Group Rotation and Autonomy – Jane W. RI the 12 Traditions in Our Groups and Personal Lives Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Mary J.

All right, thank you. Just a little quick moment of silence, if you would, just to focus and remember why we're here. Thank you. Okay, now here's a couple of questions that have come so far. My group does not practice spirit of rotation. What would be the best non-emotional way to bring this up? That is so tough. You know, some guy who's been the coffee maker for 43 years. It's very, very hard. It's really very hard, But rotating leadership is the best. And it needs to come up at a business meeting, but don't press it. This is just my experience. When there's something that really you know it really does need to be changed, when you first bring it up, be as gentle as you can, but don' t expect anything. because the first time we're confronted with something different, we react fearfully, you know, like you're standing on my oxygen hose because we don't want anybody monkeying with AA. You know, it's okay. And the one phrase that just makes the hairs on my neck stand up is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There's plenty that's broken, badly broken, but they don't wanna address it, you now. but just don't press it is all but bring it up and nobody will talk to you and it's very threatening if you wanted to move these chairs into a straighter line somebody is going to say that's not how we do it here you're killing newcomers for God's sake you know why that's funny you've heard it so the first time and then the second time it comes up people will not make faces at you and it'll land a little better and then the third time people will talk about it but when you have the opportunity It really is important to begin to introduce it. But really with loving concern for the guy who has been a stalwart in the group and has kept doing things. You know, maybe you can find another job for him or something like that. I don't mean like that you're going to engineer the whole thing, but be careful about that guy also, you know. But rotation is just the healthiest way for us, is for nobody to own a job or own a group. I know you've got Bob's group or Fred's group here. Every town has, and God bless them. That guy opened up every week for how many years? But the interesting part, I think, is where, in the traditions where it begins to talk about after a period of time and the old timers and there's some of them you can't get them out of those jobs with a crowbar. But what it talks about is the person himself can be induced to go in one direction or the other and that's where it describes the bleeding deacon and the elder statesman. And if you can find a respected position to encourage the guy to become an elder statesman. That's the best way because you don't want to lose the guy, but really the jobs are significant. Once you have a job in your group, you feel ownership. You feel like you're a real participant. One of the girls from the GSO used to say it's like going to a horse race. Just watching the horsies is interesting. But if you've got $2 on a horse, if you're going to be able to do that, if you made an investment of something, it's a whole different experience. You take a real interest in the thing. And when you have a job in your group, you really feel like an owner and that you belong. So we need to spread those jobs around. And a good way is making up assistants or alternates to all of the jobs and just manufacture jobs. Make them up just so you can have some jobs for people to do because they really will become more connected if they have that opportunity. I don't think there's a hard and fast way to do it. It's not easy, but it's doable and it's important. Anybody else? Did you want to say something? Yeah. One of the things we did for a group just to make sure we were on course was we asked for an audit or a... Inventory? Inventary. Yeah, good way. And they came in and gave us an inventory, and then... Yes, that's an excellent way. Because then it didn't come from one person. That's a very good idea to take a group inventory and then when you're reporting it back, I think that's a really good idea because that's such a touchy thing. It's very hard to do. yes oh no in that group pamphlet the AA group there is what is called a group inventory a suggested format that. Similar, of course, to our fourth step. In order to proceed, we need to see where we are. Taking a group inventory. Now it's a tough process. My own home group, what we do is we just ask one question a month. There's 13 questions in the pamphlet, but we'll work it out. The 13th month is where we're having a problem. But if you can begin to get conversation going about, is it time for our group to take a look at itself, a group inventory? And then you begin to make a plan at the business meeting. John? I just wanted to throw out that this group is having a group inventory in October, and if any non-group members would like to just sit in as observers, I think that would be okay. If you're not a group member, you really can't participate in a group's inventory, but if you want, Gay Garner is coming in October to do the group inventory, and we don't have a firm date on it yet because there's no way to organize the church, but if someone would liketo come sit in and observe, that wouldbe fun. Yeah, yeah, but it all emanates from the group. Not from somebody from the outside. Boasho wouldn't want that. You know, somebody coming in and doing a time and motion study on our group or something. We wouldn't do very well. So seventh tradition. How can we get people to