think that's so disrespectful. The third side of our triangle is not general service, it's service. Everybody needs the three legacies in their life. Everybody needs unity, recovery and service. Now we've applied the 12 steps, the 12 traditions the 12 concepts to each side of that triangle but we don't only mean general service it sounds so elite to me um because there are so many great members who support general service who might not want to be a gsr that might not be their thing i know people who are great in general service who don't want to become a corrections volunteer I did hear an old-timer say something this morning at a meeting that I thought was very interesting. He said, when you really think about Alcoholics Anonymous as an organization, if you really want to just give your head a headache and you're talking about how great we are, how awesome we are. he's like, have you ever thought about that? We're the only organization in the world that goes to mental hospitals and prisons to find new members. Like no other organizations, they don't list, you know, we need new members, we're going to go down to the psychiatric center and the local prison. You know, where are odd, different organization for sure. You know we meet people where they are park row park bench park place yale prison doesn't matter um but i love what bill writes here because he starts off by saying our 12th step carrying the message is the basic service that the a fellowship gives this is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence that's the main reason for a is existence the 12th step and then he goes on to say therefore a is more than a set of principles so we're not just the literature we're not just two steps he says it's a society of alcoholics in action we must carry the message else ourselves we can wither and those who haven't been given the truth may die I love that he writes it there, much like the best definition of sponsorship is at the end of Concept 9 when he tells us that somebody's life is in our hands, that kind of leadership. What does he say here? He doesn't mix words. He says, we ourselves can wither and those who haven't been given the truth may die. Not told cafeteria plan AA, not told to take what you want and leave the rest. Take what you want and leave the rest is great if you're hearing a lot of nonsense. But it does not apply to the program of action in the big book. Nowhere does it say, take some of this and leave the rest. And then he goes on to say probably the most important thing. Hence an AA service is anything whatever that helps us to reach a fellow sufferer. Ranging all the way from the 12th step itself to a 10-cent phone call and a cup of coffee and to AA's General Service Office for national and international action. The sum total of all of these services is our third legacy of service. So Bill is telling us right there, it's the total of all those things that make up that side of the triangle. General service is just one piece of that sideofthe triangle. So then he goes on to say down a little he says concerning any service given we therefore pose but one question is this service really needed if it is then maintain it we must or fail in our mission to those who need and seek aa but you know don p used to always say that that that's the greatest question you can ask at a district meeting at an assembly at a home group business meeting at an intergroup steering committee meeting is is this service really needed is it helping us carry out our primary purpose and then he goes on to say the most vitally at least understood group of services that aa has are those that enable us to function as a whole namely the general service office a world services inc a grapevine and our board of trustees our worldwide unity and much of our growth since early times are directly traceable to the cluster of to this cluster of life-giving activities so when you think about all that those letters that came into bobby they didn't go somewhere else you know sure groups did their job but what about what there was no group australia new zealand a whole bunch of other countries a whole bunch of places in the united states that she was writing to and he goes on to say to talk about this meant we had to form a conference representing our membership, which could meet yearly with our board of trustees in New York and thus assume direct responsibility for the guardianship of AA tradition and the direction of our principal service affairs. Otherwise, a virtually unknown board of trustees and our too little understood service headquarters operations would someday be bound to collapse, meaning that if they're not connected to the groups, they're eventually going to wither away. That's how important this conferences. And then he says something warning us. Again, I love that Bill didn't mince words. Suppose that the future trustees acting quite on their own were to make a serious blunder. Suppose that with no linkage to AA they tried to act for us in a time of great trouble or crisis. With no direct guidance from AA as a whole, how could they do this? collapse of our top services would then be inevitable and if under such conditions our world services did fall apart how could they ever be reconstructed so there's a general balance you can be proud of your inner group your district your area the general service office in new york but also know how great a service is being done outside of that That it's the sum of all of it that's the beauty of AA. If you go to the next page, it then goes welcome to general service and it starts by saying today there are approximately 2 million members of Alcoholics Anonymous represented in 125,000 groups spread across approximately 180 countries. More than 40 million copies of our basic text AlcoholicsAnonymous have been distributed over 70 languages indeed aa has come a long way since the may since the May day in 1935 when our co-founders Dr Bob and Bill W met for the very first time and I don't know who was in Vancouver but one of the things that really interested me I don t know if it was the 43rd million or whatever book it was but on Sunday at the international convention they always give the last millionth copy to some buddy or organization. In Atlanta, it was the order, the religious order that Sister Ignatius belonged to. A big book was presented to her for all she did for AA. This time in Vancouver, it wasn't just a book. It was interesting. They gave it to the Dorchester Correctional Facility in Canada, which is the longest running prison group in all of Canada. 