What Separates a Real AA Group from a Casual Meeting That Can Barely Save Itself – Tom I.

Tom Ivister, an alcoholic and member of the Primary Purpose Group in Southern Pines, North Carolina. My sobriety to date is Groundhog Day of 57. And when you're that old, you've got to get all you can in because it won't be much longer. It's about over. I am delighted to be here. And 70 minutes, jeez, my paper is unmanageable. I am delighted to see you. And I look forward to the interactive portion of this. I was telling Chris on the way over that, you know, when you first start thinking about a topic and a timeframe, you say, oh, jeez, we don't need that much time. Then you start putting it together and you say, well, now what can I cut? You know, how much can I cut? Well, you know, you can't cut a lot. And so I'm just going to plow right into it. And the basic thing we want to deal with today is two major thrusts. One is the group, the group, broadly defined, the group, and where we do our work. And the other is the primary purpose, you know, what's our focus as a group. They're certainly integral to each other. But we want to kind of focus those things separately to some extent. And so we'll stick to that. I'm from North Carolina, so I can't count to 70. If somebody just let me know when we're in that, will you let me know, Ann, when we're in that ballpark? And I'll just quit mid-sentence. I mean, I'm highly disciplined. When a woman speaks, I obey. No question. When I want to do just a little bit of introductory kind of stuff. I won't do a whole lot of reading to you. But just a couple of things that sort of define the environment that we're working in, the kind of climate that we need to be attentive to when we look at these issues, these concerns. One is, at our college synonymous, we have great freedom, enormous freedom. And some of that freedom is well defined in our traditions. In the fourth tradition, where it says each group, and I like to break it down, I find it a lot more understandable if I break that down to a personal level. Each member, just like each group, has but one primary purpose. No, it doesn't. Each group ought to, let me read. I said I wasn't going to read much, only when my memory fails. What the heck are the traditions? I read them so much that I can't remember where they are. Here they are. The fourth one, which I think gives a lot of freedom, with respect to its own affairs, each AA group should be responsible to no other authority than its own conscience. But when its plans concern the welfare of neighboring groups also, those groups ought to be considered. And no group, regional committee, or individual should ever take any action that would be against the rules of the AA. That may greatly affect the AA as a whole. Without conferring with the trustees of the General Service Board on such matters, our common welfare is presumed. So every member is autonomous. You and me both are free to practice alcoholics and non-biopics any way we want to do it. And we're totally free. That absolutely is unfettered freedom. Unless it interferes with the person next to you, freedom to do the same thing. And so that puts a lot of freedom to me to practice this program. Nobody can effectively tell me, they can tell me, but they can't effectively tell me that I've got to do it this way or that way. I'm free to do it in whatever manner that I choose to do, as long as it doesn't screw up somebody else's. What does that mean in real life? I can conduct myself in Alcoholics Anonymous any way I want to do it. But if I want to take this tradition, that spells out that freedom in good conscience, then that means that I have to be thoughtful about how I handle myself. Part of what Ann read in the, I went over in the opening part of the meeting, was that we ought to be mindful of time and place and not just do disruptive things. That we ought to use some decorum in how we move around so that we don't disturb the meeting, so that we don't interfere with somebody else's freedom, to hear and to participate. That's one. I'll tell you one that I apply. It has a great deal to do with how I communicate to a group. Now I've got a lot of friends in this group this morning, but there are some people I don't know. I don't know whether this is open or closed. It's open by golly, I do know, because I was told last night by Chris and Barbara, they would not lie, they're not that kind of people. Well, you all know them better than I do. But I'm not going to lie. They know them better than I do now. But it's an open meeting. That means I don't know who's in this room. Somebody might have brought their mother to the first meeting. Somebody might have brought a kid that's so short I can't see them. You never know who's here. I'll give you an example of, I'm loaded with examples, and that's what gets me in trouble at times. The, I was at a conference a while back, a good while back, and the fellow who spoke on Saturday night, apparently didn't understand his job description. He thought he was supposed to be a stand-up comedian. But he wasn't funny. I mean, you could pull that off if you're funny. But forget it if you're droll. And this guy, well, you know how it is when you start going down a sewer. You start paddling frantically, you know. And so you could see this guy just going down. And the further down he went, the more vile and profane and obscene he became. And I guess he figured if he talked longer, it would be better. And so he went an hour and a half. And I'm sitting behind the lady who was unfortunate enough to have invited him to speak at that conference. She was the program chair. I'm sitting behind her. I watched her squirming. But I was really fascinated by the guy sitting next to him, to the program chair. This fellow is like a thermometer. You could see his neck just turning red. Then his ears were scarlet and glowing. And it was just fascinating. I thought he was going to have a stroke or something right there before he was over. So after the meeting, I went up to the lady and I said, the fellow sitting with you didn't seem to enjoy the speaker. She said, oh my God, Tom, you will never know how humiliated and embarrassed I am. That was her minister at his first AA meeting. I guarantee you he was at his last AA meeting. See what I'm talking about with autonomy and freedom? There's limits on that. And if I'm going to be responsible about this freedom, then I have to be responsible. Then I have to be mindful that I can't just assume blanket kind of acceptance for any way I want to conduct myself. It's just not responsible on my part. For that reason, I'm pretty squeaky clean. Well, I'm not pretty squeaky clean. I'm very squeaky clean by design. And it's because of that responsibility that I feel. I can't just assume that people are going to give me a license just to do my own thing, regardless of whatever. So it's that kind of thing, where the great freedom also contains great responsibility. And so that's one of the things kind of influences about when I think about a group, I think about my function in a group. Real freedom. Third tradition. Third tradition gives as much freedom as could possibly be. I swear to God, we have got to be, for a spiritually disciplined group of people, we've got to have as much freedom as anybody I've ever seen. The only thing that we can do, the only requirement for membership is for you to say you're a member. That's all. Nobody sits in judgment. There's no screening committee, no resume required. If you say you're a member, you're a member. And nobody can tell you you're not. You have to self-diagnose and self-declare that you're a member. I tell you, this is high cotton now for me. Here's an old country boy from North Carolina, in Portland, Oregon. God knows, drinking Starbucks coffee. Is that ready or what? If they could just see me back home, they'd be so proud. Or disown me. I'm not sure which. Let me tell you how we say it here. Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that as a group they have no other affiliation. Could you imagine a more generous kind of provision for how we go into business? There's no franchise discipline or charter or constitution or bylaws. If two or three of us here wanted to go out here and sit in a car and declare it an AA group, that's what it is. Provided we're not hooked in with AAA or the local police or whatever. But we could do that. We're free to do that. And so my message to you is, I'm not going to be a member of AA. I'm going to be a member of AA. And so my membership is self-declared. My affiliation with a group is self-declared. Enormous freedom. But responsibilities that go with it. They will visit just a little bit. And one other thing I want to read, and then I'm going to get into preaching. That's a warning. Don't leave now. I don't mean I'm going to preach hard. I'm just going to preach a little bit. It's about fifth tradition. That single is the purpose. Each group has but one primary purpose. To carry his message to the alcoholic still suffering. This is something Bill wrote a long, long time ago. The founder. There are those who predict that AA may well become a new spearhead for a spiritual awakening throughout the world. If you look at the preface of 12 and 12, you'll see that little observation in there that someday these principles may find utility broadly in this world. And that's certainly come to pass. How many programs there are that have spun off with these principles. And there's nothing wrong with that. They're not our principles. They're age-old principles. We just codified them into a method that worked for alcoholics. And so other people find application in many, many ways. Nothing wrong with that. But here's the thing I think where we have to really be cautious. There are those who predict that we may become, become a new spearhead for a spiritual awakening throughout the world. There was a group called the Washingtonians that got that idea. And they're now defunct. And so the warning in this, I guess, for us, when our friends say these things, they're both generous and sincere. But we of AA must reflect that such a tribute and such a prophecy could well prove to be a heady drink for most of us. That is, if we really came to believe that AA and believe this to be the real purpose of AA, and if we commence to behave accordingly, that dangerous heady wine, if we started thinking that we've got the panacea for everything, you know, what's well established and I think well stated in this fifth tradition, we do one thing better than this world has ever seen. We do one thing. That does not make us expert on anything else. We do one thing extremely well. And when we start to deviate and expand that into other things, we do it at the expense of what we do well. And so I think that's the real, the message in what Bill was writing here. He finished with this, Our society, therefore, will prudently cleave to its single purpose, the carrying of the message to the alcoholic still sufferers. Let us resist the proud assumptions that since God has enabled us to do well in one area, we are destined to be a channel of saving grace for everybody. So the fifth tradition is not about expansive thinking. It's about sizing ourselves appropriately to what it is that we do. So great freedom to do that within the realm of that understanding. I just want to call out these things that just sort of set the stage of what we want to discuss. Second tradition. The second tradition. Each, each, each, Oh, I can't think of, Each group. Well, I swear to God, I'm losing it. And that's in Spanish. That won't help a bit. Unless we're in a bar room, I can handle it in there. The second tradition. For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God, as he may express himself in our group conscience. And so that's a great thing. That says that, you know, Ann is the president here this morning, but as soon as this is over, she's dead meat. That's the way it is. We don't have bosses. We don't have dictators or folk in charge. And just because I'm doing most of the talking this morning, doesn't mean I got any more authority. I'm just a guy going to get on an airplane about dawn tomorrow morning and get back to North Carolina where they'll put me in my place. But there's no authority implied in that. Great freedom. You know, that we don't have leaders and dictators and quality control and inspectors and managers and this kind of stuff. You know, we are, we are spiritually responsible and free to act as long as we don't grind up the principles in the process. I think that's the real message of that. And then, you know, the first tradition that I've just mentioned, it's only the foundation of all of our traditions, that our common welfare should come first. My welfare should come first. Looking at it personally. Our common welfare should come first. I've got a blinder on this morning. It's a little bit of a blunder. I keep reading it long for them. There goes my 70 minutes. I guess I'll just read it long for them. 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 so, you know, I think that's the real message. And so, you know, what that says to me individually and as a group, that for our group purpose, what is that? What is our group purpose? That was one of the first things we talked about in the fifth tradition. Each group has but one primary purpose. That's all. One primary purpose. And for that purpose, there is no authority. You know, Chris has got one way to do it. Barb's got a way to do it. I've got a way to do it. And while they may look alike, they're not the same thing. We'll each have our own way. And there is no the way to do it. You said conformity is... Bless your heart. Bless your heart. You knew I was blind. You can't say I appreciate that very much. Now that I'm through reading. Thanks a lot. Yeah. So, you know, it's a great thing to... Think about, you know, what is it that we're talking about here, that we've got no bosses about how we do this work. Because your way is going to be effective with somebody. Everybody in this room has a message that somebody needs to hear. From you. Not from me. You've got a message that somebody needs to hear. We all do. And so there's no real the way to do that thing. And the other thing I'd just visit for a moment. And the only authority in loving God is expressing himself. And our group conscience. Other than why we take up money. I really appreciate you reading the long form on the self-support. Most... Unfortunately, most people never hear what we do with the money. You know, you pass the plate and say, well, we've got expenses. But don't say what they are. Or we buy coffee. You know. Well, my God, that's the least important thing we do with our money. I'm glad to hear that. A little explanation of what it's about. So... The other thing that I think is really misconstrued a lot around just based on what I hear around the country is group conscience. A group conscience is a heavy instrument. It's not a business meeting. You know, a lot of people call a business meeting a group conscience. And that's nothing but just taking care of business. That's just the day-to-day stuff like paying the bills in a house. You know. It's a level. And it's an important level. But it's far away from a group conscience. A group conscience is prayerful consideration. Prayerful consideration of an issue that impacts on our primary purpose. And so when we too lightly use the group conscience, what we do is render it almost meaningless. And instead of reserving it for the purpose of the purpose. Instead of reserving it for the things that really matter about the quality and methods by which we work. So those are freedoms. And I've alluded to