Unity and the Twelve Traditions – Traditions Workshop – Part 1 of 10 – Herb K.

Good evening, my name is Herb, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, welcome to our Twelve Traditions workshop. The set-aside prayer has been changed just a little bit to acknowledge that this is our intent, traditions, not steps. So if you have the format, follow the format. If you don't have the formatt, get a format. God, please set aside everything that I think I know about myself, my brokenness, the Twelve Traditions, and you for an open mind and a new experience with myself, my brokeness, the 12 traditions, and especially you. This is the foreword to the pamphlet AA Tradition, How It Developed by Bill Wilson published in 1955. How shall we AAs best preserve our unity? When an alcoholic applies the 12 steps of our recovery program to his personal life, his disintegration stops and his unification begins. The power which now holds him together in one piece overcomes those forces which had rent him apart. Exactly the same principle applies to each AA group and to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. So long as the ties which bind us together prove far stronger than those forces which would divide us if they could, all will be well. We shall be as secure as a movement. Our essential unity will remain a certainty. May we never forget that without permanent unity, we can offer little lasting relief to those scores of thousands yet to join us in their quest for freedom. It is the purpose of this workshop to review and discuss each of the Twelve Traditions so we may better understand and apply them to our fellowship and to our personal lives please join me in a few minutes of meditation on that purpose that is why we are here please join me in the serenity prayer God grant me this serenities to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference we are here to talk about our second legacy unity and to review the twelve traditions crosstalk is allowed in a loving and supportive manner Pete to be informed and helpful are our only goals the primary document that you'll need for this there's two or three actually sources that we use for the assignments the 12 and 12 the a a 12 and twelve if you don't have an a a twelve and twelve you need your own copy of the a eight twelve and twelve I have plenty all right I don't make any money on it you know that it's a pass-through it includes the taxes ten dollars for the large print and please get one if you plan on doing the traditions or having a supplement to the steps get one thank you please no let me take care of my announcements Jan thank you so the pamphlets that you need also is the Illustrated it's kind of like a cartoon thing and it has the the traditions kind of very simply put and it's wonderful although it's simple it's very graspable so make sure that you get one of those I did hand them out here thank you I did hand them out when we were here last week if you weren't here last there was a lot of material that was handed out as an orientation yeah don't yeah this should be handed out well we'll do it next time so uh we don't have any more illustrated there oh well we will have to get some more of those unless you can find them at a central office that you're familiar with also the aa tradition brochure how it developed we have a supply of those and then the language of I have ordered more but we are out of those unless you have one or could borrow one but the primary document is the twelve and twelve and then there's lots of reflective reflective questions in the assignment sheet so there's a a format and assignment sheet which there's 12 of them because there are 12 assignments the grapevine article which is uh 12 sets of questions one set for each tradition there's a set of worksheets and the way i'd like to recommend that you use those worksheeps is that you have the blank worksheet for Tradition 1 in front of you tonight so that you could be asking yourself when we're talking about Tradition 1, what does it say? What does it mean? How does it apply to me? What is my experience? It's kind of a blank worksheet so thatyou can be engaged with us even though you're not necessarily participating. And then there's a list of books and resources and reference material and and that's all was part of the original package handed out last week with the orientation information and instructions which I'm not going to go back over we gave an orientation concerning some of the comparisons that I've heard or read or thought about between the steps and the traditions or some of the reasons for the traditions and I would like to sort of warm up each night that we get together with a few more observations about that first of all the twelve steps are the twelve principles of recovery and the twelve traditions are the twelve principles of unity if you have a mental image of unity being one body I believe it will help you understand how the traditions work what their purpose is and how each tradition contributes to that particular aspect of unity so did anybody look up the word unity and have a definition so the word unity comes from the Latin and you'll hear tonight maybe more Latin than you've been used to hearing because we're looking at the definitions of words and of course our language came from the latin language latin meaning like in Rome 2,000 years ago all right the word you num means one the number one total uniformity or or singleness of purpose or one entity now here's the mental image that I think really helped me understand what the tradition's purpose is it's a set of principles to maintain the wholeness and the health of the one body the corporate body the spiritual body and let's just assume be poetic with me please just assume that this is a amorphous person right one body all right maybe some legs maybe in a couple eyes maybe a nose maybe a mouth maybe an ear all right I'm not an artist yeah right that's right don't quit my day job I don't have one so there you go mm-hmm but the whole point of this is one body so I have a body which has two eyes my eye is not more important than my ear is not important than my mouth is not import more important than my hand and my wrist and my fingers are not more important than my foot or more important in my ankle so in AA we've got a bunch of individuals who have gathered in a group how does the group hang together through guiding spiritual principles. But then there are other groups next door because some of those people didn't like those people in that group, and they had a resentment, so they started a new meeting, right? You know how it goes. And then eventually there's lots of meetings in this geography, and in this geography, or countries around the world. And so the body of AA, not in a material sense, but in the spiritual sense, is held together by guiding principles so that we just don't blow apart. And Bill very clearly says in some of the literature, as the steps are for the deflation of the individual ego, the traditions are for the deflation of the group ego. So there's a direct parallel here in terms