The Collective Conscience of the Fellowship – Dick M.

good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is dick martin and i'm an alcoholic everybody but for the grace of god and the actions of aaa and sponsorship i've been sober since september the 15th 1965. i'm very pleased about that actually i'm rather grateful for it too which kind of makes it nice i uh feel rather good tonight i'm the standing up here and i'll be the world's expert i probably know more about the 12 concepts of world service than anybody in the room I'm not saying that I do but I probably do and I've done this twice before and it will not go on for weeks it will be two weeks I promise because I don't want to do it any longer than that first of all this is I'm going to read you something out of a pamphlet an A pamphet strange 12 Concepts for World Service, How Bill W. Explained the Spiritual Principles that Undergird AA Structure and How the Parts Work Together. This talk, as well as the pamphlet, is about the concepts. It is not the concepts themselves. They are found in the book, The AA Service Manual, 12 ConceptS for World Service and should be read by every trusted servant. A condensed version in mimeograph form is also available from the General Service Office on request. As AA grew up it began with groups, first only a few then hundreds then thousands. Very early an alcoholic foundation later renamed the General Service Board was formed to be responsible for our affairs and with Dr. Bob's death and Bill facing up to his own mortality, a general service conference assumed the leadership which had fallen to the co-founders. Meanwhile, a tiny publishing operation in service office had grown in size and importance to the fellowship, and a monthly journal, the A.A. Grapevine, was being published. Which of these entities was supposed to do what? little wonder there was confusion. What was their relationship? Who was in charge? What were their responsibilities and what were their rights? Bill W. himself took part in pulling and hauling that took place, so he saw the need to reduce to writing his concepts of the why of the whole structure, the lessons to be drawn from experience, relationships, and above all the spiritual principles. It's significant that the Twelve Concepts for World Service is the only piece of conference-approved literature that carries a personal byline by Bill W. As Bill set them down, the Twelve Concepts are a potpourri. Concepts 3 through 5, 9, and 12 deal with spiritual principles the remainder though they have spiritual overtones are devoted to describing the relationship of the various service entities and how they work together what follows in the pamphlet is an illustrated introduction and so on so forth so uh i'm not going to read the pamplet to you uh what i'm going to do is to do something that's a little bit different what i'M GOING TO DO IS TELL YOU ABOUT THE CONCEPTS AS I SEE THEM AS I see them to be and uh a little bit of history in in regard to them not much but a little bit just so you have so you get an overview of what they really are um i uh the first time i ever did this i did it at a service conference and there were uh there was a current trustee and two past trustees that I knew of and there was another past trustee in about a half a dozen delegates and past delegates there and I ran trippingly through them and made a mistake and none of them caught it which I thought was pretty good the next time I did it did it I had about the same crowd of people and there were a hundred or so other people there the next time I did it, I left out the fifth concept. And nobody said, hey, how about number five? So I know that this isn't an exciting group of things to talk about. However, the point being is that if you get a general idea after I finish talking, if you get a generally idea of what they are, then that's what's necessary. You're not going to be using them yourselves to a great degree. However, the precepts behind them, the concepts or the ideas behind them we use all the time. We're just unaware that we're using them a lot of the time." These concepts were in 1962, although they were written by Bill W., were engineered by a man by the name of Bernard Smith. And if you'll notice in reading the concepts themselves you know there's a lot of legalese conversation that goes on in there and the reason why it does first of all Bill as some of you may or may not know had gone to law school and decided he didn't want to be a lawyer and Vern Smith Bernard Smith was a was a lawyer and he specialized in international law and was of some role not renowned and he was on the board of trustees and the alcoholic foundation which preceded the Board of Trustees and he helped a lot with the engineering of some of the structure but really they were envisioned originally and they were written by Bill the 12 concepts are the structure by which the AA World Service office and the AA world service structure which includes the conference which is held once a year in April is operates and manages the various corporations involved which are the various corporations happen to be AA World Services and the Grapevine Incorporated those of you who are familiar with Alcoholics Anonymous to some degree even the new people realize that there is a logo involved in AA and the logo is an equilateral triangle and that says that all sides are equal and it's within a circle and the basic idea of this each leg of the triangle represents a part of Alcoholics Anonymous and the base leg of the triangle represents recovery and which is the 12 steps. And the left side of the triangle represents unity, which is The Twelve Traditions. And right side of the triangle represents... I didn't... I told the truth too. Right side of the triangle represent service, which is the 12 concepts. As you know, an equilateral triangle, if you remove one leg of it, it's going to collapse. It's going to fall. So one of those legs would fall. Our recovery and our being in Alcoholics Anonymous involves not only recovery but staying together and learning to serve each other so that's what it's all about uh it's nothing uh particularly complicated about them they are really pretty simple in their in the basic formation of them the concepts aim to record the why of the service structure so so that the highly valued