Group Conscience and Trusted Servants – Traditions Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – Howard P.

And our second tradition says that our leaders are only trusted servants. They do not govern. So if a trusted, and I know this happens. I know that I probably have been guilty of it myself. I formed a group down in Florida, and I was the only one that was aware of what kind of group that we wanted to start, and I had to do some, I'm from Chicago, and I Had to Do Some Chicago Politicking to Get Some of The Things Done That I Wanted Done, And Bill Wilson, by the way, did that because there's nothing worse than an uninformed group conscience. We're assuming that when these questions are being resolved through the vote of a group conscience, we're assumingthat that group conscience is informed. And if they're not, you're going to go astray. So anyway, first of all, a trusted servant should not attempt to govern. And if you're having a problem with that in your particular group, if somebody wants to run things their way, make sure in whatever courteous way that you can that what they are saying can be backed up in black and white literature, either in the traditions or the guidelines or the concepts. I can't express any opinions at all when I talk about AA. If I say something of an AA nature, I better be able to go back to somewhere in black and white that I can back it up with because I left all my opinions in the bar room I don't want to hear your opinions I've got enough of my own you know and we cannot we cannot allow ourselves to be run by individual opinions that would destroy our unity so any opinions that I have even though I might think that that is the right answer just like Howard said And I have to be able to assume enough humility, and sometimes that's very hard to me. I have the ability to put my opinion aside and allow an informed group conscience to decide whether my way is right for that group or whether the other way is right for that group. And that's the way we do it. And if this trusted servant continues in his attempt to govern, I would get the group to have a business meeting and put the issues involved up to a group-conscious vote after all the issues and all the sides had been discussed. And I don't think that you can go wrong then because if that's The Case, a loving God will come through with the answer. Our second tradition tells us that, okay? All right, what does it mean when we place principles before personalities, especially when old-timers within an AA group are the first to tell you, and this is in quotes, it's my way or the highway? I think the answer is the same. If he can back up what he's trying to do or what he'S trying to express with AA principles, AA tradition, AA concept, whatever, if he can back it up and he can get the group conscience, the informed group conscience to agree with his way, then that's the way it should be. But if it isn't, if his way is not the AA way, dann he's the one that should hit the highway, okay? And I'm not above telling people that if I have to, okay, I hope that answers that. When an active participant in Alcoholics Anonymous with long-term sobriety and a strong commitment to a particular meeting or group violates traditions and the trusted service do not meet to discuss the situation after repeatedly being asked to, should you consider leaving the meeting to find another one that you like more? That's your right. If you don't like what's going on in the meeting, I've had those things happen with me. I was in a situation like that where I was trying to get the group to do something about something that I thought was in violation of the traditions and I was getting nowhere with it and I discussed it with my sponsor on a regular basis and he finally one day said just don't go there anymore. You're getting too emotionally involved, and that's not what AA is for. Not for us to get emotionally involved over an issue. And that's what I did. And the nice thing about it is, as has been pointed out here, those things tend to police themselves. Sometimes it takes a little more time than we would like. And sometimes, unfortunately, could find our behinds with both hands when we got here if so what whatever gives us the idea that we can run anything okay attraction rather than promotion how does this actually apply to public people i don't i don' t really understand this uh i'm going to go on with this it seems that there is no consistency or regulation as far as who can really say what. What about TV? Should this be incorporated into our traditions? It is incorporated into our traditions. No AA member should break their anonymity at the public level. It's all right for me to stand up here and say, I'm Don Siebert. I'm an alcoholic. This is an AA meeting. If I should want to contact Doug, and all I know is Doug, and there's 16 Dougs in the group and I come to a group and say, I want to find Doug. I'd like to know what his last name is so that I can better find him or if nobody knows the Doug I'm talking about, if I know his last name, if he's a good AA member, he's listed in the phone book and I could find his number that way. Dr. Bob said it. He said we should not be anonymous among ourselves. That's okay. I have the right to stand up here and say that I'm Don Siebert and I'm an alcoholic. Nobody in this room has the right to go out of here and say that Don Siebert was at an AA meeting and he said his name was Don Sievert and he's an alcoholic. Nobody has that right but me, so it's a very personal thing. At the public level, I'll share something that happened just recently. I happen to know the medical director at one of our better-known recovery or retreatment facilities out there in the desert, and I can name it Betty Ford, and I had noticed that they have any number of their graduates that break their anonymity, celebrity-type graduates that break Their Anonymity