some of the responsibilities along with it. I would reiterate that there is no police force for this stuff. We are all free moral agents and hopefully responsible moral agents. But we are all that. Because there is no central authority. There's nobody to report to. I've sponsored a guy in another town. He really got out of joint because he was away on a trip somewhere. And when he came back, the group had made a decision that just made him livid. And so he called me and told me he was in mortal distress and needed to see me. So that was a bad mistake. I went by to see him. And I said, I'm sorry. I've got to go. I was right by his house. And he was sitting there and looked about like this office. He had every book he's ever printed. And I said, what are you looking for? He said, I know that what they did is not right. They can't do that. And I said, buddy, I hate to tell you, but you can study every word in every book, you're not going to find one thing that says they're right or they're wrong and you're right. It ain't in there. It ain't in there. It's good conscience of trying to do what's in the common welfare. And so anytime you miss a business meeting, you voted for whatever they do. It's called an absentee ballot, I guess, is what we'd call it today. But anyway, that's what happened. And so the groundwork is kind of important to understand. To me, it's kind of important to understand that environment that we work in. And I'll tell you, and I don't want to be apologetic, but neither do I want to create any kind of an image that's not right. So I'm one member of AA. That's all. I got one vote. I got the same vote as the newest guy that walks in my group tomorrow. You know, that's exactly what I've got. I've got concern about our fellowship. I've got concern about that. And my belief is when I've got concern, I've got responsibility to act. And so one reason I would bother to take some time to talk about these kind of issues, I think they're important issues. And I talk about it because I'm concerned, not because I'm brilliant and I've got the answer. So please bear in mind what I'm saying about the no police force and there's no quality control people. It's just what I want to share with you is just sort of one guy's observation. What is it that would make a guy like me? I'm a little over 48 years sober. Life is good. I'm unemployed. I mean, that's kind of a sad story in itself. But I'm unemployed. I'm living on a fixed income that's fairly comfortably fixed. So I'm having a great time. This thing. That's who I am. I'm just one member that's concerned. Let me tell you some stuff I'm concerned about. When I look and I travel all over the place, and when I look at the AA train, let me tell you what concerns me a lot. And what makes this kind of a thing we're talking about today, I think, important. What I see when I look at the program is that we've been going through changes. We always will, ever since the day I came in here. We are a radically different fellowship than we were when I came in. Just to say it very simply, when I came in, you could safely say that every member who came in, came in because of a personal relationship with another member. I'm not saying that I'm a bad person. I'm not saying that I'm a bad person. I'm not saying that I'm a bad person. I'm just another member. Another member. Practically every one of us who came in did so because somebody reached out and took our hand and said, come on, go with us. That created an enormous loyalty to that ethic in Alcoholics Anonymous. You don't have to look far to see that that ethic is extremely diminished, almost non-existent in this world today. So there have been a lot of changes that are related to that kind of a thing. And so over the years, over to a lot of stuff. That for one. But over to a lot of stuff, there have been changes. Some of them very troubling. One of them that's troubling to me is it's the amazing proliferation of more and more casual meetings that are barely groups at all. I mean, let me get you to just use your imagination. I was looking around for a weasel to ride on, but I didn't see one. So pretend there's a big weasel up here. And what I'd like to invite you to consider, say on this side, if you look at a continuum of how we function in Alcoholics Anonymous, with one side of the weasel here and one over here, and you put a continuum of groups, the type I'm talking about now that are the real casual sort of lightweight groups in my way of thinking. Would be over here. You've got some groups or meetings that really are not groups. They're just sort of a gathering of alcoholics. I'll give you a real live, I won't give details, but I'll give you a real live example of it. I was in Washington a couple days ago, your neighboring state. They blame it on Oregon. But I was struck on a busman's holiday. I guess I looked into some little material. I sometimes spot something about how they communicate AA there. The only listing they had in that town was services for seniors. And right under it, it said Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said, well, I'm a senior, so I called up. And long story short, it was nobody there, but they were very responsible at the place that I called, at some kind of senior place. They said, no, there used to be a meeting here, but there's not. And she said, no, there's not. And she said, no, there's not. And she said, let me get your phone number. Got me a phone number, called up. Just an average guy calling into a hotline. It turned to be one of those where members work a shift and answer the phone. Got a nice little gal named Kate. And she said, oh, yeah, yeah, there's meetings here in town. I said, is there anywhere totally where I stand? She said, is there anything over near here? She said, yeah. She gave me a choice, 6, 7, and 8. I said, well, my home group meets at 7. I said, I'll go to 7. Well, went in, and I won't go into a whole bunch of detail with it, but it was not the worst AA meeting I've ever gone to. It was not. But it was in competition. It was pretty sad, I'll tell you what. I walked in. I mean, there was a few people sitting in there, three or four. And I walked in. I might as well have been the janitor or somebody, just somebody from tourist walking by. Ain't nobody grunted. So I walked in. I interrupted the conversation. I said, give me your hand. I want to meet you. So I rattled them up. Didn't rattle them much. It had no lasting effect. But I was persistent. So I sort of attacked everybody there. I went over and spoke to one guy, and it startled him. He wasn't used to that kind of behavior. And I guess they finally saw I wasn't hustling them. But then we proceeded to have a meeting. There was one girl. I believe who was on staff at that hospital was scared to death somebody was going to see her in there at her first meeting. Well, I'm sorry that she made that as her first meeting. I don't believe that the most experienced AA member in the world could have gone in there and identified what was happening as Alcoholics Anonymous. It looked like a tower of Babel. I mean, absolutely wandering aimless. I mean, I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital. Nothing that really defined it as AA. And what I was thinking, I'm a guy that's driving out of town. I threw in a few things trying to deepen the agenda a little bit. But I mean, you've got to deal with what you've got. And so anyway, that one would be very definitely on this end of the spectrum. The only function of that meeting was to meet. That's all. There was nothing that preceded it and nothing that followed it. The only real function of that was to meet for one hour and then disband and go. Now, that's about as lightweight as you can get. So that would be one end of it. Of some, I've gone into some that didn't even have a chair. You know, just nothing. Just a gaggle