experience of the past and lessons we have learned from that experience can't be lost or forgotten because of our natural for us propensity for power driving they're based on a system of checks and balances so you got you have to understand then if there as we have checks and balances in the federal government we have congress and the supreme court we have the executive branch executive legal uh branch we also have areas in alcoholics anonymous that are balanced that way and they're balanced in the same fashion, as a matter of fact. In the first concept, I'm going to read a short form of it. It says, The final responsibility and ultimate authority for AA World Service should always reside in the collective conscience of our own fellowship. And the short, short form would be the ultimate responsibility and authority for a belongs to the a groups because the groups are the fellowship fellowship is one area of alcoholics anonymous that's one of the three areas of alcoholics anonymous that we have to address that we're addressing here so the group structure it's the bosses there's more people in the groups than they are in the conference and then more people in the groups than they are in the board of trustees or board of directors so we have more power than they do is what it really amounts to so bear that in mind to begin with the structure as it was initiated by bill wilson in 1955 in st louis he created the trusteeship and that was called the alcoholic foundation in 1954 that was renamed the general service board the trusteeship was designed to begin and maintain all special services for aa that could be performed by single groups or areas uniform a literature one voice for public relations policy and means to centrally handle large pleas for help, to aid new groups, a monthly magazine, translations of literature, uniformity and unity. Average member had no idea of the general service or what had to be done or what was being done or What they were doing. In 1948, Dr. Bob became ill and needed a representative conference that could take over for Bob and for Bill because when Bob died in 1950, that left the responsibility of A.A.'s leadership on Bill Wilson's hands, and he realized that he wasn't going to live forever. and he died in 1971, but he realized at that time what the great need was because the founders weren't going to live forever and there had to be some following structure to take along or AA would collapse. You have to understand then Alcoholics Anonymous 12 concepts are basically based on the second tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is that the group was to have the final authority and the leaders were to be trusted with delegated authority only. Group conscience is vague to many members, perhaps, and informed group conscience is more proper to talk about. a group that is democratic and responsible and has looked at all sides of the question before a decision is made, that would be an informed group conscience. So what we're talking about is basically remember one thing. Remember we were talking about the AA groups having the final authority. We're the ones that have control of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. The 12 traditions, the 12 steps, all are under the control of the groups of Alcoholics Anonymous a World Service does not control those the groups control those and if any of you have ever written to GSO you'll find that out because I'll ask you you'll ask a question about a tradition and they'll come back with in our experience in the experience of the letters that they have you know they have heard and they don't do any translation of the traditions or translation of the steps or try to make some explanation of them beyond what is in the published literature. So then the question of how many angels dance on the head of a pen has to be resolved in a group. We have to determine what the tradition means, and that's done by group conscience. and hopefully that group conscience is led by a trusted service, by people that we delegate the responsibility for carrying out the actions of that particular tradition in whatever means we're talking about, whatever direction we're talked about. In this case it happens to be, believe it or not, Mike Mallory because he's our general service representative and it's his responsibility he is the guardian really of the 12 traditions for this group among others he doesn't carry that alone he carries that along with every member of the group or everyone who attends the group everyone who uh who is a regular member here in 1955 when the groups confirmed the general charter for the service conference they delegated authority to the conference for our world service a groups have delegated complete administrative and operational authority to the conference and its service arms the power of groups to alter world service structure and criticize its operation is supreme they have all the final responsibility and authority there is. This in itself is nothing. They must delegate actual operational authority to chosen service representatives. The conference speaks for the group conscience. This delegated authority and responsibility is again tradition two based. For an example, in 1937, the sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous got together in Akron, Ohio. And they authorized Bob and Bill to create overall service structure which could spread the AA message. Bob transferred almost all of his authority to Bill in New York. better to find friends and funds there it was a reason and they felt that the World Service Center would have to be located there there because of the money and because it was New York and it was bigger than Akron and it would attract more attention and so on and so forth but money first because when they constructed the service structure they what they wanted to do is we want to get large contributions from people to build hospitals and print literature and train counselors and do all of those sorts of things but gradually bill alone I mean this was done this was put in place and but gradually Bill alone could not discharge these multifaceted responsibilities in 1940 the book the big book Alcoholics Anonymous and the ownership, the stock of the Works Publishing Company was turned over to the Board of Trustees. It was then AA World Service Incorporated