of the dysfunctionality of the individual. Think fourth step. Think instincts gone awry. anger fear dishonesty secrets inappropriate sex that sounds like any good meeting i've ever been to right joke come on lighten up all right so that's the that's the point in the same way the steps will in fact resolve those problems in the individual by the disintegration of the false self for the emergence of the true self as an individual, the traditions will have the disintegrating of the false self of the group if in fact practiced. All right. So I like this mental, poetic, mystical image that underneath the underneath the underneath of all these individual people not only in AA but in 12 step recovery there is this energy and this spirit that is the whatever the cytoplasm myoplasm whatever it is that holds cells together right and it's a spiritual sense All right. The steps are for the intervention of self-reliance and the goal is unity with God from the steps. Right. That's the whole point of the steps, and I said the point of sponsorship is to point the way to God. The steps Are not an antidote to alcohol. that's not their purpose the purpose of the steps is a path to a authentic relationship with the mystery which is the antidote to the addiction so as the steps intervene on self-reliance with a goal of union with god the traditions promote god reliance with the goal of union with humanity, the unification of us each to one another. That's why I think these traditions are so overlooked. When I announced that I was going to do the traditions, some of my friends said, oh, so it's going to be like six people in the meeting? And I said, no, because it's not traditions in the organizational structure of AA, it's traditions in our personal life and in our relationships. And obviously that was communicated because we have a nice full house. As the steps integrate us as individuals and lead us to dependence on God, the traditions integrate us with each other in the group and allow us to depend on our community, on our fellowship and that's why this first step is first tradition is so important because it contrasts our common welfare with our individual welfare and it's saying if you get to choose common versus individual common wins all right common wins because if we don't have the group all individuals will be in jeopardy it's a subtle but not so subtle and it's very much you know tells you a little bit about the priorities here bill wilson in his own story on the top of page 14 says simple but not easy simple but not easy a price has to be paid it means the destruction of self-centeredness we must turn in all things to the father of light who presides over that's the formula for the steps and the transformation that takes place this is the price that is required the destruction of self-centeredness, and the traditions require sacrifice. The sacrifice of the individual for the common good. And we talked about, those of you who are here, about the Latin derivative of sacrifice. Sacere facere. Sacre meaning priest or holy. Facere meaning to make or to do. sacrifice that act, that stance, that attitude that makes us holy, sacred, or even holy. W-A-H-O-L dash E if you want to play with words. I give up something when I become part of a group. I gave up my individuality in the spiritual sense of being unique and that's anybody look up the word humility a low view of one's importance how about a correct view of ones importance all right and that correct view in my stance is I'm not that important all right I'm just really not that important there are six billion people on the planet really if they were were looking at me from mars they wouldn't know i existed all right well in fact six five nine nine nine nine don't know I exist right Richard to remain teachable is excellent humility is that sense of open-minded open-heartedness please Dave lowering oneself in relationship to others I don't like the definition with lower in it no see myself as on an even level with everybody I'm not lower and I'm higher I see the truth I see the reality I see perspective right size good yeah George I don' like that not self-assertive I don''t like aggressive but I absolutely encourage you all to be self-assertive in this truest sense of the positive of that stand for yourself don't stand against anything stand for yourself and I believe that self-assertion I like that part unobtrusive unpretending unassuming all right yeah there was one other one there I just don't like that meek and submissive to the divine will all right no I'm ferociously independent and I love you God and I'm going to stand for that Yeah, I'm not meek and submissive, not one bit. I have the courage to align my will with my understanding of God's will. Now, meekandsubmissive would be more like what Richard was talking about, and that is the right perspective to align myself. I know I am not God. I'm clear. I did a fourth step. I am NOT God. But I am Not, NOT God! I'm as clear about that as I'm anything else see what I well yeah there's a connotation to humility that is just humiliating in the other workshop we passed out a pamphlet of St. Benedict's rules on humility and some of them were listen to your sponsor listen to you listen to Listen. Do you know what the Latin word is for to listen? Obedere. That's where obedience comes from. Obedience comes from obedere, to listen. To listen to your boss, to listening to your spouse, to listen to you sponsor, to LISTEN. Doesn't mean you have to comply but to listen with that open mind in that open heart, that undefended person. This is what happens when you work the steps. There's nothing left to defend because your true self is there. And if you don't like my true self, it says more about you than it does about me. Yeah, Nicole? You went to my barber. I actually have a prayer part humility is not thinking less of yourself it's thinking of yourself less see i like that that's a perspective that is the turning of the self-centeredness to other centeredness please david so you said you didn't like the word lower i don't but i'm going to show you how actually all right show me David yeah you mean delusional delusinal you can do that can you do that? Can you do this with God? My work never lowered my ego. My work never lowered my ego. My work prepared me for the grace of God to dismantle the need to have the false self-ego. So we don't lower ourselves from my standpoint. We might have the willingness to be lowered, we might have the willingness act a little bit more in the way normal people act you know yeah but it's but i understand the spirit of it yeah that's why i like that word yeah i hate the word yeah well because we have enough um low self-esteem we don't need to foster anymore really in terms of this person's real self-worth pamela when i'm unselfish Yeah, unselfish. And you've got to be careful with that one because when you think you're unselflish, it may be the most selfish thing that you're doing. Ask any Al-Anon. Well, no, huh? I just wanted to help. Right, exactly. No, I just want to help you. I just needed to control you to