of people who come together and they kind of meet for whatever purpose it is. You know, I've never been into that. I've been in it a lot, but I've never been into it. And so that would be on this end. And then you've got incremental increases in that. You've got some meetings that are not heavily structured. But as you grow, you know, in what I consider quality of meetings that really have great purpose, that you get it. What we're talking about here, you're going to see more and more structure. And then all the way over here, you're going to see groups like mine. Mine is a well-structured group. You know, Ann and I were talking about how we were going to do this workshop, and I told her I was a believer in structure, and she said, me too. Let me tell you why I believe in structure. It's not because I'm rigid. I'm probably a little rigid, but it's not because I'm rigid. I find structure to be an enormously valuable asset because I believe in structure. It's not because it makes clear what we're going to do. She gave me a real generous license. She said, well, you know, here's what we're scheduled to do, and, you know, you can do some more if you want to. Well, I don't want to do that because truth in advertising is pretty important. So what she did is got up here and said we're going to do, what, an hour and 45 minutes, something like that. Yeah. She said Tom's going to do 70 minutes. Then we'll do 35 with this. All right, that tells you what the agenda is so you can relax and enjoy it. You know, I told you she's going to give me a signal when to quit, and I'll quit mid-sentence. I'm not going to stretch. See, structure lets you relax and enjoy. If it's ill-defined, everybody has a little anxiety about what's going to happen and when it's going to happen, you know, who's going to make it happen. So mine would be way over here somewhere. Mine, for people that don't like structure, would gag. And my group, because we were talking last night, we, anyway, I'll tell you about that when I start to finish up. I want to brag about it some. What time are you going to ring the bell on me at? Nine, what? Ten, what? Ten after? Okay, good. That gives me a little bit of a fix. So what would be the characteristics of this? How would you do it? How would you tell one from the other? Now, I'm probably singing to the choir to some great extent here. But if you look at these things, to a casual observer, they probably wouldn't look all that much different. But what would you see if you looked at it? God, I'm sloppy with that. I'm not used to drinking out of a prissy kind of cup. I'm sorry. I even messed up Chris's car. If you looked at meetings, like go over to this end of the weasel here, and you look at meetings, what you'll tend to see with recognizing the incremental improvements as you go from one extreme to the other. Okay. So, great. Thank you very much. He also gave me the rope to move. He had me tied to the podium at first. But I told him I was pretty bad about causing people to throw stuff. And I like to be light on my feet so I can get out of the way. So if you're looking at this kind of a thing, what you're going to see over on this end would be, now these are just eye-muster observations. You would see little structure. Average meeting will have one or two officers at best. Those very frequently are one-meeting types like Ann. They're the one-meeting type chairs. They chair the meeting. They run the meeting. It's all over. They usually have somebody to take the money and do something with it. And so that's usually about it for that. It'll be a rare. Meeting on that end of the spectrum, what do you think would have happened in that group I just described in Washington if I'd have said, who's your GSR? What? What? It would have been totally foreign language. I bet you. So you're going to see very little structure. Be very little kind of establishment for decision-making. It'll tend to be, just like I said about that one, the meeting is it. It may be wonderful, but that's it. That's all there is. There ain't no more. So it's for the purpose of doing a meeting. It's almost like any aftercare, you know, where you just sort of go and chat about stuff, you know, chat about whatever comes up. Limited leadership is basically just, I'll reiterate what I said in the structure, be very limited leadership. The linkage to AA as a whole is dubious at best. Linkage. What am I talking about with linkage? I'm talking about being a link in this chain of love and service that we call Alcoholics Anonymous. Now they do, the lady who answered the phone had a meeting directory and it was in the directory. And that's what she did. She read to me what was in the directory. Does that make it linked to AA? No, not in the least. But it's, I mean, it's better not, but just barely, just barely. And so what is it that links you to Alcoholics Anonymous? It's kind of relationships that are forged with other groups where you start to participate in stuff like that. There may be people here from meetings like that this morning. But it's a casual kind of a thing. There's not a representation type of thing in it. GSRs usually are non-existent or non-functional in the kinds of meetings I'm talking about. And the GSR, just like there's a pamphlet in here somewhere that says it, may be the most important job in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because it's the one thing that connects us to the fellowship as a whole. That makes us a vital part of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's what we do. And that's what we do. And that's what we do. And that's what we do. And that's not just a gaggle of alcoholics entertaining each other, you know, or fixing each other, whatever we do. So it's going to be, linkage is going to be, they'll tend to be convenience-oriented. You'll find an awful lot of them at opportune times. Now, that's not totally bad, you know. If I dare say, well, I've got to be careful. Maybe somebody from Chamber of Commerce. But if I lived in Portland, and I had to drive through that mess to get out of here, and there was a 530 meeting, I might be tempted to catch that dude and wait for the traffic to clear. Now, I might be tempted. So convenience is not all bad. Sometimes it's sensible. But when that becomes my program of action, it starts to have a little bit of shaky quality to it. Yeah. I think there's great therapy in suiting up and showing up. I think there's great therapy involved in that, of taking the responsibility to go to it and not just sort of casually drop in. Just sort of ups the ante a little bit on the game. So they'll tend to be convenient. You see a lot of bag lunch, you know, things, meeting around clubs and, you know, stuff like that. You get a, it's really in primary purpose. But I'm always intrigued by, like, clubs and that kind of thing, where we have a building, and they'll usually have about 35 meetings a week. What do you think the primary purpose is? Somebody said it. To pay the rent. God, yeah, you got to do it. It takes a lot of collections to pay the rent. So it's, they'll tend to be problem focused. Yeah, very often. I tell you what, you may react to it differently, but I guarantee I don't. My greatest dismay, I think, when I walk into a meeting, is somebody opens it with, who's got a problem? And, oh, God. I mean, my heart just drops. I never leave. I'm going to work inside the tent. I'm not going to leave and throw rocks. I'll work inside the tent and then throw rocks. But I'm going to be in the tent, though. And so I don't leave. What I do, and I tell you this, it's just no extra charge for this, but I'll just tell you this. Anyway, if, what I do when I get in one of those things, and, you know, if somebody's been, bring up a problem, and then you've got 25 amateur psychiatrists going to fix it. And so you watch this thing go, and then