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February 2010

Tradition Two helps us to sort out the always-tricky question: “Who is in charge?” After I came out of my alcoholic fog and looked around at the meetings, meeting rooms and members, I had a lot of questions. I needed to know who decided how meetings would be run, who the speakers would be and how the collection was spent. After attending meetings for a while, I noticed that there is quite a lot of menial labor required to keep the meetings running and the rooms open. Who does it and why? I’m sure I’m not the only one who came in with questions like these. But I was genuinely surprised as I learned the answers. AA is different from any other organization I’ve encountered. I’m as amazed today as I was then about how and why the Fellowship works.

The short answer is that “group conscience” runs AA at every level. Yes, we have volunteers for different jobs. However, they have no authority to decide anything; they merely have the responsibility to carry out the decisions of the group, or the “group conscience.”

It would seem that an organizational structure like this would produce only chaos. At times, it does, but eventually everything gets sorted out—not always the way any particular member wants it to.

I saw this principle operating up front and personal in the first group that I joined. It was run by one individual who had been there for some years and made all the decisions about the group himself. Everyone else just wandered in and out. What happened was that when a serious problem faced the group, it fell apart. No one had enough interest to solve it. That group doesn’t exist today.

When I attend business meetings today, the part of this Tradition that I try to remember is that it is a “loving” God expressed in our group conscience. Too often we are too human. I want to look smarter, more important or better informed; I want to see someone else put in his or her place; I want to squash what I think is a really stupid idea. Our business can and should be conducted in a loving way. I retain the gift of sobriety today.

I am just here to serve, and by doing so, I retain the gift of sobriety.

Nancy C.

Coconut Grove, Florida