at the public level. And I know that the medical director is a good A member. I used to go to AA meetings with him in Chicago, and I had the occasion to talk with him on the telephone some time ago, and I brought that up, and I said, don't you think that knowing how you feel about AA and you being a good AA member, don't You think that it's Your responsibility to tell these people that they're not to break their anonymity at the public level. And he says, I have thought about that. And he said, I am the medical director of this hospital, and I have to draw a line that divides where my responsibility in that capacity ends and my responsibility AA starts. And he Said, I really feel that that is not the facility's responsibility. I feel that it is AA's responsibility." And he said, apparently the people that are bringing the meetings in here do not stress that emphatically enough or else the people in here are not hearing it. But he says there's nothing that I can do about it. And that pretty much answers the question. You know, I can't help it if Bruce Willis reports to the Enquirer that he's sober in AA and then the next month it's headlines, front page headlines, and then the next month there's the same paper saying Bruce Willis is arrested in a drunken spree on the Sunset Strip, you know. I can't do anything about that. This question says, does AA do any behind-the-scenes reprimand or correcting of errors? Yes. The General Service Office, according to my understanding, if a public figure is breaking their anonymity at the public level, they will send that individual a courteous letter reinforcing and explaining the tradition of public anonymity in a very nice way. And if they still don't abide by that, we don't have any policemen in AA. There's nothing more that can be done by it. Like somebody said earlier, the unfortunate thing is that the people that do that are usually hurting themselves because it's a violation of personal humility. If I go around bragging that I'm Don Siebert and I'm a sober member of AA and I want everybody to know that, I can't be very humble. You know, I have a tough time being humble anyway, but that would really make it difficult for me. So the nice thing about it is a lot of these things do police themselves. Let's see what else we have here. What does it mean to place principles before personalities, especially when old-timers within an AA group are the first to tell you, oh, that was the one about it's my way or the highway. Here's another one. This is from Jim. Jim, traditional 11, talk of anonymity at the level of press, radio, and film and TV. Does this mean that we use our full name above that level and below that level or break traditional 11? I don't fully understand that, Jim. My understanding is that each AA member has the right to individual confidentiality as far as personal anonymity goes. And the thing that applies to all of us is the breaking of anonymity at the public level. I hope your question has been answered. I don't know. I don' t know what you mean by above the public level. I don't know what would be above the public level. If there is such a thing as above the public level, I would say that it would also be an anonymity break. I had occasion to talk to somebody who does fundraising for a big treatment facility and he had interviewed a man in AA down in San Diego, and this particular AA member was a graduate of this particular treatment facility. And this fundraiser showed this man full face in the picture in this newsletter. But he did use only his first name as his last initial, but he identified him as a AA member. Now, although he didn't use his last name, there was this full face for everybody to see. So anybody that knew him would know that he was an AA member, so that was a violation of the antediluvian tradition at the public level. This guy that I talked to didn't know that. He didn't realize that.He wasn't an AA Member and he thought just by avoiding the use of the last name, he had abided by the tradition. But he didn't, because this person's face was shown and anybody that knew him would know who he was. I think that pretty well does it. That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, John. Bruce? My name is Bruce Richards and I'm an alcoholic. I'm sorry it's taken 5,984 days for somebody to ask me for my opinion on any issue because about 5,900 days ago I had opinions on all these issues and if you didn't agree with me, you not only were wrong, you were stupid. However, we'll do the best we can here. In Tradition 6, if the members of a board of a club plan an AA marathon, Does that violate the sixth tradition? The members are also AA members, but they are planning it as a club event. It sounds to me like the club is lending its name to AA. The tradition says AA won't lend its name to the club, but I suspect that that's a violation and the people on the board of this club, if they are AA members ought to know it's a violation. But I'm less concerned as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous about flyers that say, the hole in the sky and Oliver Stone present an AA marathon than I am about a flyer that says, you know, the AA group or the Radford group presents an AA Marathon for the benefit of triple children's society or some other completely and totally outside issue. but I certainly were a member of this group, I would tell the members of the board that what's happening is that an AA marathon is taking place at this club, not being put on by this club Do you think the John Larroquette show violates Tradition 11? Is this show a promotion of AA? I personally don't think so we've talked a little bit about this at the break and most of us seem to agree that what we're talking about is a character playing an alcoholic. And I don't see any promotion of AA there other than the fact that he's sober and he's in AA. Now, about 15 years ago they were