follow my script because if you follow my scripture, we'll all be happy. yeah yeah yeah huh right please oh see there i like this one now david listen to this one recognition of self in relation to god see there's perspective seeing the truth well where does it come from in latin Humility comes from the word humus. Earth, it means earth or dirt. Common as dirt. Think of the sand on the beach here in Santa Monica. All right? How unique are any one of the grains of sand? None. How unique? How unique is the 6 billion people really from a perspective? None. None. I mean they only last about 100 years. They wear out pretty quickly. right and so that's what we have is humility is a perspective that is of the non-uniqueness all right the non entitlement the non special it's the wonderful antidote to narcissism humility and we practice acts of humility which might be humiliation all right in order to in fact acquire the virtue of humility be careful with that one also though because anything we do can be you know warped that's the human condition isn't it please sophie equalizing yeah that's that same thing they are quality of everybody you know? That's wonderful. Please, Bonnie. It amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be, a desire to seek and do God's will. I really like that. Let me just, if there was more, just hold it. That is a recognition of who I really am and a recognition that I can, in fact, improve to become more in line with God's will. That's really healthy, I think. And that comes from that dictionary, does it? It's a big book dictionary, and about 70% of it I like. There's about 30% that I don't think is quite helpful, but there's a lot in there that is helpful. All right. So in the steps, we use guidance through meditation to hear the voice of God. In the traditions, we used guidance through the group conscience to hear the voice God. All right? There's a real wonderful parallel there in the comparison of the purpose of the steps for the individual and the purpose of the traditions for the group and the groups deflation of personal ego is the purpose of steps for God reliance and deflation of the group ego for unity in the traditions for God Reliance at the same time the purpose of the steps is to say sober and to help others for individual survival the purpose of the traditions is for the group survival so the group can help others wonderful parallels wonderful parallels all right let's go into the assignment and this is how it's going to work for us we're going to look at the assignment and that's a tradition one and so that would be the assignment there's a set of twelve if you don't have it you'll be able to get it later on after the meeting because we have a nice supply now it does suggest that we use the language of the heart for the first assignment it's only a page and you may or may not have the language the heart so we'll just hit it a little bit and on on the highlights at the beginning of the section in the language of the heart bill had given a talk in memphis in october of 1947 when he had just crafted the traditions now look at the timeline on that alcoholics anonymous was founded in june of 1935 and in octember of 1947 12 years later he has come now to grips with 12 principles to help the groups have some unity and let's see what he has to say there well he certainly talks about the purpose being unity and it's the antidote for the malignancy which tears us apart and that is individuality the traditions are to stamp out individuality in the group in the same way the steps are for the dismantling of the false self of the individual those are my words not from the language of the heart humility and unity those are the two key principles if humility can expel the obsession to drink alcohol then surely humility can be our antidote for that subtle wine called success he's used he's being poetic Bonnie definite principles of group conduct let's see I'm just reading highlights and again I'm on page 71 in the language of the heart oh I am haven't gotten to the assignment yet yeah thank you page 71 this is the preface to the Assignment I always do more than I tell myself or you to do right anything worth doing is worth overdoing that does get one in trouble first things will always need to be first humility before success and unity before fame now we'll go to page 76 all right so that's where tradition 1 there's a couple paragraphs on tradition 1 are there any highlights on page 76 of those of you who have it and read it and highlighted it that you would like to comment on please yeah we see and we we said that so we knew this from both the dictionary work and from our own intuition and from our own experience and maybe from the reading that we did here exactly almost those words that's right we're a small part of a great whole that's humility I'm a small part. I'm as important as my gifts are important as a contribution, but in the bigger picture, maybe not so much. Any other highlight on that page? Please, Michael. We suggest we don't discipline. In another place, Bill says the traditions are not rules and regulations. They're guidelines based on our experience. In fact, in this section, I believe he talks about they were hammered out on the anvil of our experience. So they've been together now for 12 years and the groups have been meeting all over now the country basically by this time. And letters have been pouring into New York with complaints, with suggestions, with shared things, what works and what doesn't work. And they're sorting through all this material. And that's where Bill, as a, how would you say, refiner of all this material, that's not the word I want to, editor, not quite yet, integrate, filter, synthesizer. That's the word i was looking for. He synthesized all of this in an incredibly brilliant fashion and constructed those 12 principles called the traditions out of it. But he said, they're not rules and regulations. They're guidelines based on experience. There are only two disciplines in Alcoholics Anonymous. Listen up, especially if you're a sponsor. There are только два дисциплины в Alcoholics Анонимусе. One is God, and the other is alcohol, and you're either going for one or you're going for the other. Oh, really? Dimmer switch, greased axle, going forward, bringing on the light, going backward, bringing in the light. Going on the darkness. There's only two disciplines, God and alcohol, and you're either going for one or you're going for the other, and he has no qualifiers on that. Pretty amazing stuff. Please. Well, you can think that. That's not what Bill said. Well, it may be, but he didn't say it was a discipline. He said pain is this touchstone of recovery or the humility or whatever the conclusion is for the first step. How about page 77? Any highlights on that page that anybody would like to comment on? Thank you. The answer seems to be that we AAs cannot really do as we please, though there is no constituted human authority to restrain us. There's no constitutive human authority to restrain us uh we can you know as human beings we can do anything we want