one day or another. When it gets to me, if it gets to me, I act like I am deaf, dumb, and blind. And I absolutely pay no attention to whatever the conversation is. And I don't know what the conversation has been. I start talking about something to do with the solution. I don't chastise people for getting off track and all this kind of stuff. I do what, the way I kind of distilled it down to a clear thought. When I go into an AA meeting, and it's what I'm talking about, if I don't hear what I want to hear, then I'm going to say what I want to hear. That way I'm sure to hear it. And if I don't see what I want to see, like that meeting in Washington, I would have loved it if somebody had come over and said, you must be new in town, we're glad to have you visit our group. That's a normal thing to do in a group. It's not in a meeting where everybody's a stranger. So nobody's a welcomer and that kind of thing. So if I don't see what I'd like to see, what did I tell you I did in that meeting? I walked over there. And rudely interrupted the guy that was intensely talking to somebody. Grabbed his hand. Big old ugly biker looking boy. I can say that I'm a biker too, but, well, I am. At least I ride a motorcycle, I'll put it that way. He's a big old boy. I didn't see how big he was until he stood up. I said, geez, I might not have been quite so abrupt. But I just grabbed his hand. Well, that's what I want to see in alcoholics and non-biotics. And if I don't see it, I'm going to do it. See what I mean? I'm not going to be a victim in my fellowship. And when I set myself up opposite of that, I become a victim in my own fellowship. And so when I do that in a meeting and it's going around talking about whatever the deal is, it gets to me, I just start talking. I have never yet seen it fail that the whole direction of the meeting changes. Immediately. Because I'm not the only frustrated dude in there. And that's, you can call it what you want to. I call it saying what you want to hear. It's also called leadership is what that's called. It's leadership. It's stepping up to the plate. Somebody needs to do something. I'm somebody. Is there nothing offensive about that? It's not chastising somebody for being off subject. The. I'm going to have to really. Scramble on this thing. The one legacy that did. Unfortunately, this is true of so many of our groups. Even good was kind of like we're talking about. Rarely do you hear somebody explain the seventh tradition? It's just, we assume people know. And that's just not true. You know, I'll tell you how it's reflected. The last time I looked at any number, 47% of the groups in the United States contribute to our own fellowship. 47%. That means 53% of us take a free ride. So we expect all our services to be in place and somebody will take care of them. Somebody does. We take care of them. It's a whole different subject, but we take care of them. By violating our own traditions. We have never been self supporting in the history of our fellowship. And if it weren't for literature, we'd sink. We don't support the thing. And some of that is not because we're mean spirited people. We just don't know. Because we don't take the time to talk about those things. So we'll tend to talk about one legacy and that's recovery only. Better than 95% of the meetings in this country, we were talking about it last night, are about recovery. About me and how I'm doing, you know, what my recovery is about. And rarely do we get into unity, where we're talking about traditions and service, where we're talking about how to really light up our lives with doing active work. There'll be a limited sense of belonging that you'll tend not to feel. Part of that. And we talked about the contribution. Well, if you wanted to talk about the other end of that, where you look at a well-structured group, I'm just going to sort of say this in a swoop. You'll see the polar opposite of that. A well-structured group is going to have an organizational design to it. Since I don't think I'm going to give myself time to talk about it, I'll just show you this and anybody's welcome to take a look. This, if you're an old reader of the service manual, you'll recognize that. But that's not the design from the service manual, that's the design of my home group. And what that is, is that when we set this group up, we decided, what we started to form the group for, was that we wanted it to be an action group. That's why we call it the primary action group. That's why we call it the primary action group. That's why we call it the primary purpose group. That's not the name of our group, that's our job description. And it just happens to be our name. But that's our function. And so what you see represented on it, in fact, I'll just pass these around and you can have something to do while I'm talking. Look that over, if anybody wants copies of that, feel free to do it. But you'll find that in one of the old service manuals that lays out. And so what we did was we did that. And so you'll find that kind of differences. Now this is a bit extreme. But when I say that we are structured and we're an organized kind of a group, we plan our meetings three months ahead. I can tell you right now who's going to be speaking in my group in September, on what night. So what we do, we plan that ahead. We plan our meetings so that we get a diverse group of speakers. We don't just get willing bodies. We want our speakers to be willing. We want our speakers to look like our group and like our community. We want black, white, brown, whatever else there is, gay, straight, young, old. That's what we're looking for. So we plan accordingly so that we get that. And we plan our topics. We do a whole bunch of stuff. But in a structured group, you're going to have a lot better chance of getting at the different legacies. And in Alcoholics and Obesity, it's not just a one-dimensional kind of a thing. I think I want to spend the balance of this time. I've only got about another hour worth of material. So I think I'm going to spend the balance of this time on maybe just kind of underlining a little bit about, so what's important about all this? Is this just a bunch of service? Is this just conversation? What's the real message of what this is all about that I'm trying to get out here today? Well, let me one more time just kind of use an example. I like examples because they're illustrative. That's how we talk. Our life is the example. That's what we do. We don't preach or teach or lecture or that kind of stuff. So what's the problem? Let me tell you what that looks like. It's what it looks like in real life. Some time back, I was in a, in fact, I was still employed. I was working for a living. And I was in a town doing a little professional community meeting. And I was in the corrections business. I was doing something about corrections and community relationship, whatever. And when I finished, I was on next to the last presentation. And they had a panel after me that was, it caught my attention. I would just stay anyway just as a courtesy. But I was interested because it was on a mental health thing and alcohol and drugs in it. So I knew I was going to stay for that. So I stayed and listened. The last speaker was a psychiatrist. And I swear to God, that was the most tired-looking, discouraged man I had ever seen. I mean, God knows, he just sagged at the podium. And I thought, man, that guy had been whooped by life a lot. And he, I mean, he really was just a dead-looking man. And so he started talking, not with any real drive or anything, but he started talking. And he was telling about his business and stuff he worried about. He said, my biggest problem are alcoholics with another diagnosis. And I don't need to explain that here. I mean, everybody here knows what that means. That doesn't mean alcoholic and ugly. It means, that's a, well, it