understand the need for more dollar bills? Can I hold on to that until we do seven? Yes. Okay. we should be on number three tradition three short form the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking and the long form of tradition three our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism hence we may refuse none who wish to recover nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. They are simply an AA Group. Don P's home group, it wasn't his home group. Yeah, it was his home group later in life in Colorado. The name of his group was an AA group and a lot of people took issue with that and he says, well, it says right there any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA Group. We called ourselves an AA Grup. As an aside I'm full of asides. I'm not an authority and I really know that but it's just sharing so please feel free to contribute and also take what I have to say with a grain of salt if it's of any use to you good but I'm not the final story on anything I like the long form see now here's one of those cases where I think that the long form has something really interesting to contribute like your membership should never depend upon money or conformity. You aren't required to do things to become a member of an AA group other than have a desire to stop drinking. And be a person who suffers from alcoholism. We cannot refuse anyone, and time and again, you know, early days there are some real horror stories um i have a letter in fact can i take a minute to fish that out rats i'm sorry i didn't do this sooner It's about a lady that got kicked out, and I love it. The steering committee sent her a letter. And... It's priceless. Okay. Dear Mrs. Livoni, at a meeting of the Executive Committee to the Los Angeles Group of Alcoholics Anonymous held December 4th, 1941, it was decided that your attendance at group meetings was no longer desired until certain explanations and plans for the future were made to the satisfaction of this committee. This action has been taken for reasons which should be most apparent to you. It was decided that should you so desire, you may appear before members of this Committee and state your attitude. This opportunity will be afforded you between now and December 15th, 1941. You may communicate with us at the above address by that date. In case you do not wish to appear, we shall consider the matter closed and that your membership is terminated. Now, you know, I'd like to write that letter to some people. No, but see, because of the traditions, you don't hear about a letter like that. There's nobody that can do that to anybody in AA. And isn't that meaningful and significant? My membership is because I came here and I said, I want to become a member. I'm an alcoholic. But I would just shudder to think that anybody could do that to you, you know just you're on the wrong side and the gate's closing yes my name is Bill Brown we had a precarious situation in my home group and we took a group conscience on a certain member who was taking an interest to females in the group and there was some very harmful stuff You know, threats of, like, suicide and, you know, pretty disruptive stuff. And this particular woman didn't feel comfortable coming to the group because she felt threatened by this particular family. We ended up deciding as a majority that we cannot kick this person out due to our tradition, especially also that because the meeting is held at the church we have no rules regarding the church it's not our property but I was curious where the differences between club houses and church meetings it was really interesting that you read that letter it was a very emotional and conscious couple and it was decided that if somebody felt threatened at that group that unfortunately, although everybody wanted to see them stay that there were plenty of other groups so that was the final decision I don't know if any other groups have had experiences a lot, yeah but it's usually handled informally and usually some of the statesman in the group will get together and talk to the guy or the woman who is being predatory with new people. And if it's my home group, I want it to be a safe place for anybody to be welcomed and be safe when they come in. So you've got to, I think that has to be addressed also but it's not like you can kick them out necessarily but you you really have a responsibility to for some of the guys to get together and it truthfully i think in most instances that i i can think of it's a a guy who is been around for a long time but i wouldn't necessarily say sober and recovered, but picking on new, young, vulnerable ladies who come in. It has to be addressed. But we don't just go kick the guy out. You know, it's Alcoholics Anonymous. But you can sure talk to them. And should, I think. We've got to defend them. Was that letter written, was that action taken before the Twelve Traditions? Yes. This was in 1941 in Hollywood, California, and the traditions were uniformly accepted in 1950 at the Cleveland, where's my historians? At the Cleveland First International Convention. Good for you. Honestly, not that I can think of. But I'll tell you, I think it's sponsorship. That's a responsibility. Because I really try and keep this in mind is everybody wants to do right at some level inside. They want to do it right. And if they don't realize that they're doing something that's really disruptive, then it really is a sponsorship kind of thing. You'd do a guy a favor if you talked to him about it. But still and all, leave them free, you know, to wear the smutty T-shirts or whatever, you don't know, whatever. But I was spoken to, not for