we really can do everything we want as long as we're willing to accept the consequences and there will be consequences to our actions all right so we're on page 77 let's see if there's anything else here we see that without substantial unity there can be no aaa and that without aa there can be little lasting recovery for anyone it's interesting he didn't mention meetings all right so there we go that's the first assignment the second assignment is tradition one from the twelve and twelve all right now that was a lot easier for people to have and to read and I think there's not very much on that either just a paragraph or I mean let's say a page and a half is it two-and-a-half pages but let's take a look at the first page 129 any highlights on that page that anybody would like to comment on and I'm going to try not to call on the same people each time unless in fact they're the only ones raising their hands please See, once again, it's talking about this body analogy or metaphor. And in fact, he says quite clearly, we stay whole or AA dies. He says without unity, the heart of AA would cease to beat. our world arteries would no longer carry the life-giving grace of god his gift to us would be spent aimlessly back again in their caves alcoholics would reproach us and say what a great thing aa might have been so it's this body analogy also you know what we didn't do though and uh that's my fault i didn't bring us i'm just getting used to the protocol you had that um handout that has the two forms of the traditions on it and uh the three questions and i i meant to read those right at the beginning so that we know what we're talking about here's the short form our common welfare should come first personal recovery depends upon a unity long form each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence, our common welfare comes first, but individual welfare follows close afterward. And I'm very much reminded of the flight attendant warning to you when that little mask she's holding dangles. She said, when we lose oxygen and you get the mask, you put yours on first so that you survive then you take care of the other people right but the other People then get a chance to survive too it might not be quite an appropriate analogy but it's talking about uh first things first so actually it's just the reverse isn't it well scratch that one but it was a great image all right all right so let's take a look at page 129 again are there any highlights on that page or I'm assuming you guys read these things come on yeah please oh you can count on the Al-anon to come charging in to save me see that was so wonderful of course because if the person didn't survive she couldn't help the other people so the mask is the steps and putting the mask on the other people is the traditions you get a special favor a new star all right surely there is none which more jealously guards the individuals right to think talk and act as he wishes no AA can compel another to do anything nobody can be punished or expelled our 12 steps to recovery are suggestions the 12 traditions which guarantee aa's unity contain not a single don't they repeatedly say we ought but never you must all right yeah please nice and loud unless you want to come up here i love that paragraph when i read it because my one of my first concerns coming in is like the individual and the group and how you balance the two. And is this a cult? Is someone going to have you drink a bunch of Kool-Aid? Yeah. So I love the idea that there's suggestions and nobody tells anybody what to do. Yeah. And that there is hopefully, like you talked about, a God-centeredness that's going on that separates it from other organized institutions where I think that I think harms people, can potentially harm people. Yeah. So I think that's what I was looking for. Yeah. I thought that was awesome. Yeah, I haven't revisited the traditions in probably 15 years and over the weekend i was doing the work and it just lit me up again i mean it was it's just so got individual spiritual principles all over it it just was wonderful please david uh in one of our meetings uh we had somebody who was being disruptive yeah right well there yep a disruptive person is not expelled they're ushered out to have a conversation that makes them very special because they're the center of it how we reframe it now a health yeah a healthy meeting is prepared for that it's not like ushers get that bum out of here no it's not like that at all it's kind of like the group conscience of a healthy meeting has prepared for this and there are two or three people that will politely and respectfully help the person move out of the meeting and then stay there with them all right like we every once in a while in my men's stag meeting we have people who are not alcoholic come in they're in another fellowship or we have a woman wander in because she didn't know that it was a men's tag we are prepared for that there are two or three people whose commitment is to stand up to go out with them into the parking lot and to stay there until the meeting is over asking about why are they there what do they need what are the resources what are the alternatives and being well all right i love meetings for instance that at the end of the meeting and there's not many of them but i'm so impressed with the health of the where they ask for sponsors they say are there men in the room who are willing to sponsor stand up are there women in the rooms who are willing to sponsor stand up i love that that is just so the spirit of things because how else would a newcomer be able to identify unless you've had some conversations at the break or before or after the meeting and perhaps some of those people had shared with some resonance for somebody but they didn't know how to make contact and here's the invitation to contact them and if you're not doing that in your meeting, whether it's AA or not. You might want to bring that to the attention of the group conscience, assuming you have one. Yeah, please. I was in a meeting not too long ago. A guy was in an AA meeting. He died down some vodka in the parking lot. Yes. And he came into the meeting. Absolutely. He was totally disruptive. He couldn't be controlled. Yeah. And someone called the police. Absolutely And they took them out, you know, and they handled them. They took them away in an ambulance. But the secretary was so upset about it. She said that we had done the wrong thing. This wasn't AA, but it was the right thing to do. It probably was, but I mean if you're not there, you don't know. And it could go either way. I could see it going either way Well, you couldn't control the guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, isn't it interesting? we're discussing about how do you deal with people who drink in a meeting I mean how far have we come I mean really oh my god that's priceless yeah no no no and well here it is this is the classic example without qualifiers the common welfare before the individual welfare. This is exactly the point. The group must survive even if the individual doesn't. Sorry. All