could take that in. I've seen some ugly people. I can understand why they drank. They, they, well, I could give you a thousand examples of that, including me. For a while, I thought my alcoholism was because I had such big ears. My ears have been this big since I was five years old. I've been drinking. I've been drinking for five years old. I look like a donkey. Well, anyway, I think there is a connection between ugly and alcoholic. But the, this guy was just sort of worn down. He said that my biggest concern, alcoholics and, and alcoholics with other diagnosis. And he said, I know logically that AA is the place to send them. But when I send them to AA, I don't want them to come back worse. And, and I thought, Jesus, you know. And he said, I really and truly need some help with this. Now, I, I knew a lot of that crowd in there. And there were some people from AA in that crowd. Now, I'm a visitor. You know, I'm from 200 miles away. I didn't want to say anything. I just got through presenting. And I didn't want to say anything. But this guy is pleading for help. And he's a filmmaker who's trying to take care of us in straitjackets. So I waited. Nobody said anything. So I stuck my hand up. And I said, I didn't mention this before. I had no reason to. But, but, but I'm a long-time member of AA. And I, I think I understand what you're talking about. And, and I told him what, what I tell you. Tell anybody. That everything that flies the AA flag is not the same thing. Unfortunately. You do have a continuum of things that barely look like, you got things that look like the Jerry Springer show. But there are things that are just, I mean, who the hell would want to send somebody with borderline hold on, on, on mental health into something like that? And so I said, you got to recognize everything that flies the flag is not the same thing. I said, in all honesty, there are meetings that I don't go to because when I come out, I'm worse. So I know good and well, some guy that's borderline paranoid is not going to do well in some sort of a confrontational debate society. And so I told him that I know you, you're concerned. I said, what I would recommend to you is get to know two or three members that you trust, that you trust. Then when you've got somebody, call them and get their guidance about how to deal with the patient. Now to me, that's just horse sense. It may not be to you, but it's horse sense to me. Because this guy doesn't need to go out and study quality control stuff in AA to find out where to send. That's not his business. He's in the shrink business. And our business is how to get people and incorporate them into this environment. If I said that to you right now, I've got a guy here that's a real borderline kind of paranoid shaky case. I guarantee you, most of you in this room could tell me where to take him. Most of you could do that. And so that's all I was talking about him. And so what's the bad news? The bad news is that he couldn't just make a general referral to Alcoholics Anonymous without high risk. I wish it weren't true. But I am reluctant to tell somebody just call the 800 number. I wish that weren't true. I wish that weren't true. But it is. When I've got somebody traveling, I usually make it my business. I know folk around this country. And when I've got somebody traveling, you can bet I don't encourage them, well, just pick up the phone and call somebody. I encourage them to make contact with somebody I name. Now, most people don't have that luxury of having a wide acquaintance in the program. But it's important. And it's why what I'm talking about is, not just a global concern of the state of our fellowship. It's because of the impact on the next man, woman, boy, or girl who comes into this fellowship. I think my responsibility is to be sure that, do everything I can, to make sure there's a group where he's going to have a good shot at this thing called recovery. So it matters a great deal to me about those kind of meetings. That concerned me about that meeting in Washington. There's probably nothing I can do about it. But if I have occasion to send somebody out of town, I guarantee you, I won't send them to that. There's no way. I could at least do that. So there are big concerns about that kind of thing. Let me kind of visit into the neighborhood a little bit on... Just one second. Let me just see which ones I want to pull out here. One other thing. I'll just throw this in here, and then I want to ship over to primary purpose a little bit. I mentioned one number. What does this mean for us? Why is it that I'm concerned about this thing? One other thing I'll tell you. The last time I heard a definitive report from the national level, in a... NAA. Every number that we have is down. None are up. Every number that we count. Membership, groups, contributions, institutional work, service work, attendance at service functions, every number that we count is down. Maybe that's a trend, eh? Maybe that's just a seasonal thing. But I don't think so. I think what that reflects is exactly what we're talking about here in the quality of what we do as a fellowship, the quality of the groups that we have, so that they can do a good job of being a responsible... I'll tell you the other thing that... The last thing on that, and then I'll shift to primary purpose. There's a notion... Is there a triangle anywhere? Well, you know the triangle we use. They're all over the place in the back, back there. Well, they're right here on my notepad. There's a... Very much the belief system in Alcoholics Anonymous is that we are a grassroots-driven fellowship, meaning that there's no authority in New York, that what we have in New York is a service center, where we employ staff to pull together information and share it with other groups. There's no decision-making, none of that kind of stuff. Well, when you look at this business of grassroots-driven, I don't know about Oregon. I'd like to know about it. I know some of you that are involved in the service would like to know about it. In my state, when we look at representation where the grassroots group conscience is factored into decision-making in a vital thing, you can't have a grassroots-driven fellowship with no grassroots participation. That's fundamentally sounding. We run about 20 to 25 percent representation. That means 75 to 80 percent of our fellowship are not even a factor in decision-making. May not even know what's going on. So it makes that whole notion of an inverted triangle a myth at best. And so what we have is... I thank God for them. I've been one of them for many years. What we have is a handful of people who are willing to pick up the load, and go try. Some of us kind of make little disparaging remarks about the political side, political my foot. What it is is folks trying to represent our grassroots in the decision-making that's necessary in our fellowship if our fellowship is going anywhere, if we're going to do anything other than just sort of watch it continue to dwindle. I don't want to do that. I want to do everything that I can as one member to try to make sure that this fellowship does not just fall into disrepair and go away. I pray God that doesn't happen. The other thing in that, and I'll just kind of wrap up around this, is this singleness of purpose thing. Singleness of purpose, it has one definition that I went over in the beginning about what is it that our group does. Well, we deal with alcoholism more effectively, as far as I'm concerned, than anything the world's ever known. There's something magical happens when one alcoholic opens up and shares from the heart with another one. That's vital. And so it's important for us as a group, in my view, to be sure that we stick to that and not expand it. But there's also built into that a thing of, kind of like that psychiatrist was talking about, of folk with another diagnosis. And singleness of purpose also means like who is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, it's pretty well laid out in what I read here earlier. Let me read it one more time in that context. Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Now, that's a pretty specific definition. A lot of times we stop at reading the short form of that tradition, which says the only requirement for membership is to stop drinking. I think my retriever has that. He won't drink. So, anyway, it's a different message when you look at the long form. Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover. Bear in mind, it is a self-diagnosed condition. You are the only person on this earth who can diagnose your alcoholism. Others can tell you about it, but you're the only person that can really do what's required to get into solid recovery in AA, and that's to accept defeat at the core level. Accept defeat at the core level. That we're not people who wised up and decided not to drink. We're folks who got to the point that we just couldn't drink. We couldn't drink. We were beaten down with that sucker big time. Thank God. Thank God. And so it puts a pretty clear kind of a definition on who our membership is. It's people who suffer from alcoholism. Nor ought AA membership to ever depend on money or conformity. And so that definition of who can belong, I'll tell you an aspect of that that's very, very important to me. And what makes me stand where I stand on singleness of purpose. I was at prison. I sponsor a prison and AA group. And I was over there one night, and we started having an election. And a guy, it was an open meeting, which meant people could attend. But we had an election. The chair had to be replaced. And somebody nominated a real nice guy by the name of Mike, who's a drug addict. He's not an alcoholic. He's not an alcoholic and addict. He's a drug addict. He's the leader of NA in that facility. A nice guy. I like him a lot. And Mike, being a nice guy, sort of nodded willingness. They started a group. Now, a sponsor is more than a visitor. A sponsor is a guide. And I said, whoa, whoa, hold on, guys. I said, you can elect Mike as the chairman of this thing. He's a great fellow. But he's not an alcoholic. AA meetings are conducted by AA members, not nice guys who are not members. And so we put the quietus on the election. And there's no hard feelings. I mean, I wasn't hard on this fellow. I know it was kind of embarrassing. But we talked afterward. And I do like him. I still do. We're still good friends. But we elected somebody. And then after the meeting, we had a little bit of time. And the chair said, Tom, would you elaborate on this thing? Because a lot of guys are really lost in this business. And you know how it will probably say you'll intend to. You intuitively know how to handle things. Sometimes if you don't think about it, you'll come closer to the essence of a thing. And so I only had a few minutes. And I said, well, I'll tell you what, guys. Let me put it this way. You remember Bill Wilson and Bob? You remember when they met in Akron? We'd gone over history. And they said, yeah, everybody's nodding. And I said, what happened that day? Was it a decree? Was it a decree? And they said, no, it wasn't. It was a decree. And the way they did it was a decrepit stockbroker and an alcoholic who had a vision of something met with a doc. And when they got through, the doc said, finally, somebody understands. The layman has carried the message of an illness to the doc. And what happened that day was, I think, is the basic tenet of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the axis on which this whole thing turns, is what happened that day. Because one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic has that unbelievable power to gain trust and confidence almost instantly. And I said, I wanted to spend time on it. I said, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, everybody said yeah. I said, OK, if that's true, if that's true, then each one of us is one more link in that chain that we're going to have to follow. And you and I have an absolute responsibility to assure that the next alcoholic who comes into these doors finds exactly that. I don't have the audacity, the willingness to change this deal. My job is to be sure that the next one who comes in gets an opportunity to interact with another alcoholic. And I'm sure that's what they're doing. Thank you. Thank you for your excellent questions. What I wanted to say to you was, it's really important to keep finding a true alcoholic with no questions asked. I think that's emphatically important. That's why we have open meetings. Open meetings are just what they say. They're open meetings to anybody. And friends of AA, people who want to check it out, are perfectly welcome in open meetings. But open meetings are conducted by alcoholics. we may from time to time invite somebody to participate, like we've had an Al-Anon panel in our AA group because it's a family illness. And so there are ways to operate with integrity, and it doesn't mean we have to be distant or unfriendly. It's just that we have to be, when we deal with these kinds of issues, and they're vexing issues. I'm not talking about something peculiar to North Carolina. I'm talking about something that's a problem everywhere I go, everywhere. There are whole communities that have given up any pretense of singleness of purpose. I think that's an awfully dangerous acquiescence. When we start to try to accommodate and incorporate, we've got to be careful that we don't compromise those principles that grew out of that basic interaction between Bob and Bill. You were generous. You can't do that. You can't do that. You gave me two extra minutes. We'll shift into this conversation, if you like. Yeah. Carl. Tom, thanks for meeting us today. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I wanted to stop drinking. What I find is I acquire bitter bad, I acquire resentments when people identify themselves in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous as an alcoholic and an addict or a drug addict. I'm not an alcoholic. I'm an addict. I guess, how do you deal with that? Or are we in trouble? I don't know if we're either closed or not. They're important to know. It's not a simple thing. I think the worst possible way to do it is by publicly embarrassing somebody. Unfortunately, a lot of times we try to resolve this at the door. We try to resolve it by reacting to the people who come into a meeting. I'll tell you two ways, one a little more lengthy than the other one. One, I think anybody who walks in our door deserves to have a warm welcome and guidance to where they need to be if they don't need to be in AA. I think they need that from us. I always like to remember we're the last stop on the bus line. I don't want this to be the point of just cold rejection. I want to give somebody a warm welcome and then loving guidance to where they need to go. That's one. Never publicly. Any time you publicly deal with somebody, you're going to have embarrassment. You're going to have some reaction to that kind of thing. That's the worst way to do it. Privately, I think, is the way. The other way that's a more thoughtful way, I'll just tell you a little story. This day and time, it is, we call it the pure alcoholic, which is always seemed like a strange term of a pure alcoholic. But this day and time, it is a rare person who comes in who hasn't had complications with other things other than alcohol. I mean, I'm one of the old type, but my God, I took everything I knew about except heroin. I sold it. I didn't take it. I sold it. But it just looked so dull and boring. I just would. Anyway, so it's here. You know, it's here. Most people who come in, if they come out of treatment, they tend to be utterly confused