75 years and it was interesting because at the corrections workshop before that sunday meeting the prisoners from that group had made a big banner in their art room and they showed it it was amazing um aa for 75 years in that correctional facility um it goes on a couple paragraphs down to say bill came up with a bold solution the early aa leadership would be succeeded not by new people but by the collective conscience of the groups in aa in other words up until the conference when it really started in 55 the decisions of AA were made by the successor trustees and the trustees picked their own successors at that time and he says right here succeeded by not new people but by the collective conscience of the groups in AA. Bill proposed to create a service structure to facilitate 12-step work across the country and around the world. So think about that. He formed the structure to facilitate 12-stepped work. How many district meetings or assemblies or the general service conference or your area or in a group are you living up to that to facilitate 12-step work around the world in your section of the world that's the only purpose of our service entities the structure would bring to bear the collective conscience of the groups on matters affecting aa as a whole at the heart of this structure would be the aa groups themselves providing both the conscience and financial support for a services throughout the fellowship It would be a structure to take the place of a government in AA, ensuring that the full voice of AA would be heard. Today we call the service structure that developed from Bill's plan the General Service Conference Structure or simply General Service. The General Service Conference Stpture is Bill's Plan to Facilitate 12-Step Work. That's what it's all about. if you go on the next page it talks about how is our services organized and it says the typical structure of many organizations in the world today can be visualized in a triangle the triangle narrows to a point at the top where very few people hold final authority over everyone else in the organization they decide what it will and will not do the rest of the triangle the broad foundation upon which the organization rests often has little or no say and a lot of the places a lot of us work things are like that. General service in AA flips this triangle on its head. The top of the triangle is now on the bottom and the bottom is now on top. Final authority now resides in the foundation of the Triangle. In general service that means the groups of AA. This type of organization is often referred to as an upside down triangle. The chart below illustrates this idea. In this structure, the groups have final authority. So it's groups, GSRs, districts, area assemblies, the General Service Conference, and then the General Services Board and AAWS and AA Grapevine and the employees under that who work for those corporations. It's interesting. You know, I spend a lot of time, I did spend a Lotta Time in Airports in my career. I'm trying to spend less. But there's always in every airport bookstore or even in some of the, you know, convenience stores, there's always a book rack and there's Always the newest business book rack is always the latest in business. And one day I was going through and what's what to my magic, you now eyes appear. But some new philosophy called the upside down triangle in business, and I was like, holy like this is very interesting that this is now but you know even inside upside down triangles or right side up triangles organizations the world has learned that it's only through collaborative leadership that you can really lead an organization being the number one at the top first of all it's super lonely I am the chair of the board of a large non-profit being chair is like sometimes it's a great honor other times it's punishment everybody always wants something from you everybody always wants to complain everybody accuses you of how come you didn't just make the decision why did you waste our time with this then when you do make the decisions they're like we can't believe you made this decision without talking to us it's a very lonely place to be at the top of a triangle and that's why most leaders you know in the last 20 years have learned that it's only through collaboration you might look like you're at the but it's top towards getting people to come and collaborate and agree on things that you can really you know do effective work um but in aaa we always have to ask you know is our triangle upside down and in every level of service the group there are plenty of groups where the triangle is up is not upside down there are groups where one or two or three people are making all the decisions that's just as bad as in general service there are districts and areas and intergroups that sometimes appear like that even sometimes our own conference and our own board you know sometimes a triangle tilts a little in either direction um and we have to watch out for that and believe me when we talk about the boards as someone who served as a class b trustee as someone who served on AA World Services Board for eight years, as someone who's been the chair of the AA World Service Board twice, I'm well aware of how much responsibility falls to