going to... somebody wanted to come in and shoot a documentary at the Mason-Laston. A few of you might have been there on friday nights and the uh oh well we'll just keep the cameras in the back and we'll fuzz out the the people in the front and and all you'll see at the back of your heads on on national tv and we declined that opportunity with grace and said no we we don't want to be any part of our heads on public tv the fourth tradition says we can use the second tradition to violate the sixth and tenth traditions and the ninth tradition says there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it absolutely true absolutely true the fourth tradition says as a group in Alcoholics Anonymous, you have the right to do any damn fool thing you want to do, provided it doesn't impact on other groups around you or on AA as a whole. And somewhere in the literature it says, you can ignore everything the central office tells you and go on about your business in perfect AA harmony, provided you don't mess with the other groups around you. So yes, this is true. Strange as it is. Oh, my ex-boyfriend takes wild mushrooms and they hit a pot now and then. I told him he was loaded, was I wrong. I don't think so, Tim. I sponsor a guy and I've sponsored him for 10 years. And about three years ago on my back porch he announced that he had been maintaining his sobriety for the past seven years with a daily dose of marijuana. And we recycled his clock right then and uh and and the problem is not you know what's in a wild mushroom and the pot it's not what's into in pots it's what's your head you know and uh you know if someone hands me a glass of foamy looking stuff and says that is you know whatever and says have you tried this new really potent beer and i choke it down i've lost my sobriety whether there's any alcohol in it or not, because my intention is to alter the way I feel, the way I look at reality. So certainly, you know, I have no case to defend anyone who takes wild mushrooms and or pot on occasion. And I'm going to get off of here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Bruce. And I'm going to now call on Doug, and he's going to talk about what is back-to-basics, but what's basic about back-To-Basics. Hi, everybody. My name is Doug Bingham, and I'm an alcoholic. And being one of the older members of the group, I get to choose which question I wanted. What is the back-to-basics group's message? What is The Group's conscience on letting duly addicted people become members of The Group? Well, the first thing you need to know is I think our name kind of tells you up front what we are. We are an AA group. We're back to basics. We did what it tells us to do in our literature. If you don't like the way things are going, you start your own group. That's what we did, me and about a dozen other people. We started our own group, we said, you know what, we're not getting what we want. We want AA meetings. We want to talk about alcohol. So that's what we did. We started our own group. We said, let's call it the Back to Basics. And it says right in here, problems other than alcohol. Bill Wilson wrote it. He said, therefore I see no way of making non-alcoholic addicts into AA members. Experience says loudly we can admit no exceptions. But he goes on to say over here about people who are duly addicted. AA members who are so inclined should be encouraged to band together in groups to deal with sedative and drug problems, but they ought to refrain from calling themselves AA groups. There seems to be no reason why several AAs cannot join if they wish with a group of straight addicts to solve the alcohol and the drug problem together. But obviously such a dual-purpose group should not insist that it be called an AA group, nor should it use the AA name to its title. Those of us who are members of the Back to Basic group, we encourage you to do that. We would be delighted to hand you written stuff that we've done where we've kept our records and how we were able to build this group up and become an active group in Alcoholics Anonymous. We would be delighted to help you form a dual group if you want because it also says in Alcoholic Anonymous, and it says that about our primary purpose, it is misleading to hint or give the impression that AA solves maritable problems or knows what to do about addiction to heroin or other such drugs. what we do around here is those of us who drank too much and had trouble stopping we came to Alcoholics Anonymous and we did what we were told to do and that is to find a spiritual way of life now I've been sober 31 years and I've never had the need to snort cocaine Funny, I got everything AA asked me to do. I got it. I found a power that was greater than myself. And that's what we do here, and we don't have the need to do anything else. So for those of you, if you are an addict and an alcoholic and you do know what a hangover is like, then you're welcome in this group. We realize that most of us who have been around a while realize that there are people we went through a very big drug culture. There's a lot of people who took drugs. I never did. But we do realize that if you are an alcoholic and booze is your problem, then you are welcomed at this group. But I know from past experience, if you don't really think booze is your problems, what I have found and what I've talked to with people over at N.A. is that the trick of staying sober is you have to help others with your problem. And if you're really not a drunk and you're realmente a cocaine addict or a heroin addict, you're going to get a little annoyed with people thrown up in the back seat of your car while you're taking them to a meeting. We understand that. See, us Elkies, we take plastic bags. We already know how to handle them. Our experience. So in order, at least from the fellow that when I went over to the World Service office at N.A., what George told me over there was he said there were many addicts who got clean in Alcoholics Anonymous, but in order to stay clean they had to switch the train and get over to where they could do some good. In other words, in order to stay sober or clean, you must help others who have the problem you have. Otherwise, you don't stay sober nor clean. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. I want to say in finishing that I was really honored to be asked to come and share today, and I acknowledge that my qualifications for doing that are solely in the fact that I was being asked. I was no more and am no more qualified than you are, and had you been asked. So, I'm honored and flattered that I was, and I thank you. My feeling about the Back to Basics group is it's a serious AA group, and to be selected to participate in one of their serious workshops is very flattering and an honor, and I thank for it. One of the questions that we received references Tradition II, and I'm not sure whether it's so much a question as an expression of, a re-expression of a viewpoint, and I'll just quickly read it. My question is on tradition too. My question as they do not govern, the secretary, et cetera, they are voted into office by the group. They are all to be examples. they have to have been worked all the steps prior to being asked to serve this is this person's point of view I believe she believes it so it's the truth if you bring all information to inform the group and form them the best interest of the group. There's no conflict in AA as a whole. Place their influence opinions to be equal to everyone. It's everyone's right to participate, all votes are equal. We make the right decision, respect all who participate, respect AA every turn, Right appeal, group member, trusted servants, appeal to group, voice of a loving God, not by mandate. I think the point is we emphasize in this process, this is God expressing himself to the group. Go for that. Go for it. Don't go for it that somebody's running something down your throat. This is God's will. expressing itself. And another important aspect that hadn't been talked about at all so far was there should be no punitive damages. I'm telling you, sometimes it's dangerous to participate in some AA meetings and Central Service Committee meetings that I've been in. I'm telling you, they crucified the poor son of a gun. And, you know, impugned his integrity. Everything good about the guy was brought into public question. Let's don't do that. It ought to be safe. It has to be safe for us each to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, to preach a sermon, but this is the only safe place you and I, or this isthe most safe placeyou and I are going to find. It is not going to be safer at work because somebody's going to want that goddamn report written by Friday. Or they're going to wantsomething else done. and they're going to impose on you to do it. You go home, your wife's sick of you. You know, she's had you for years now. She isn't impressed with you. You're going catch hell there. It's not safe always at home. It should always be safe at an AA meeting. Damn, we ought to be able to come here and participate in accordance with our traditions and do so in complete safety. is chanting along with the line from chapter 3, chapter 5 or the 12 traditions a violation or is it contrary to any tradition if so why or if not why or the tagline says is it just obnoxious My personal experience with that is when it first started I wondered where it was coming from well how the hell did we start this and then I heard a well-known speaker say that it came from somebody in the valley who was mentally deficient who used to mumble the steps at the meeting as it was being read, and when they got to the last part, he really put his heart and soul in it. And that others just started joining him, and then it spread throughout AA. You know, honestly, I think that if the group decides they do not want chanting as it's going on, then they need to discuss it. They need to see what it's hurting, see what it's helping, see what value it is, and then take a vote on it. If we would have taken a vote on it when I first got there, I would have said, you know, when I first started hearing it, I'd say, let's leave it out. It's disrupting. You know, it's a violation of the first tradition, and it adds nothing. Since then, I kind of got the feeling, just my feeling in the meetings, that this gives everybody there at that meeting a chance to participate in the meeting as a group, much in the same way as we say the Lord's Prayer or the Serenity Prayer. And it don't really disrupt unless I'm disrupted and it don't eat up in the time and it don't distract from what's going on because it's part exactly of what's going on so if today it was put to a vote although I would not crusade for it if in my home group it came up for a vote I'd probably vote as a secret ballot to let's do it. What the hell? I have never done it. I forget to, you know, I never do it and I probably never will. But the tradition, is it a violation of tradition? Not unless we impose it on ourselves that we have a rule against that. And so far, I don't know of any group that has said we don't do it, although there's groups I go to that sure as hell don't do it. And there's books I go through that that do do it and I don' t do it but I listen. So it's been a wonderful experience for me as you leave today our host and hostess are going to hand out to you the traditions checklist maybe you'll find some ideas in there how you can better work on keeping these traditions on an individual basis and now I've asked Liz to come up and read a vision for you and close with the Lord's Prayer My name is Liz, and I'm an alcoholic. A vision for you. Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past, give freely of what you find, and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then.