right? Please, Nicole. Nicole Allen. My home is in a woman's group, and we put men on her end. Yeah, sure. nice they have a list of other meetings available in the area that's prepared to be helpful really wonderful David yeah yeah yeah goodbye good luck right right right yeah yeah I can't miss my meeting because we're going to be talking about how to help people we know really huh well I used to run sales meetings in corporate America all right and and and so a guy would come up to me and he would say herb I've been a service rep all my life i want to be a salesman i said gee that's really terrific go sell something because the moment you sell something you're a sales man yeah exactly i mean all right deer in headlights i'm not hearing much but anyway and and so and so there were people in a sales meeting that would come to the sales meeting rather than be out selling and i'm saying don't be coming here to talk about sales if in fact you can make sales all right so don't be talking about helping if in fat you get an opportunity to help because the whole purpose of a meeting is to help other people I'm glad you underscored it and highlighted it by bringing it up wonderful group conscience the meetings been there 50 years I don't know yeah I donno this is yeah it's a healthy meeting like that but we don't do the sponsor thing which i think is incredibly healthy that's wonderful and and see there's the beauty of aa there's no regulation your culture of your meeting is determined by your people the culture of your meeting is determined by your people the culture of your meeting is determined by your people and nobody can tell you right or wrong that's the culture of your meeting and group conscience. Now, there may be healthy ways and unhealthy ways and appropriate and inappropriate and helpful and not helpful. But y'all, you know, you get to make up your own protocols. Yeah, George. You can use the mic, no? George Browell, alcoholic. I've had some delicate balancing. I've been secretary of a meeting at the Marina Center where the format is after the speaker for people to ask questions and a lot of people are regulars and they know the format as ask questions yeah so when people start sharing after a little bit they get uncomfortable and i had a situation where a young lady uh started sharing and she seemed to be suicidal she had 90 days and she was just going on and she had some you know problems that were not alcohol and she was going on and I had to make a judgment between balancing what was obviously her need to share pain and the meeting kind of getting unrestful yeah and I let her go on for a little while and then asked her gently about the question yeah I got flack from both sides sure of course yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah don't try to please everyone all right you'll only die in the in the middle of the battle it's on Naomi alcoholic Alan on I had an experience when I first came into alcoholics anonymous I had my at the time four-year-old three or four year old and I went to a meeting and it was a a women's meeting and the meeting had started and I was there with my baby and you know babies make noises and I at the time very new, very vulnerable. And I was asked to leave the meeting because the baby was being disruptive and I left the meeting but I think my question was that affected me for a few months. I was really upset about it so sometimes I wonder and I'm really sensitive about people who come into meetings and they're new, the comfort, the unity of the group should come first. But is there, I often think, well, do you give a little for the sake of a newcomer and then address it at the end in a gentle way? Or do you just cut somebody off because people are getting flustered? That would be the question for the group conscience. Yeah, that would be exactly the question for a group conscience I tend to waver to be more lenient but I've noticed that there are meetings And I'm aware of healthy women's meetings especially during the day that have a designated job or service position of babysitter They have a special room The women can bring their kids and they can put them in the child care area and they an attend the meeting, getting it for themselves and not disrupting other people. But yeah, see this is an art, not a science, alright? It's an art form. And here's the one driving word that is the litmus test and the filter through which all decisions should be made. What is the most helpful? is the most helpful of course it's not black and white and there's no formula for it please you had a question oh you come to the mic good i'm glad we're doing that yep i looked up did you talk it's on it's gone okay did you talk about substantial unity already and we didn't okay so substantial unity we did not talk about that word okay that phrase last week you mentioned that it has a special meaning in aa is that right well i i i got that from some of the reaction to the word but we're not there yet all right we're out there yet in tonight's discussion that's correct i didn't bring it up okay now you brought it up yeah did anybody have any did you have some thoughts about that well i i was wondering what it is because um i mean i looked i looked it up and it's actually in the dictionary but it re you know referred to some uh aristotelian uh idea about the unity of the of the solar the unity okay so i'm wondering no that's not that's not really what we're talking about here but what is it substantial unity as opposed to unity oh so you're posing a question i'm posing a questions okay let's address it since he's brought it up uh we didn't get to it on the assignment yet but it's all it's here and we talked about humility and unity and so what about substantial unanimity is a phrase here unanimity i think so ah substantial unanimit is the word here okay yeah so what do you think it means please Joe say it again a substantial unanimity would be a vote in voting sense would be two-thirds all right excellent anybody else please Marvin Milton thank you agreement by all people which is a little bit different than that but I think in AA that would be more in that direction and that's around the group conscience and they don't try to go for 51 percent votes in fact they really discourage voting in the group conscious process they're looking for consensus and substantial unanimity would be pretty much everybody's in agreement that this was direction that we will go even if it takes 52 weeks to get there right we just wear them out Nicole yeah yeah and just tilt it down hi Nicole Allen on okay so Alan on is recently adopt well they've been using it but it's now being accepted at group levels which is knowledge based decision-making at the meeting the business meeting levels which encourages and promotes that substantial unanimity in a way that I've actually never seen it my background is business as the VP of operations I've always been well the head of meetings and I've never seen anything work quite so unanimously where when it's used in the proper sense, we take into account and we really encourage the minority