about, you know, what label fits because, you know, it's a whole different ballgame. But in treatment, multi-labeling is not uncommon at all. And so a lot of people come out and they got a whole bunch of stuff that sort of makes sense to them. And I think most of us could claim a lot of different labels, you know. So it's here. How do you do it? I'll give you a couple examples of this. And one thing that I'm fundamentally sold on is I was in a group, the last group before we want to meet now. A guy came to me one night and said, Tom, we need a group inventory. Well, that's a strange request. I said, why? Why? He said, well, we're getting too many addicts in here. And I swear to God, I mean, I'm not totally naive, but I hadn't really noticed what he was talking about. And I said, well, let me take a look and see if I see the same thing. Well, what it was, somebody was loading up a bunch of kids from an adolescent capturing place. And so they were bringing these kids over there. And by God, those kids didn't know if they were alcoholics or nanny goats. You know, they had no clue. And they were. They were just dopey kids, you know, just like I was. And so I saw what it was. And true to form, our wounds were self-inflicted. What we were doing unthinkingly, some of our folk were trying to make the kids feel welcome by asking them to get up and participate in a meeting. So you had people who identified themselves as addicts performing the functions in AA, but it was by our invitation. So they were self-inflicted. I saw what he was talking about. So we had a little steering committee meeting. I said, we went over it, and we agreed it was a problem that needed to be dealt with. We decided to do two things. One, said somebody ought to go talk with the director of the house. And he asked me to do that. I said, okay, fine. Went over to see a nice young lady, young social work lady, and really nice person. And so I told her what the situation was. She was so appreciative that I came. She'd never heard of a closed meeting. They don't teach that in social work school. If we want people to know that, we have to tell them. There's nobody else going to put that business out. So she was as ignorant as could possibly be. She said, I never heard of that. I had no clue about it. And she said, it's no problem. We'll take care of that. Well, that wasn't enough because that's not the only portal of entry. And she couldn't secure it either. So we chatted a bit. And said what she would do. We started a newcomer program. A newcomer program in our group. You'll see it on that circle of stuff in there. It's been a feature in every group I've been a part of for the last 25 years. I would not want a group without it because it does a magnificent job of dealing with what we're talking about. Our newcomer meeting is an open meeting. It's intended to be an open meeting. And its primary purpose is to give people a solid introduction to AA. And so we encourage people under a year to go to that newcomer meeting. It's not mandatory. You know, nothing is. But we encourage folk to go so they can get newcomer talk. The other thing is that it's a marvelous place to sort out whether you're sheep or goat. You know, it's a marvelous place in a non-threatening environment to lay this out and say, I don't know, with people who will deal with that accordingly. And it's a great, great resource. Great resource. Because otherwise, if you try to work it out in a big group, you'll find it a huge challenge to do. And you'll wind up with control tactics and all this kind of stuff. And it really leads to a lot of just unnecessary difficulty. We've been doing it for 25 years. I only know of two incidents. Where it's even been disagreeable. Where there was kind of clashing conversation. Only two times. Both of them done by one of our members. Who just simply has difficulty talking with people without being condescending or something. So the short of that is, number one is, my belief is to treat that person with some courtesy and consideration. When you go try to deal with a group level. And the other is, if you're really concerned and you get a little track with that, take a look at something like that newcomer program. It's a great resource. One of the strongest things in our group. So those are ways that I believe in dealing with it. The least favorite way for me is this thing of publicly dealing with it. That's a loser. I think. Yeah, thanks, Carl. Yeah, please. When speaking at treatment centers, how do you speak about service and purpose? Say it again, Dave. When speaking at treatment centers. To the patients, how deep should we go in the service and purpose? Should we just kind of give them a little bit of it? Or really well into it and give them a little bit of it? Should we tell them, well, we're going to start doing meetings and we're going to do meetings? What's the next step? Well, usually, there's no real pat answer to that kind of thing. What we're trying to do in the treatment center is introduce folks to alcoholics and anonymous. Tell them what it is. We also tell them what it ain't. So some of the ways we're doing it is by what? It is what it is not. You're just a standard kind of stuff that we do. It's it's an issue with folk like that because they've got to sort it out. We have tried to get the treatment center. We work. We've tried to get them to work with us on narrowing down that label a bit. I mean, I understand what it is to label for insurance purposes, but for recovery purposes, you've got to sort that out somewhere. We've not had much luck with that. So we just try to be straight with what we're doing. What it is, what it's not. And try not to get into clamorous conversation about that. But just clearly say, here's what we do. Here's what we don't do. We also make it a point to have good friends in narcotics and anonymous because narcotics and anonymous can be a little difficult to find. So we always make it a point if somebody needs to go to N.A., wants to go to not just say call the phone book, but have some names of people that they can call. So those are ways we do it. Dave. Thanks. Go ahead. So I've had a lot of experience with meetings in different cities. I've lived in four different major metropolises in my society and things like that. And things vary quite a bit. And some I've found unilateral across the country. There's always those bad meetings, in my opinion, at the low end of the spectrum. And I've had quite a bit of experience of trying to change meetings, trying to improve meetings, creating new meetings to replace those meetings. And I've had frustrating. And I've run. And I've had a spectrum of feelings throughout doing that. I've never been very successful. Do you have any recommendations for bringing that bar, that low end of the bar up so that the spectrum doesn't go so far? Unfortunately, the best thing I've found is leave them alone. Because you're right. The most frustrating thing that I've ever seen is trying to impose your will on an AA group. That is an exercise in futility. Now, I've done it. God knows I've done it. And to no avail. I did it with a group I sponsored, about half people in the group. Well, not half, but a bunch of them. And I couldn't do it. Because there's a mindset that goes with what they're in. It's a mess, but it's their mess. They created it, so they're comfortable in it. And so what I've had to do personally, like you, I've gone to a lot of towns. And I swear to God, I don't believe it's just self-will. I'm picky about where I take out my insurance on recovery. I'm picky about that. I don't settle for just some sloppy stuff. I've had to start groups for the last 30 years. I've had to start groups. But there are always some other like-minded people who want to go deeper and further into the program. So that's what I've had to do. And I try not to do it in a...