the T-shirt, but I was thinking during the break something reminded me of a girl who was panhandling in AA meetings. And that was her behavior right up until the day she came in. So what's the big deal? To her, here's a whole new batch of people I can hit. But very quickly, some of the old-timers went up and talked to her about it and that her behavior was going to jeopardize her sobriety and those kind of things. It's just pointing out to her that we're trying to improve our behavior and be respectful of AA because we are dependent on AA and we better treat it right. Because she was a person who didn't even have a sponsor yet. But there are avenues where we can talk to somebody and help them get through a thing that they don't know any better at that stage. But we don't kick them out for doing, I can't think of anything that we could kick them off for because it's too important. Essentially you've got to bear in mind that you may be sending them out to die. And you can say that's dramatic, but there's more to it than that more people die of alcoholism every year in this country than withdrawal from drug addiction and diabetes and all kinds of other stuff alcoholism is a killer and when you've been around for a while you've seen the parade and some really awful nice folks have gone out the other end yes hi I'm Susan they ran into something like that at Kellogg and I just put out a letter for the people that are answering the telephones not to have it set up that anybody picks her up and takes this woman oh yeah this person to a meeting because um they picked her up took her to the meeting and the gal left her first sitting there to go say hi to somebody and she took the I don't know if she really had a problem with alcohol. She certainly had a trouble with that. Yeah, and that's another thing, you know. The first 12-step call I ever made, the lady was not an alcoholic. She wanted to date, you see. You know. and we get over there she was all spiffied up and she'd obviously been around AA for a while she had a little plastic bucket that was nice and clean it was supposed to be the throw-up bucket but we knew as soon as we got in there that she's not even an alcoholic so there's plenty of that but we can address it and you can come up with a reasonable solution to prevent it from happening again, and that's essentially what the traditions are, aren't they? They're a way that problems have been successfully dealt with in the past, and this is to share the information with all of the groups because if you haven't had it happen, like I said, you very well may. So just be aware that all kinds of things can happen, and carefully and lovingly we really can take care of most anything that comes up. But they do have to be addressed, too, not just ignored and hope they'll go away because that's not fair. So membership? We good? I have a comment. Yeah. It does say that our membership ought to include all sorts of alcoholism, you can't refuse anyone who wishes to recover, and the only requirement is desire to stop drinking. But even those so-called rules, we can't enforce those either. We don't tell somebody, well, we don't really think you're into this. We don' t want you coming around anymore. I mean, as long as somebody says, I want to be here, or I'm an alcoholic, even if they don't, they're welcome. So even these old rules and requirements are just kind of express our idea that they're not membership rules either. They aren't. Yeah. Yeah. And the number of rules was ridiculous at first. The General Service Office, I think it was still the foundation at that time, but they sent a request to all the groups if they would send in their membership requirements. And when they all came in, they spread them all out and there were, I mean, it was just overwhelming, the number OF requirements and rules and regulations that different groups had. And that's when they realized that essentially nobody could really be a member if all those rules were in force. So then they said the important rule was 62, which was don't take yourself too seriously. But yeah, we don't have rules that we can really enforce on anybody. But there's another aspect to this one, though, too, that it occurs to me sometimes besides the conformity. Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we can refuse none who wish to recover, nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. So that's group membership. But what it triggers in me is people who are not alcoholics who want to join a group. and we had a real problem with it in Massachusetts actually and they were Al-Anons and they had been invited to participate in open meetings they were used to going to open meetings but then they wanted to join the closed AA meeting the group that put on the closed AA meeting they wantedto become members of that and jeez we only have one requirement you've got to be an alcoholic I mean there's only one but we have that one and I think it's important most of our literature, especially the big book talks about our common problem and I'm going to say something I wish this weren't taped And I hope it's not as bad now and here, but we've got all kinds of andas. You know, an addict and an alcoholic or a cross-addicted alcoholic or an alcoholic, an alcohol-troubled person, on and on and off. Um, and see, I don't know what the solution is, but I'll tell you what it does for me. When someone stands at an AA podium and identifies themselves as an addict alcoholic, I have a problem with turning it off because I sit there thinking, well, I'm not like you. You're not like me. You've separated yourself from us. I don't care if you're an alcoholic. You'd