message in the room. And we talk things out. We reason things out, and we don't expect any closure in a business meeting within one business meeting. And to me that is what the substantial unanimity is, is what Al-Anon has created in this knowledge based decision making thank you Nicole yeah please go ahead I'll just ask the follow-up question so I've been sitting here earlier tonight listening to the discussion on unity and as I listened I a phrase from home came to light to mind And it's, you know, united in the strife that divides us. And I'm thinking, okay, that really seems to identify some of the meetings and things that I've been in. But it just points to the idea that unity is not necessarily a static thing, that it's a dynamic phenomenon. and that, just like this lady just said here, that, yeah, we don't always all agree, but we're heading in the same place. And it's like, okay, so there's a situation in a meeting where someone comes in and there's a problem, some kind of problem. And it' s like, I just love what you said about, OK, yeah the solution to this is when the group conscience kicks in because this is where the unity happens. But it's, I don't think there's any, you know, just given unity. I think it's something that always has to be worked for. You know, there always hasと be room for differences of opinions, room for serious disagreements, and then, you kno, unity emerges from that. But anyway. Good. Thank you. Joe? I just want to say, I think the brilliance of Bill Wilson comes in the third legacy procedure, And that talks about the two-thirds voting process. So if you're going to vote on something, you do it five times. So in the essence of keeping it moving and keeping the time issue at bay, the first round, two-third. If someone gets two- thirds of votes, they're elected. If it doesn't happen, there's a second ballot. And if two- third doesn't happened in the second ballot, then 20% of the voters or the candidates get kicked or get dropped out. On the third one... By how? Just by not having enough votes. Out of the hat. Yeah, so it's only 20%. They go down. 20% of the candidates, their names are in the hat. No? No hat yet. No? Here's the brilliance. No hat yeah. All right. Well, anyway, I'm not sure I want to go into this, but how much do you got to go? Because we got a limited on time. Three minutes. So then I want two minutes. Two. You got two. I'll make it fast. One minute. So it goes to the third ballot. Third ballot, then one-third. If you don't have one-thirds of the votes, it gets dropped out. It goes tothe fourth ballot. Then it goesto majority. The chairperson says, now we have a majority. Do we want togo to a fifth ballot? If they say yes, we go to the fifth ballot. If you don't get two-thirds, then it goes to the hat. And this is the brilliance of Alcoholics Anonymous. But it goes into the hat, what happens? Someone picks it out of the hat and who is that? That's the hand of God because no one picks it but the last person. So anyway, that's the best thing. David M. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, please. You want to use the mic? Substantial, by the way, while he's coming up to here. Oh, you're going to do that? Go ahead. You didn't ask us to define unity. You asked us to find unity. You asked to define substantial unanimity. Yes. And I believe it's the combination of what we're seeking. Yes. And substantial doesn't mean all. It generally means mostly or for the most part or wholly. If you combine that with unanimity, which has a consensus in unity, I look at that and say it doesn't have to be perfect. It can be a percentage, more than half. And ultimately when I'm listening to this discussion and the multiple opinions, when we go back to our purpose, if people in the group conscious are trying to strive for that unanimity they're not trying to press their individual opinion. They're trying to be, I'll say, godlike and try to do what they believe is best for the group or for what they're trying to resolve. That's why substantial is more than sufficient if those that are present are trying to do it with the right purpose and context. Yeah, check the motives, that's right. So look again at the Latin derivatives of both words. Substantial comes from substandare which means to stand under this is the foundation and unanimity comes from two latin words unum which means one and anima which means solar spirit going right in fact what we just talked about Just one soul, one spirit, that kind of sense and humility. Rob? I'm Rob. I'm an over-eater, also over here. So I am not familiar with the AA definition. All right. I define both terms. We're talking about dictionary definitions mostly. So unanimity is unanimity, agreement by all people is what I found. So two-thirds of people, that's not unanimous. Three-quarters is not unanimious. It may be good enough. It may Be the best you can do. But unanimity is unanimity. So to me, the nuance is in the substantial. And initially I thought of, I guess the more common definition Is about quantity. Substantial means a lot, important. But there are some other definitions I wasn't aware of. So I saw one is concerning the essentials of something, like fundamental basic essential so when I thought about that I realized how you can have substantial unanimity even while not agreeing on all the details a group can be unanimous on some underlying principle or basic idea yeah and you know let's focus on what we do agree on and let's leave what we don't agree on right to the side you know right and that that not only can work in a in a recover a 12-step meeting but I see how that could work in in business your family yeah so so that actually I learned I learned something by looking up the substantial definitions right and really encourage thank you Rob I really encourage you to look use the dictionary and look at all like George did all of the various definitions in various contexts so that you get a feel of and a flavor for and expand your consciousness about it hi Greg alcoholic hey Greg sex and love addict and it's all right we don't know I you know when I hear a substantial enemy I want to I want emphasize that that doesn't mean that you have to go along with what everybody's saying because you know the guy who came up with God as we understood God there was one guy who who wanted to make that a part of the the steps god as we understood him you know and and because of that one guy we have that that part in the steps that is really important and then also i had this experience well i met the guy in um i metthe guy in central office who was responsible for putting the little g next to uh gay meetings and uh next to what gay meetings gay meetings Oh I see, I see. And at that time gays had their own service structure they were completely separate from Alcoholics Anonymous and they were incorporated. He came to central office and he made a speech and they voted against him and he did a minority opinion and one person changed his vote they went back into discussion and this was like in the 70s or 80s where it wasn't too hot to be gay so