at correction. It turned over the Board Of Trustees which was the alcoholic foundation and later to AA World Services Incorporate. Public Relations, Grapevine, Literature and each of the World Services took on their own responsibility. The Board of Trustees had full legal authority and performed management and organizational authority and became the service conscience for AA as a whole, and that is there yet to stay. If you'll think of those 30-some-odd members that got together in Akron, Ohio and met in 1937 and talked this by the way they had a they had to vote on all of these things they've discussed them thoroughly and as to what they were going to do and what they were gonna authorize bill to do so on and so forth by a surprisingly narrow margin by the vote of one member to be exact the vote was 19 to 18 it was authorized that the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous be written think of that 19 to 18 was a vote when you think of that it makes it kind of interesting because you Bill Wilson whether if you ever listen to a tape of one of these talks he talks about what a narrow thread our existence today hung upon with all these little narrow things these little thin lines that came across and by God I'll tell you that was a narrow thread because the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous was what really catapulted Alcoholics Anonymous into what it is today, because it was a written record of our experience. So that finishes the second concept which states AA groups entrust day-to-day operations to the conference and its service arms. What we do is we delegate to the conference and to its service arms a responsibility carry out the day-to-day business publish our monthly newsletter the grapevine news magazine or whatever you want call it they act as the public relations for Alcoholics Anonymous they the non-alcoholic trustees or the spokespeople in public for Alcoholics anonymous they make arrangements to publish and to edit and to add to or delete from all of our literature uh the only thing that they can't do is they can't touch the 12 steps and they can t touch the twelve traditions because it would take a positive vote from every registered aa meeting to bring about that change so that's why they are they don't change the traditions and why the steps are not changed, why they're not changed in some other fashion. So as you can well understand, probably the steps and traditions are never going to be changed is what that really amounts to, which I think is pretty nice. They've managed to work for a few years now. I think we ought to hold them. I am going to go on and describe a little later on in some detail these workings, these various sections of the World Service Office and the conference and so on, so you'll have to get a better idea. The third concept says the right of decision makes effective leadership possible. I'm just trying to see what this pamphlet says. As a traditional means of creating and maintaining a clearly defined working relation between the groups, the conference, and the AA General Service Board and its several service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives, and of thus ensuring their effective leadership, it is here suggested that we endow each of these elements of world service with a traditional right of decision. Now, what is that? I'm going to probably be repeating myself a little bit because this pamphlet repeats some of the stuff that I have written here. To clearly define a working relationship between the groups, the conference and the AA General Service Board and its several corporations, staffs, and committees, the traditional right of decision was granted. Each had right to make decisions in its own area of expertise and responsibility. If it was a money manager, the money manager had a right to make decisions on saying yes or no as to whether they had enough money to spend or didn't have, for an example. The right of decision makes effective leadership possible. For an example, Mike very simply took our composite on the agenda items that were going to be used at the World Service Conference this April. And we discussed those here fairly thoroughly with enough intelligence so that everybody had a fair idea of what they were talking about. And we voted on them, and then he took those to the district. And the district determined, after looking over what the vote was, determined that that would be fine to serve, I believe they did, plan to serve as a conscience for the district. So they then handed them to Bill Goodlett, and Bill Goodrett went out to the state at the state assembly, at which time they discussed the agenda items that are going to be presented at the AA World Service Conference. And when they were discussed, they ended up very nearly, I understand, as we had voted here. And what What is going to happen then is the delegate, our delegate who represents the state of Nebraska is going go to the World Service Conference and he will carry that vote with him. However, when he gets there if he obtains information that's different than what has been presented at the group, at the district or at the state level, if different information is presented to him uh that indicates to him in his intelligence that it should be voted for in another fashion he would be able to do that that is the traditional right of decision in other words if you ever represent a group and you have to vote for that group somewhere you vote on the basis of yes what did your group say to you or did they say to ask around ask a few people and see what they think and go ahead and use that put that together meld that together and use that in the decision making process and when you vote when you go forth and you vote vote responsibly with that information bearing that information in mind and whichever way you know you can vote yes or no purely and simply on the basis of what you're going to do is you're going to take information with you and that information is going to be used as a background for you to make a decision adding it to the other information that you get for the best decision possible this is that traditional right of decision that we discuss in alcoholic synonymous i don't think that would be i think it would be foolish for us for an example to expect mike to go and carry a vote on