be hard-pressed to find a worse drug story than Dr. Bob's. But for identification purposes, it's just clearer at an AA meeting to identify as an alcoholic and then I'm like you. I'm just like you, you're just like me. Now we can talk about how we got better. so that's just my two cents but it comes to mind when it seems as though we do have a requirement for membership we have the one I don't know if I have a question to say because I've grown up with that myself. I did drugs and everything, but I realize where I am when I come to a meeting, which I'm very clear where I'm at, I used to be pretty rebellious. I have been at meetings in which the person will say they're an alcoholic, plus plus plus, plus, and they talk about everything else except alcohol. And I just feel that it's pretty disrespectful because there are other meetings. That's why there's so many other 12-step meetings. You don't have to act as if some place where you can be who you are in another place. So I even had a, you know, I'm not a, well, I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but I do know it says something about problems other than alcohol. Yes, sir. Okay? And I do think they mean problems other that alcohol. Yeah. So that's what I've had to grapple with, and how do I talk to people who come to our meeting and want to talk about everything else, if you just say this is an alcoholic's anonymous meeting. If you have problems other than alcohol, we invite you to go somewhere else. Yeah. Where they'll be better served, truthfully. But also many, many, many addicts and people who have trouble with substance abuse and drug addiction are really alcoholics. And if we can help them to recognize that they can't drink safely, that's enough. And if their story is drugs, that is different than their identification. If their story – that is their story. And we don't ask anybody to edit their story, but for the identification purpose, for unity, we are all here for one reason, and that is all. But I don't think it's right to ask somebody to change their story for us. You can't do that, you know. But I thought I had that pamphlet here with me. I don' t see it. But there is a pamphet that the General Service Office has put out. The AA member and other medications, I know that they deal directly with because lots of AA members have gone off after a hospitalization or surgery where they really were given drugs that they needed to have to get better and or to remain pain-free while they were healing or something, and then they have a terrible time with that. But it's getting to be such a difficult thing that there are people who call themselves addictionologists, but you can get some help from some folks like that because they are professionals who understand that there are ways to safely get people off of medications that they didn't even expect were going to cause them difficulty. But, yeah. I'm Martina. I'm not a holocaustist. So this tradition specifically, is this where the single-ness of purpose comes from? Not specifically, no. More so five. But it's talking about membership, and it just triggered it in me. And I see identification and membership as being related in a way, but no singleness of purpose. And you used the word respect for AA because I think that that's the ballpark that we're talking about here. because if you insist on your right to say how many milligrams of whatever and all that stuff, then you are, I think, being disrespectful to AA in that because the only reason that we're asking for people to identify is out of respect for AA so that we can all feel as though we have a common problem And therefore, this common solution that we're going to become engaged in is something that will be beneficial to you. And so just for the preservation and respect of AAs. Our fourth tradition, our AA experience has taught us that number four, with respect to its own affairs, each AA group should be responsible to no other authority than its own conscience. But when its plans concern the welfare of neighboring groups also, those groups ought to be considered, and no group, regional committee or individual, should ever take any action that might greatly affect AA as a whole without conferring with the trustees of the General Service Board. On such issues, our common welfare is paramount. I think what they're saying is if you want to change the meeting time of your group from 8 to 8.30, that's up to you. The business meeting will take care of that. The group is autonomous and has the right to decide that that doesn't affect other groups in the neighborhood and it doesn't affect AA as a whole. It affects that group and you can change the time of your meeting if you want to. You make all of the choices and decisions for your group by group conscience and if it's something like public relations now that could affect other groups in the neighborhood and AA as a whole. If you wanted to put signs on the side of buses saying there's a raffle at the AA meeting on Wednesday for a plasma TV or something, I don't know. But those kind of things, in most of our opinions, give a wrong impression of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don' t think that one group has the right to speak for AA groups in the neighborhood or AA as a whole so there are some things that we don't have a right to do that other groups have a say in all that and maybe some folks could come up with even better examples of that but we just have to be mindful that our own affairs stuff that is just limited to this AA group we have the right to change things but not to inflict that change by inference or any other way on other