I mean and then the last thing I want to say It says, in matters of grave importance, you have a duty to express your opinion. Yeah, nice. Very nice. Thank you for that contribution. Right. I'm Rod, Grateful Recovering Addict. Just a quick comment. If you could talk directly into the snow cone there. Okay, I'll try to. Yeah, thank you. Is that better? Much better. Good. Just a quick comment on the purpose of Robert's rules is it's an organized method of conducting a meeting and two, to protect minority issues. That's it. Yeah. To protect the minority issues which would be very relevant here in the group conscience and if we're not there yet but we will get to that particular tradition. Are we on tradition one? We are still on tradition one. I was a little bit confused. All right. Richard, alcoholic. Oh, Richard, crusty old . Careful. What? Careful. I'll pull some rank on you. I'm a little but confused because we're talking here about the stuff that's about the words that are in the second tradition. The word of consequence, it seems to me, in the first tradition, two words. Common welfare. Common welfare? That's it. That's what the first traditional is. This should come first. Everything else is second. And if a meeting is run in such a fashion, for example, that when someone comes in and is drunk and is not disturbing, what's the common welfare? Yeah, the common welfare is for us to see this alcoholic in person amongst us right because otherwise We don't remember how we bled. Yeah Common welfare. Yeah. Thank you Richard Candy alcoholic a candy So I wanted to kind of go back to Back to the discussion about the drunk in the meeting, because I've had that in meetings and that the police was actually called. And in working with others on page 97 it says, a drunk may smash furniture in your home or burn a mattress. Not my house. You may have to fight with him if he's violent. Sometimes you will have to call a doctor and administer sedatives under his direction. Another time you may have send for the police or an ambulance. Occasionally you will need to meet such conditions. And I think that given the fact that we attend hundreds of meetings, if we manage to stay over at some point there'll be a circumstance where somebody goes out of control um i've also been in meetings where people have uh my favorite thing in real estate and other places the service dog or the service animal where the animal gets passed around and walks around the meeting and disrupts the meetingand it's a difficult one because how do you take a group conscience on something like that whereas there's a legal you know binding situation but it is disturbing the meeting that was a question to you yeah no it's not a question for me it's just a question right so we raised the question we have 10 minutes left so I want to protect it with no more questions all right no more questions we can pick it up next time but we I want to finish kind of going over what we're doing here and we'll pick it up next you've got come back next time and we will do some questions but we need to sort of manage it so that we get through some of the substantial stuff this isn't going to be an in-depth discussion obviously like the 12 steps are over a year period we have one week per tradition so keep that in mind this this has been very lively and a wonderful experience and in a good exchange but we want to keep in mind that we want to do a review of all of the assignments so that people have a sense of it and can make a contribution to it and we don't want to hold group conscience here on specific situations even though sometimes the specific intuition situations are wonderful illustrations of the principles that we're using so i'm absolutely not discouraging that i am encouraging us to just use our common sense and perspective on what the purpose of it is and that we have about an hour to do it so we have um the 12 uh we have we haven't finished with the tradition one from the 12 and 12 page 130. anybody have any comments on the highlights there in page 130 in the 12-12 please nice in them in the mic please There was a couple of lines. Right in the middle of the page says, most individuals cannot recover unless there is a group. The last sentence in the same paragraph says, the group must survive or the individual will not. Now I'm not saying I disagree with those words, but just to be a little bit provocative, I always thought AA worked as one alcoholic working with another alcoholic. So that's a one-on-one situation and what's described in chapter 7 in the Big Book. So how does the group become the essential, the thing that's essential to you? I think you're mixing your purposes here. The essential purpose of AA is one alcoholic talking to another but that's not a group. So what's the function of a group? group is a an entity in itself so that the individuals come that's why we have the guidelines for behavior within the group and so I don't see any conflict in that it's just a different context Betsy okay so that first paragraph those who look closely soon have the key to this strange paradox I think a lot of this is about paradox the substantial unanimity that's a paradoxical statement so accepting paradox and and the complexity of that is important I also really love the next couple lines the compulsive member has to conform to the principles of recovery his or her life actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles that's just yeah well and And just to go a little further, I know we're taking sentences out of context, but these are some of my highlights. It says in the middle of that page 130, no personal sacrifice is too great for the preservation of the fellowship. How best to live and work together as groups became the prime question. The issues are the same as the step four inventory issues, wealth, power, and prestige. i think related to that model that i use for step one body mind and will the survival from a wealth and security standpoint the power from a control standpoint and the prestige from a sense of esteem and value in context for your personal life maybe um how about page 131 any highlights or comments on page 133 please john a couple of i mean you've said it a couple times tonight uh the anvils of experience yeah and and that meant a lot to me because i see the anvals as each individual being extremely stubborn and heavy and and just dragging along and and our experiences sort of got hammered out on those. Yeah, yeah. But the other part is Eddie Rickenbacker gets mentioned in there and I did a little research on Eddie because I don't know Eddie. So but the thing that's amazing is when I look at the stuff that happened in Eddie's life, I can have a little view of me being a small part in a great whole because they were out in the middle of the Pacific 22 days and they survived it i don't you know and i guess just because they all work together to get through those 22 days so that that's that was a great little story yeah it's a wonderful i mean and i'm glad you brought in sort of the historical background to show the relevance of it in terms of