those people. And when you're putting hours and hours a week on top of your regular life, on top if your recovery life, on top your home group into that, it can get a little frustrating when everybody wants to Monday morning quarterback you but that's the nature of AA. The nature of AA, I'm shocked that that term was even created outside of AA. The term Monday morning quarterback should have been created inside Alcoholics Anonymous long before. And when you think about it, Monday morning, quarterback is referring to before there was even Monday night football when there were no football games on Mondays. So if you were a Monday morning quarterback, you were talking about, and listen, if you want to compare AA gossip up after an assembly to something about just on any given Sunday or any given Monday morning wherever you are in the country even if you're not a football fan turn on sports radio and listen to the people calling in and all they have to say is the coach did this wrong I could have called plays better I could Have made better decisions I can't believe they went for that field goal i mean that's all you hear i mean and there's certain towns where i'm like i used to love to travel for work because if you're in a place like dallas on a monday and the cowboys lost sports radio is like gold i mean it is gold um but that's how it feels sometimes when you're in a leadership position in alcoholics anonymous like you leave the assembly or the district or even your group and you think you did a half decent job of chairing the meeting and then by tuesday you start to get the gossip or the emails or the text messages or the whatsapp groups i mean that's why i'm the first one to talk about we have to have great respect for the people who step into leadership positions and are willing to take this on if you turn the page what it really does is go on to talk about the group the district in the area um and then the delegate in the conference and when we get to the group, the district, and the area I'm going to really stress concept four because that's what it's all about you know when you look at the general service conference they maintain a decent ratio meaning that over two-thirds of the voting members are area delegates of the 135 to 137 total voters depending on the year over 66 percent point six over two thirds are area delegates representing groups that's what concept four is talking about in relation to their responsibility and then the trustees have the next size voting power and then the staff and then the directors and there's good pictures in the new service manual that use colors to look at a picture but i would ask anyone to take a good look at their district or their assembly are you living up to the same commitment the general service conference is living up too i hear people complain about the general service board in the conference all the time but the one thing i know about them is that they live up to the groups being in charge per concept four they have over two-thirds in many area assemblies i go to now we've created so many new positions so many voting positions at the area level that sometimes the gsrs are not the biggest voting group and that is how it's supposed to be when people ask me is there a solution to this there is of course there is people say all groups aren't showing up well does that mean you should still have voting at a proportion i want to give a big shout out i know i don't know if there's anyone here from there now sometimes there is um but australia wrestled with this for years at the level of their general Service Conference. I personally myself had no idea how large Australia was until I really went there. I thought it was like a country, like Rhode Island, you know? Australia is a continent. Australia is like the United States floating in the middle of an ocean. That's what it is. It's huge. Australia has some areas that sometimes are not represented by any delegate. And what this did at their conference is it messed with the upside down triangle and the voting representation. And it was a bone of contention for many years. And I salute the Australia general service conference and their board for finding some resolution to this of finding a way of oh maybe a couple people don't need to vote this year maybe we take turns if if you're really interested in australia's solution send me an email and i'll put you in contact with somebody who can get you the actual written information but what i'm saying is any district any area could do this people say well how could they do it i'll give you a simple way if you total up all the voters and the non-gsrs meaning the dcms the area committee chairs and the officers meaning the gsrs don't have two-thirds well figure out the math of what two-third would be figure out the math of what another one-third would be. Put all those people's names in a hat and pull them out one at a time and say, these people get to vote at this assembly. It's an easy solution. Now some people say, well, but I'm an area officer so that my authority doesn't match my job and I don't have... But you know what? If you do it fair, I can tell you this, just in case, because people are always saying, you know, if I say something, they say, oh, he didn't give any examples. So that's not true. So I'll give another example, just so you know how important the ratio is. The elections for regional trustee at the general service conference. The elections to regional truste have to have an equal number of area delegates from that region so every region every delegate in that region gets a vote and then an equal number of delegates from the conference committee on trustees and the trustees nominating committee so if the trustees' nominating committee has nine people and the conference committee on trustees has nine people that's 18. so if the area if there's only maybe 14 area delegates in a particular region then