groups and one group can't speak for AA as a whole one individual doesn't speak for AAas a whole but we've got to be careful to make sure that people don't get the idea that we do and cast a bad light so anything there? I think it's straightforward John? Can you maybe say a few words about autonomy and having a group or a home group versus one person has officer jobs in multiple groups all around town the effects that that has on autonomy we have a lot of it in Rhode Island everywhere yeah, maybe so So John's talking about having multiple jobs in other groups. There is another publication from the Grapevine, The Home Group, Heartbeat of AA. And you can go to the meetings of any group, but you belong to a home group, and that's where you vote, And that's where you are represented by a general service representative in your district and therefore in your area and therefore in your region. But you only have one, you know? And I don't get what the point is. Well, I know my gripe about it is that there are people in Rhode Island who belong to five groups so they can go get five cakes and medallions and they have a birthday month you know and I guess that doesn't hurt anything you're out of cake but that doesn' t kill you but the whole thing about representation is only right that you have a vote at your home group and that has an effect on the conduct of business in the whole AA community. And I've got another little thing that I brought that I'm going to leave to make some copies of. The name of it is, it was a Grapevine article and it talks about the rise and fall of a home group. And the thing is when we start playing fast and loose with traditions or saying, oh, that's okay. Oh, never mind him or whatever. And they don't sound all that important, but once you open doors, you know, my first conference there was a guy who kept talking about how we ask for trouble if we allow small infractions to creep in. And he would say, the camel's nose is in the tent. And I get that. if you say that's okay it's just his nose well not next week next week you got some more stuff it's like general service conference approved literature or something you begin to let in some other stuff and it's really good stuff but if it's not general service conference approved then you have just opened the door to somebody else bringing some more stuff in next week So some of those things, you just have to draw the line somewhere. General service conference approved, if it doesn't have it written on there, doesn't mean that the general service conference disapproves of it. Like the Bible is not general service confidence approved. Nobody disapproveds of it, but for our group purposes, Most groups, I think, for good reason, determined that they will only sell General Service Conference approved books and will only display General Service conference approved literature. And there's a perfect example there. Every piece of literature on that rack has had the opportunity to be exposed to the General Service Conferences. That means that a delegate from every area in the United States and Canada has had the opportunity to agree that that literature speaks for AA. And if you've got a problem with it, you talk to your GSR, you write it up. The GSR will talk to the district about it. There could be a problem or something that needs to be addressed. We have a way of doing all of that. But just not bringing in other stuff and displaying it, that's where the problem comes up. Because what you brought in might be wonderful, but really, once you open the door to some things, you realize that, oh, geez, that was a bad idea. So when the camel's nose is in the tent, next week you've got a camel. oh jeez I think I went pretty far a while ago some people came to our meeting and I got an email or a call it was like hey there are these guys from this group in our meeting last week talking to the newcomers that group is really kind of different and all they do is step one and step 12 and then they like you know have their own little thing going on kind of thing and i was wondering if you uh had ever it was kind of uh troubling to me to feel like there was an external threat of somebody not doing a in our group i was wondering if we ever heard something like that i don't know enough about local politics or If anything's ever been done about that or if that's considered not AA or not or have you ever encountered something like that where something had to be, you know, I mean I know every group is a group but if it says it's affecting other groups or AA, would some central office take some sort of action to try to sponsor that group or what do you do? Just let them keep doing their thing or what? No. And if I understand you right, there are some people trying to scoop new members from your home group? Well, as I understand it, this group kind of operates as an outlier and it has its own philosophy. and, you know, some people in our group got sober through that group. You know, they, you now, are getting people sober, but they're very, it seems like it's not an attraction rather than a promotion. You know? They're more recruiting newcomers to their group and have a little bit different philosophy than the other groups that actually do it. Yeah. Well, we don't have a police force. I would be in favor of it, but we don't have one. So it's got to be handled by the group. But I do know of places where they have had trouble with people who are fishing and trying to scoop members. There's plenty of places. I mean, there's plenty alcoholics out there for all of us. You've got to get in the car. You've Got to go drive to the treatment facilities. You've