the way bill used it obviously it was a story that was uh well publicized in bill's day so he didn't spend a lot the time giving much information on it. Richard? I remember a phrase, we must hang together or we will surely hang separately. So I looked it up. Yeah. This was done during the time that the 13 colonies were scrapping amongst each other. Each was doing its own thing, you know, and they were all making their own rules about how they were going to subsist and survive and so forth. And Ben Franklin said, we must all hang together or assuredly we shall hang separately. We must all hung together or most assuredly we will hang separately, Ben Franklin concerning the war for independence. Wonderful, thank you Richard. All right, so I passed out a handout. We'll typically have handouts almost every time And this is one that gives you a perspective on the entire Twelve Traditions viewpoint on principles. Now, there's nothing official about this. This comes from my experience and the people that I've worked with. And I think I mentioned to you that I engaged a tradition sponsor for a year. And he took me through the traditions in the same way that somebody would take somebody through the steps. all right and i hammered this out from that experience and you can see that the traditions are an attempt to deal with the individual or the group weakness of selfishness and individuality the principle being unity and the results of that for the individual and the group action is respect and partnership we will be using this each time that we finish a tradition We didn't get much of a chance to take a look at the traditions illustrated. Does anybody have any highlights or comments that they would like to make on that? We have about five minutes we're going to use quite tightly here, I hope. Bonnie Alcoholic. Hi, Bonnie. There's no page numbers, but on tradition one middle paragraph it talks about self-indulgence. It threatens the very basis of our society, the unity of the AA group. For self-righteous gossip can damage a mutual trust that is vital to every group and a compulsive talker can ruin the effectiveness of the discussion meeting. It's that self-indulgence, that myopic view of myself and what my importance. I find that sometimes, for example, people texting in the meetings or chatting in the meetings while somebody else is talking, it takes away from that primary purpose which is to be there and the unanimity of the group and to be able to participate as a listener as well as somebody who's sharing, so I found that interesting. Well, thank you for that. And you just press the button. Now, I've mentioned that I'm technologically challenged. I don't apologize for it. I make a statement. That's just what it is. And I'm trying to do the best I can to enter into the 20th century, let alone the 21st century. But be that as it may, I don' t bring my phone into a meeting. my phone goes off and it stays in the car why would you bring a phone into a meeting and why would u leave it on in the meeting unless you're a surgeon or the Attorney General of the United States or the general commander of the fleet in Afghanistan why would U not it's an it's a rhetorical challenge question to you and we'll bring it up later on but I'm not looking for an answer and I'm looking for a line of people to talk to me afterwards on that question either all right that's just a personal kind of a button pressed but George has something yeah something struck me in here talks about uh we shed a few bits of the big ego and uh you know it may lead us to take other members inventories into gossip about their supposed shortcomings, and it may lure us into hogging the floor at every discussion meeting. And this is something I see way too much of, and I wonder whether maybe I should underline this page and give it to those people. Oh, just after your Al-Anon meeting, do that. Yes, after the group conscience tells you that it's okay. That's right. Each of the other 11 traditions explains one specific way to protect the unity. The key to the tradition's understanding is unity, common welfare, all right, unity. And now each of the traditions in the balance 2 through 12 are going to have some aspect of supporting unity. This we owe to AA's future, to place our common welfare first, to keep our fellowship united, for on AA unity depend our lives and the lives of those to come. We are here to talk about our... Oh, no, no. Let's go back over here. Our respective 12-step fellowships help their members maintain their personal recovery and encourage them to offer to share their recovery experience freely with others who may have a similar problem. Oh, that's what I heard. That's interesting. Okay, so the next workshop next week will be based on Tradition 2. The assignments are quite straightforward. I think we'll tighten up a little bit the dialogue on each of the highlights on each, of the resources and sources so that we can in fact talk about our response to the questions that have a more reflective nature after the readings. We did touch on the definitions but we didn't get to reflect on your personal experiences with applying them in a at work in your personal relationships with family and friends and I think there'll be a real benefit to that so we will in fact do step tradition two next week but we'll also incorporate some of the feel of tradition one if we have time toward the end which may be wishful thinking on my part but be that as it may and I'll have hopefully i'll have some more of the language of the heart but you've been given a couple suggestions as to how to find that material and as you could tell although it's nice to have it's not critical there's all the other material is print plenty for grist for the mill all right make sure that you read the short and long form of the traditions before you start doing the the resource reading and then obviously answering the questions spend some time this is a meditation and this is a 12-week retreat this is a 12 week retreat an opportunity for you to review some spiritual principles that you might not have looked at ever or it's been a while like me and it can be a quite an enriching experience and we'll keep that in mind when we're sharing next week also please join me in the prayer of saint francis which as you know i call the prayer of transformation and that transformation is initiated in the steps but fostered in the traditions lord make me a channel of thy peace that where there is hatred i may bring love that where there is wrong i may bring the spirit of forgiveness that where there is discord i may bring harmony that where there is error i may bring truth that where there is doubt i may bring faith that where there is despair i may bring hope that where there are shadows i may bring light that where there is sadness i may bring joy lord grant that i may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted to understand than to be understood, to love than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen. Thank you really for your participation and I look forward to some more of it next week.