all the names go in a hat and actually we do it so fair that if it if it comes to an odd number the trustees nominating committee gets low less voters than the conference committee on trustees but we pull them out of the hat right from the stage we say okay all members of the trustees nominating committee pay attention these are the people who are voting all i'm saying is there's ways around this to honor how important it is that the groups always be the most important and in charge um So with that, I am going to stop for questions. Please send them into the chat. Dee, do you want to make an announcement about the chat? Unmute yourself if you do. I know it's... Yeah, I will real quick because there's been a lot of debate around the chat and how it's disabled, people will say. And the only reason some people can and some people can't is because the chat is new. You have to go in and actually type in Billy's name name because he's the one that's taking the questions the only two people that will come up as me or Billy the ones that are co-hosted so it's not disabled you just have to go in the chat it's different so I'll give a minute for any questions to come in I expected this question only because I've gotten like 80 emails in the last week. I'll just say, I'll answer it from a high level. i'm aware that there's a lot of people all bent out of shape about the souvenir book from the international convention and a country not being listed um i'm well aware i have my own strong feelings on it all i can tell you like the people who have emailed me is you got to do what alcoholics hate to do you got a take the time and you gotta write a letter and you got to send it to your area delegate or copy area delegate and send it to your regional trustee and send it to the international convention desk at the general service office the and all the members of the board of trustees and let them know how you feel that's the best i can tell you that's that's what you can do you can wait for your assembly you can bring it up there um but that's the only way to deal with it inside the process you can go online you can go on Facebook you can do whatever you want it's not me to tell you what to do it's just that's not effective you can scream that you want to stop sending money but if you're not writing to the general service board and letting them know you can also bring it to your group and instead of sending a letter just from you say that it's coming from group that's the best i can answer that question do you know why the circle triangle symbol we used was not an inverted triangle any info just curious well first of all it was created it was started to be even though it only appears in the second edition big book and then disappears in the fourth edition. It was still in the third. And by the way, a big shout out. I am a big fan of the other lunatics who have a rubber stamp of the circle and triangle and stamp it where it used to be in the big book. I love that. I think that's awesome. There's a lot of confusion around us not using the circle triangle. we just don't enforce our copyright but if you read the service piece from gso on the circle and triangle we never told a groups or anybody else they couldn't use it we never did if they wanted to use it so be it we just didn't use it as a trademark of ours. It's not a symbol anymore. We still own that trademark, but we don't use it. It was, however, used in AA before the second edition was published. I just want to be very clear on that. Probably before there was a general service structure, but the circle and triangle was an old spiritual symbol um that was used by many organizations uh throughout the world so that's why they used the up the right side up triangle often if you're if there's any hikers here or anybody who's really into nature and spends a lot of time outside a lot times you can be somewhere and you'll come across a geographical serve a geographic i forget the name of the government organization um but the national geographic whatever um there'll be a thing in the ground that that's a certain spot that's marked and it'll have the circle and triangle we were not the only ones who used it what was the date the concepts were written do you remember the name of book or author that used the upside down triangle i don't remember name of the book of the author and if i did i wouldn't even say it here i would not endorse it in an aa talk um the concepts were published in 61 best research i can do is that bills w and bernard smith the non-alcoholic past chair of the board started writing them in like 58 59 60 throwing the idea around the best information i got off that was from a past chair of the general service board named michael alexander michael alexandre was a law clerk for bernard smith and then went on to be a very successful partner in a big new york law firm and became chair of the board of alcoholics anonymous who was a funny guy because he one time said to me he said you know he said being a trustee is nice i love being chair of the board he said but god aaa can try and make a class a a class b the best of anybody and he had a good handle on the fellowship and what it's like to deal with all of us boy is that the same with outside facts expressed within the indigenous people pamphlet Hmm. That's a really excellent question. Um, I have read the draft of that pamphlet. I do not have it right in front of me now. The way I read it, I should say this. I'm not a person who believes in censoring people's stories written or spoken. However, if I'm the chair of the meeting and I get to select who speaks, I'm going to make sure that I've heard you speak before. I'm not going to go up to the podium and say, oh, you know, I never heard this person's story and I don't have a speaker tonight, so this is a good way to get to know him. No, that's not going to happen. You want to get-to-know an alcoholic? Have