GOT to go into the detoxes. You've GOt to go to the jails. You've got to go talk to people and get nice new folks and invite them to attend your home group. Don't go to some other established group and try and suck people off to inflate your membership, you know? Poor choice of words. I'm sorry. Oh, jeez. Was that promotion? Oh, it's better than a plasma TV. No, but yeah, things happen is all the thing, is the deal, you know. But I think that if you see something going on that is disturbing or troublesome to you, then it's a good idea, I think, to talk to some of the old-timers in the group and if need be bring it up at a business meeting. Because what you've got to do is have some people go and talk to the guys who are coming in. They're welcome at the meeting, but you don't want them drumming up business. But can you have someone formally talk to them and say, you know what, you're not doing anything, you've not made a group? I mean, I know you can call yourself an AA group, but, you know, you're not going to be in the book. We're not gonna publish you in, you have a meeting scheduled. If they say they're an AA Group and they don't have any other affiliation, like they're not the St. Pius Group or something like that, or the AA Weight Watchers Group, or, you know, if they don' t have any other affiliations, then essentially they are eligible to be published in the meeting directory and now some central office managers have a their own screening thing like if it uses bad language and there are some groups who want to name themselves something so provocative that it will be you know it'll stand out well that's not a good idea you know and so the but But what happens is whoever submitted the information to the central office, the manager usually will call them up and say, we really don't want this in the meeting directory. And if you will take this back to your group at the next business meeting and come up with another way to identify your group, we'd be happy to publish the information. But we don't put bad words in the Meeting Directory or whatever. There's ways to handle it, and it's not all that efficient. but you've got to go through all of that that was one of the most disturbing things to me about AA was how inefficient it is I mean, the wheels grind slowly and when you first come into AA and the fog begins to lift you know a better way to get everything done however, it finally became a comfort to me that it's very difficult and slow to get something changed in AA because it might be your idea And I'm not nuts about it. And it's good if you can't efficiently get that done, you know. So it works both ways. And so we've got to put up with these difficult ways of working something out. But I promise there is a way. But mostly it's at the group level, sponsorship group, business meeting and locally and talking to people. and they don't have to pay any attention to you, so then you've got to reach for some bigger guns and call on some of the old timers to see if they can help you work stuff out with people. But we don't have, you know, I really, I'm not kidding, I wish that there were some kind of, I mean horseback. People from GSO could ride up to these airing groups and straighten them out and then leave town. David, I said my exact question, but one thing I was concerned about is the group that he was referring to actually is not in the meeting schedule at all. We also have other groups coming in and bringing in non-approved literature or bringing in pamphlets for studies over the weekend that are geared towards non-proven literature. My question is, you say bring it up in a group conscience, but as far as Minister Farr, we talked about it briefly or email-wise, but I was going to wait until Tradition 5 because it's our message that we're trying to carry. Is it wrong in the business meeting to bring it as a topic and reiterate what our messages and what the messages that are coming in the door are? kind of warn some of the newer people that are coming up or should we just let it be and let the old timers understand what i'm saying mostly the chair people have talked about these things with amongst themselves not really kind of the other group members probably know about these groups they just don't have maybe aren't in the loop and we don't bring up the business mean but i think some of the messages that are being carried are kind of questionable is it bad etiquette to discuss these things I don't think so I think it's necessary but you discuss it and go about it from the viewpoint of maybe they don't realize, maybe they don't know and start with that you know like this group only uses general service conference approved literature and that's why we can't let you put these flyers for some retreat that has nothing to do with AA on the table for information and explain to them that it's just confusing to new people or whatever but start out by trying to attribute a decent motive to them even if it isn't but really no kidding A lot of times people just don't know any better, and it's disrespectful to try and explain. But it does have to be addressed because we can't allow misinformation to get out. But we really do not have a mechanism for punitive action, for punishing them. We just don' t do it. And we're better off because of that overall. so you do have to address it but it's not easy and you start with explaining okay break or done a lot of the smokers are going to whine okay when I was a smoker I was always like come on yeah okay we're going to break here and we'll do what we can when we come back but we will get to five next time at any rate and that will probably do us in