something uh that he discovered while attending a committee meeting that the whole premise was misunderstood and that he ought to vote in just the opposite direction. I think it would be foolish for him to vote for something when actually his own intellect and all the outstanding evidence presented would say it should be voted the other way. So these trusted servants then, they each decide on which matters they will dispose of themselves and which matters they will report, consult, or ask specific instructions. We must trust them to do these functions or else no effective leadership would be possible. In other words, for an example, we end up in the service structure, there will be at the general service conference, there'll be a discussion on literature as to whether to have more or to put a moratorium on it or whatever they're going to do and the conference will discuss this ad nauseum probably and uh at the end of that discussion they will make a recommendation they have to make a recommendation on each of the agenda items to the general service board of trustees the general service boardof trustees even though they're instructed to carry something out will look at it themselves. Upon looking at it themselves, they can make the determination as to whether or not it's feasible or whether, for an example, the literature question. For instance, the literature question. They may say we should have a moratorium on all literature and not publish anything else, period. Well, does that mean movies? Does that mean film strips? Does that means we should stop editing this pamphlet that we had started at it, we had had the authorization to do? Does that meaning that we shouldn't publish a book that we've had five different authors for now at this point, the history of AA from 1955 forward? Does that mea we stop all that? Does that mena that the money we have budgeted for those things will be put back into the general fund? Or does that mean that they look at it and make a determination, perhaps, that they don't have enough money to carry out the wish? What if they decide there shouldn't be a moratorium and they should publish pamphlets on how to make coffee and how to set chairs up at a meeting or whatever they decide? And the Board of Trustees looks at this and says, what an odor I can't go through with because we don't have the funds to create a four-hour long movie or whatever it happens to be. And they would then not carry forth the wishes of the General Service Conference. But they're able to make that decision and they would have to report back to the General Surface Conference what they did, whether they did it or they didn't do it, and if they did it, why they did It, and If they didn t do it why they did the conference has recourse if the Board of Trustees acts in a manner contrary to their wishes by the way based upon their right to vote out the trustees especially so those reports and records need to be kept and need to need to be put forth clearly, a defined authority or a failing to consult those affected before an action is to be taken. There was a conversation that went on several years ago about the publication of the small big book. There was an executive decision made to publish the small big book, it had been traditional and the vote had been always at the General Service Conference never to publish a pocketbook edition of the Big Book. As a matter of fact, that's the last, and as far as the Big Books is concerned, that'sthe last decision that the conference made. And it still stands today that they will not publish a small edition ofthe Big Book Well, you'll notice there is a small addition oftheBig Book. And a decision was made after what they did was they asked a number of people, a relatively small number of People, what they thought about it. And they thought, based on new information, that one should be published. The reason why they did this, based On New Information, was the fact that the second edition of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous was not copyrighted and they were afraid that someone else would publish it before they had a chance to get it out. they discovered it had not been copyrighted and they were afraid that one of the treatment organizations or someone else would publish a small printing of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and then AA effectively would lose its lose the big books and so they did it to prevent something from happening and when they reported this back to the conference the conference said well although we have voted traditionally for years and years and year and believe me it was for a long time 20 years anyway not to do this they said they said oh okay because there was good reasoning all of the sudden there was a good reason to do it prior to that there hadn't been a good reason all of a sudden there was a good reason to do it, and so they did. So the right of decision obviously, again, has a very practical side to it, not one of authoritarian or power, but a very tactical side to It. And so we have to remember that. But it is also not only that practical side, but it's also very symbolic. It's very symbolic of the trust we have in those people that we elect to serve us. It's absolutely, totally symbolic of our trust because when we elect someone, we elect Someone based on the fact that we trust their judgment and they trust their ability to carry out the best for Alcoholics Anonymous. We want Mike, when he votes, to make the best decision that he can to bring about the best for this group. We want this group to grow and to do well, and we want Mike to make that best decision. That's why Mike was chosen over the other people he ran against. It was surmised as an end result of his being the GSR that he was as capable a candidate as there was. not more capable but as capable as they were you know just like we had a vote here tonight for treasurer it was the same thing that happened you know that people up there the four nominees as far as I was concerned were all four of them were very confident people and there's no question in my mind that they're all all for them to be trusted to do the job and I wouldn't have had a bit of trouble the world. And the decision came out that it'd be Christie because all the women voted together. The men split their vote. I watched it. That's