coffee with them. That is a brilliant idea. Have coffee. It is not a suggested way to get to know somebody of just letting them speak for the first time when you never heard them. So if inside your story, written or verbal, there are certain things in the world that have influenced your life. you have every right to talk about it that's my belief now if your aa talk is all about that and not about recovery from alcoholism again i'm not going to choose you to speak but if you're going to tell me that certain outside factors influenced and impacted your life positively or negatively i'm going to be respectful that you have a right to talk about that in your story in the context of your individual alcoholic story so what don't i like about that pamphlet that i guess a lot of other people don't like i'm aware of some of the barbaric things that happen to indigenous people in the country that I live in and in other countries. I'm aware of words like colonialization and all kinds of words, and if they were in a person's story, I would probably give it a lot more latitude. But for in the non-story section of that pamphlet, for AA to start taking opinions on outside issues is wrong to me. They don't belong there. The part that's just about AA and not about individual stories should just be about recovery from alcoholism. And then we let our members tell their stories, which are unique and not all the same. So I think like the old safety card that they had to remove outside issues from. I think they just reappeared in the new Indigenous pamphlet, and I am the largest supporter of any people that are trying to get sober, especially people that are marginalized and communities that are marginalised and places where there are either real or artificial walls that are a barrier to alcoholics getting better. I want all of those walls down. I just don't think AA or Warranty 5 should do anything to incite any public controversy. And again, if you're bothered by that, please write your delegate and the General Service Office. Have your group send a letter. Okay, I just need to hold on one second. person who just sent me a message i sent you a number to text me on and send me that same information directly to you so thank you another question along those lines yes am i between the safety card a couple years ago that had to be fixed on top of the international convention book on top of this pamphlet I am a little concerned that more than ever politics of both sides I'll use both in our country since there's a lot of sides but it does seem that the extreme right and the extreme left which there are probably people that i'm looking at in front of me who are could be extreme right or left and and you are entitled to that welcome to the world the first tradition says welcome back to society and you get to be who you want to be and that is awesome we just keep it outside of alcoholics anonymous we just don't let it infiltrate a a we don't want to be like the Washingtonians you know the Washingtonians got involved in all kinds of outside issues we don t want to them i want to scream from the rooftop that tradition three at a very unpopular time a hundred years ahead of its time was the greatest diversity and inclusion statement ever written way ahead of it's time that any alcoholic is entitled to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I'll be very honest. Do we have assholes in AA? Of course. Of course! Do we know of some who maybe let some of those issues interfere and they were a barrier to other people getting sober? Of course they did. were there people from marginalized communities and different parts of the world and society that were made to not feel welcome in Alcoholics Anonymous? I want to be very clear. They were made not to feel welcome by members of AA, who occasionally can be an asshole. I know that's a bad word, but what else am I going to say? AlcoholicsAnonymous' third tradition guarantees every alcoholic a seat here, guarantees every problem drinker a seat to find out if they're an alcoholic and figure it out so I am a little concerned about in the last five years politics seem to be, and I'm sure it's because of the state of our country I just want AA to keep it all out you know as I've said before If someone shakes my hand Or if I shake someone's hand in an AA meeting I don't care if they're white or black I don'T CARE IF THEY'RE A CATHOLIC, JEW, MUSLIM I DON'T CARe IF THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD I DONT BELieve IF THEY LOVE GUNS OR HATE GUNs I DON'T CARE If THEY'RE PRO-LIFE OR PRO-CHOICE I DON't CARE if THEY'RE a DEMOCRAT OR A REPUBLICAN I JUST DON'T CARE I DON''T CARe If THEY'Re FOR THE DEATH PENALTY OR AGAINST IT and everyone knows what i say i don't even care if they're a boston red sox fan like all of that stuff has to stay outside like my only job is to welcome them to what possibly could be the greatest day for the rest of their life so um i see somebody has the hand up please send in a chat um message please send it a message to me or d if you send it to d she'll forward it to me i'll give it a second for any other questions i do have a request for next week is please read the chapter on the General Service Representative. It's only a couple of pages. Somebody just sent me a question, which is a good one. Sometimes I feel like the group is so disconnected to AA as a whole. I would be curious. I just want to know which group you mean your group the fellowship some AA groups if whoever just sent that question and could just follow up on that and help me out there Several meetings I attend, I'm not going to say what area, are not connected with the GSR. Well, I think we all know that. I think one of the things that future leaders, and I know I'm looking at lots of future leaders need to be aware of is we've had this system of communication for a long time. We basically took the telephone game from kindergarten. the