Author: webservant

The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking

What does this really mean and how do you know if the potential member really has a desire to stop drinking?

Over the years, I heard stories about the good old days when new A.A. members were interviewed to determine if they were truly alcoholic.  Before A.A., the alcoholic choices were institutions, jails, and death.  So, why not allow anyone who wanted this recovery program to have it?  From the A.A. literature and attending A.A. meeting over the years, I deduce that the main motive was fear.  They were afraid that if the A.A. recovery program went away so would their new lives, which means that they would be face again with institutions, jails, and death.
During my early years of sobriety, I did not care about who was in the rooms of A.A.  Now, I understand that if A.A. does not survive, I may not survive.  In A.A. meetings, I heard people introduce themselves as drug addicts, sex addicts, and what not.  So are they alcoholics who want to show everyone that they are better than those who introduce themselves as alcoholics?  I believe this is true for some.  These alcoholics are in danger of losing their new way of living that they so desperately want and I wonder why.  Again, I believe it is simply fear.

If the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, how do you know if a member has a desire to stop drinking?  My theory is that when someone says that they are an alcoholic in an A.A. meeting they have a desire to stop drinking.  Anything else shows a lack of respect for the A.A. recovery program.  Today when I hear someone say that A.A. has saved their life and then introduced themselves as something other than alcoholic, I feel that they have slapped the face of A.A.

Love and Tolerance is our code, so all are welcome.  However, we ask those non alcoholics attending our meeting to respect A.A by attending only open meeting and not sharing so the alcoholic can have the opportunity to recovery by sharing.

~ Walter C.
Stansbury Park, UT

When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1983, I wondered, sometimes aloud, why didn’t someone “take over.”  The process of group conscience seemed ponderous and some members seemed not astute enough to make the “right” decisions.  I was told by my sponsor that in the group conscience our ultimate authority, God, speaks and that we trust that that loving God’s Will takes us in the right direction.  Needless to say, I was sure she didn’t mean what she said.  I was sure that secretly the “wise” and “educated” members met and took the group where it needed to go.  I was wrong.

In group conscience we listen to the least educated with as much attention as we do to the most educated.  We weigh the opinion of the youngest member with as much regard as we do the longest sober member.  We consider the opinion of the minority view and many times we change the direction of the group because we had never considered the merits of the obscure view having been expressed by the only “nay” when given the opportunity to tell us why she voted “nay.”

Tradition Two leads me to “trust God” in all things undertaken by the Fellowship.  Many times over the past twenty-eight years, I’ve questioned “group conscience” only to find that in the end the decision made was the best direction for all.  That is the beauty of “group conscience,” it is God’s voice telling us what is best for all of us, not just some of us.  Each group is a fellowship of equals.  No matter what an individual member’s background, education or professional expertise, no member has authority over the group.  In this way, the Fellowship reaches out to all who would seek its comfort and provides the atmosphere of a sense of belonging to all members.

My sponsor gave me a copy of a series of articles on the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous that appeared in the Grapevine in 1969.  The questions were intended for the individual’s use.  Many groups, however, use them as a basis for their discussion topic as they study the Traditions.  My sponsor gave them to me in an effort to help me find enough humility to be of service to our group.  Some of the questions pertaining to Tradition Two are:

1.  Do I criticize or do I trust and support my group officers, AA committees, New comers?  Old-timers?
2.  Am I absolutely trustworthy, even in secret, with AA Twelfth Step jobs or other AA responsibility?
3.  Do I look for credit in my AA jobs?  Praise for my AA ideas?
4.  Do I have to save face in group discussion or can I yield in good spirit to the group conscience and work cheerfully along with it?
5.  Although I have been sober a few years, am I still willing to serve my turn at AA chores?
6.  In group discussions, do I sound off about matters on which I have no experience and little knowledge?

I am constantly amazed that the lessons of early sobriety and the direction of a sponsor who did not seem wise at the time, still serve as the basis of a happy, joyous and free sober life.

Betty H.

Step two, “came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

The compulsion to drink for me was not the only “Merciless obses-sion” that came to compel me in my insanity of alcoholism. Having had lost faith in the God I had come to perceive as punitive, wrathful and vindictive. At first I was torn and highly threatened when told “it was highly suggest-ed” I would probably want to en-list the help of a Power greater than my admitted powerlessness. Because the idea that I could choose my own concept of that Power was as of yet foreign to me, although appealing, however I was still fearful. I began witnessing in the Fellowship, those that did rely heavily on a Higher Power (God) seemed to be living healthier, hap-pier lives, compared to those who struggled and even rebelled against this concept.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous was teaching me to cease fighting everyone and every-thing. One day in my early morn-ing home group as it was our habit to read from the wall the 12 tradi-tions the phrase “ . . . A loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience” leaped from that wall into my mind, but most of all into my heart. I decided then and there I would try to cultivate a conscious contact with that Love. In doing that I was handed another spiritual tool of the AA program, not the least of which are “prayer and meditation”. Also I found that my outlook and attitude about others was changing to seeking to be of service as I trusted more and more in that Loving Presence, whom I choose to call the “God of Love”. As I have began to see others as more loving I become aware of my own feelings of love. I “no longer live in a hostile world”, I no longer felt the compulsion (insanity) to drink.

My Higher Power, “a Loving God”, can restore me to what I once believed to be irrevocably lost – my sanity and serenity. I have a program to practice (and yes, it is a work in progress) with the loving help of my Higher Power, who is restoring me to mental, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being, one day at a time. For this I am grateful enough not to pick up that first drink, also one day at a time. Oh and I am much happier . . . And that I choose to call sanity . . . True serenity.

“Perhaps there is a better way – we think so. For we are now on a dif-ferent basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the ex-tent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.” Alcoholics Anonymous page 68

~ The New Yorker
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