what happened. Otherwise, I would have won. Okay. So what we have is a mutual trust, really, isn't it? We really have a mutual trust we we have a trust that our trusted servants are going to do the best for us and in return they trust that we will back them in their decision making it whatever their decision happens to be fourth concept the short short form says participation is a key to harmony and the longer throughout our conference structure we ought to maintain at all responsible levels a a traditional right of participation, taking care that each classification or group of our world's servants shall be allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge. in government for an example correct me if I'm wrong I think we have two senators for each state is that correct and we have one congressman representing each district which is comprised of numbers of people okay and so we have a representation in how big of a part 250,000 are a major portion there thank you John yeah maybe he wrote the constitution John he looks older than me But the point about it is, that's different than what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know how many congressmen we have in the state of Nebraska, for an example, but we have one delegate. And we have one delegate because generally the population is not so large as other areas that have large populations. For an example Illinois. In southern Illinois is an area, an AA area all to itself. Chicago and suburbs are an area all through itself. North of Chicago, west of Chicago and just south of Chicago is another area all to itself and they have three delegates in uh in illinois as a result of that um but that is more probably representative again southern illinois it's got to be representation by an amount of land covered i was there over the weekend they got a lot of dirt in southern Illinois. The northern Illinois area probably has something to do with it's too large a population area for the delegate in Chicago to cover, and they have eight million people in Chicago. So I mean, it's split that way, kind of population-wise, not literally, but kind of in california they do the same thing i think that they have three delegate areas two delegate areas they want one more i know that they want more than what they have they have three and they want southern central northern and they won't want for los angeles i know that but you know the northern there's not much of a population in southern area just as San Diego it's not very big either when you think about it the crux of it is right there in the center and it's really too much for one person to be able to have a service responsibility for so they want to do something about that so we're talking about right of participation right of Participation should be maintained at all levels. Each classification or group of our world servants should be allowed a voting representation in proportion to that responsibility discharge. Participation is the key to harmony. The trustees and directors of service corporations, the executive staffs, shall always be voting members of the conference. Therefore, no class is set in absolute authority over another. The trustees, of which there are 21, the board of directors of the service corporations, the service corporation being AA World Services and the Grapevine Incorporated, the executive staff, those are the people who work at GSO, who are AA members, by the way. Not all of them, but those who are AA members are voting members of the conference. They're a minority vote, bytheway, in the whole thing. The delegates themselves number 91. And so the remainder of it I think drives it up to 130 or something like that. But no entity, including just the General Service conference itself could barely carry a substantial unanimity of vote which is over 66 percent so the conference isn't is controlled in that way somewhat any standing committee that is set up has a member of the board as a chairman and we have standing committees on public information on hospitals and institutions. We have treatment, I should say, in institutions and literature and finance and so on and so forth. And they have... There's a member of the... They serve on the... They have one person that serves on a member board that sits on the committee. They have non-member experts that are not trustees or not delegates. They may call me in, for an example, to sit on such a committee. One person that you know that they have called in to sit on a committee is Terry Lindgren, for example. He represents the worldwide Bridge the Gap on that committee. And so they hire, they sometimes call people in who work the field of alcoholism or medicine or psychology or religion or law or whatever to serve on those committees so they have experts on the on the committees that make recommend recommendations that the that are carried forth by the board of trustees they all vote on the issue all of those people on that committee vote on the issue and therefore they participate the exception is paid staff members can't be trustees by the way uh and the reason for that is it would prevent rotation if they were voted voting members because they would always have to be have to stay at that job and they may have a vested interest in the decision for an example what if they were sitting on the finance committee that was voting on how much do we pay our staff members what's the retirement going to be believe it or not at one time not too many years ago the paid staff members were voting members and they voted on what their retirement should be kind of like congress that was changed okay now the final authority we talked that we talk about the final authority is okay the only problem is that a misapplication or misuse of that could could come about because of lack of total information participation stops this before it starts because what they do is they have standing committees from people from experts from all areas who come in and participate on the committee so participation in those fashions makes us feel like we belong and makes a brotherly partnership between us and the trusted servant you know if you know that that's what's going on And if you know that that's the way AA operates, you think to yourself, well, there could be some real goofies that are going to the conference. Or there could have