office tells the delegates the delegate tells the district chairs the district chair tells the groups and one of the things that's happened i'm sure if in your work life you've probably seen this is i try to always tell people who work for me no flipping emails and i don't mean flipping as a substitute for a curse word i mean actually flipping the the email like, oh, I just got this. Let me forward this to somebody else. No. Why not at least take the time to read it? Maybe think about what's being communicated. But what I would tell you is our system of communication is based on a world of three TV networks, maybe one or two others in the local area to watch a baseball game or the Cubs all across the country. But we have a system that's built on abc cbs and mbc right who do you like to watch on air at night at six o'clock we have a system of communication that's built on the news is only on once a day and the newspaper is only printed once a day and you have to get all your information in one big newspaper and you to read the whole thing to find what you want to find or what you find interesting and what else do we have i i we had a question a couple of weeks ago that somebody had just went to three delegate report backs from three different areas and they felt like there were three different conferences talked about so we have that issue you have the individual interpretation of information that can be different 93 times and one of the things in the communication audit of like 2017 2018 which you know was like the big elephant in the room is that is our method of communication outdated does everything need to go through a delegate to a dcm to a GSR, let's face it. Most of that was created based on mailing prices. So I'm going to give you a little tutorial, which I don't like to give about how old I am or my age because I am convinced I'm still 25 years old when I go into Dunkin' Donuts and order a large Dunkin Go and his coffee like it. I have no idea how oldI am, right? I'm definitely not the age i am but i'm going to take you back chronologically like until 15 years or 17 years into my sobriety did long-distance phone calls not become on the area budget like for area servants that needed to make long distance phone calls like it's only really been since about 2010 that the world has had unlimited uh even the first cell phones had long distance calls but the biggest part of an area budget for a long time was mail and every area wanted to have a bulk mailing permit and every área had to send people to school at the post office to become certified in bulk mailing specialty um bulk mailing was a big deal and so the cost of mail had a lot to do with this too you know you used to be able to order a subscription to box 459 if you were a gsr you got one but you could order five extras and pay for it but now we use email and we use some hard copy but the old complaint that people in low economic conditions don't use email really no longer applies in some places it does in some parts of the country there is no high speed internet and high speed internet is you know something that you really need for to really be electronic but i would tell you that a lot of a lot of our communication method was built around the cost of bulk mailing and so for certain things that get sent out from gso these days i'm a new thinker i don't understand why it has to go only to the delegate if a dcm and an area chair and a gsr have registered with gso and are on the mailing list why can't they get it at the same time and if you've been a delegate or in service in the last 10 or 15 years you know the headache you get something from gso you don't get to your email till two days later you're like biggest pain in the ass gsr he got something from another person whose delegate sent it out quicker than you and then they're emailing you asking why they don't know about it but their friends in kansas do know about it we have all these issues we never had before and all i'm saying is a person who asked that question maybe we're communicating in a way that's not friendly to how people get information today i recently saw a governor doesn't matter what state doesn't matter what party but he went in to buy a pizza and he was filmed paying for this pizza in this pizza parlor and the guy who gave him the pizza said to this governor hey you know i really want to thank you for how you're communicating because my daughter really appreciates it and she's 17 years old and the governor said to the guy you know i realized like a year ago like i may not like it but that doesn't matter but like i can reach a whole bunch of people that i serve on tick-tock i can read a whole lot of people i served on this social media platform now i'm not saying aa should do tiktok or anything like that i'm just saying that our communication method is way outdated and that a person who asked this question i think that that's an important thing to think about okay this i got another thing i find connection to aa as a whole by using the news section of the meeting guide app way more than my local meeting gsr at my meeting that does not surprise me one bit that does not surprise me one bit like that meeting guide app could be used to so much more why isn't box 459 on the meeting guide i don't understand it if we're looking for a new class a trustee why isn t it on the meeting guide up like that's what I'm talking about and you're all future leaders or current leaders of aa and I and I hope that you know change comes slow to aa but hopefully we can get that is the march 3rd workshop going to be available i think so all the past are going to be available thank you all right please read the gsr section i'm going to close with the responsibility statement i am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help I want the hand of AA always to be there And for that, I am responsible Have a good night everyone Thanks