been some real goofies that are trustees. There could be real goofys up there all over the place because a lot of them are alcoholics. So the chances are there's some real goofys out there. And that's not bad or good. That's just the way it is. As my sponsor says, the only thing that belongs with Alcoholics Anonymous is it's filled with alcoholics. You've got to remember that because we're all strange and different people. So we have to remember that what it does is really this participation at all levels mitigates or levels out the ultimate authority and prevents misuse of authority and also encourages us to accept disciplines are tasks required done in a traditional, AA traditional manner. I'm going to do the fifth concept and then I'm going to quit. The fifth one says the rights of appeal and petition protect minority voices and ensure that they be heard. Otherwise it says throughout our world service structure a traditional right of appeal ought to prevail thus assuring us that minority opinion will be heard and that petitions for the redress of personal grievances will be personally considered. Okay? That can be misused, and it has been in this past year by the way. But I would like to go on and say the right of appeal in order to assure that minority opinion must be heard and petition for the redress or personal grievances will be carefully considered minorities minority thoughts this isn't minorities by race color or creed or whatever it's by minority voices and minority thoughts if you disagree with what's being done you have a right to come and to address the fact that you disagree with it and then after you do that it has then people should discuss it and after it's discussed then the decision should be given back to you as to why it's done that way or as we do in aa we complain about something because it's not done to us because we're not participating in it and them when we have an opportunity to participate in it exactly the same manner we think it's a hell of a good idea right sorry I shouldn't but I think that when you have a committee discussion for an example and I think this is what this is really addressing, when you has a committee discussion on one of the agenda items, and everybody says, I think that we shouldn't have any more literature published ever. And then some guy stands up and says, I think maybe I would like to be recognized as a minority voice. And so the chairman says, okay, you know, and the majority, minority voice stands up, and says I think we should finish writing that piece of history that we're putting together as long as we already have it budgeted oh well let's do that one you know it can change a vote really so bear in mind the minority voice can be important for that reason it can be for another reason what if for an example that same literature item and they decide that they should not put a moratorium on publication of literature. And some guy stands up there and goes into a long harangue on why that they should put a Moratorium on it. And what this does is it lets the people there attending that meeting that conference in this case it lets them see another side of what's going on and it also can it can do two things they can either change their mind and go with a minority voice as a possibility if if their argument is forceful enough or what it does is it reconfirms the fact that the decision that's been going on the majority of opinion is correct so it just gives an opportunity to look at it again, to redress the situation again. To look at the situation one more time and make sure it's right. And because we want to do things right, hopefully. Because they're hard to change. Now this redress of personal grievances and this, that, and the other, that means if someone is fired that they have a right to go and ask why they were fired. from a job they have that right that's a personal grievance or that they were voted out of office or this happened or that happened whatever the circumstance might be that a person may have a personal grievous if they feel that committee operate up in their opinion that the committee decision again was still wrong even after when the minority voices spoke up that they feel a personal grievance on this that stepped on their toes or whatever it happened to be those will be carefully considered by the board of trustees minority voices should be encouraged to file minority reports whenever they feel the majority could be in considerable error by asserting this right and appeal they compel thorough debate on the matter somewhat heated probably but a well-heard minority therefore is our chief protection against an uninformed misinformed hasty angry or resentful majority so it has a true true value knowing that sometimes in controversial matters the group conscience is not always correct a minority voice for appeal reasserts checks and balances. This prevents us from being subjected to tyranny of a majority over a minority." I think it's important that we understand that what this is, is saying that AA is democratic in thought and action. What this is saying is that our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern, because everything is done by committee and vote with possibility of the dissenting voter to address the subject and to bring it up and to talk about it in a reasonable manner or for that voice to be heard. Whether ten people say it or one person says it, it really doesn't make any difference. But it gives a chance to address and to redress the subject time and time and times again to make sure that we make the right decision. And again, this has to do really with the second tradition. For our group purpose is one ultimate authority, loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are the trusted servants they do not govern. when it says a loving god as he may express himself bear in mind also he may not express himself there you know that's not always true that the group conscience is going to be going to the final word because the group conscious could be of people it could be a group of people who really don't know what they're talking about so think about using the word and inform good conscience when you are working with that tradition and then learn to trust those people who are serving us I think that I'm going to quit in a timely fashion thank you Get the hat.