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January 1961

I believe that if a group has “a group conscience’’ it can take an inventory, and I am part of that inventory. My inventory includes my own behavior toward my group and each individual member, toward other groups, and toward AA as a whole.

I first ask myself: Am I a good AA member? Then: What is my inventory as part of my group?

Do I …

1 Attend meetings only when “I need a meeting”? Or feel like it?

2 Always refuse to hold any office at any time, even when I could? Shun responsibility, refuse to run errands, make coffee, wipe a cup, empty ashtrays, set up chairs, and ignore anything that needs doing by refusing to notice—always manage to “let somebody else do it”?

3 Neglect to talk to newcomers or, worse, listen to them? Drift off to certain little cliques of personal friends after meetings or just “beat it,” always with good reasons, too tired, too busy—TV more often than not?

4 Turn down, or over to someone else, all Twelfth Step calls, when I could have gone? Refuse to speak or to find someone in my place, before non-AA groups or students, without good reason?

5 Give up after a time or two recontacting the sick alco­holic? Use the “not ready,” “not honest” routine? Try to carry the alcoholic instead of the message? Forget that I go to see the sick alcoholic not because he is an alcoholic (only he can say he is or isn’t) but because I am?

Do I …

1 Make no effort to attend other meetings, help other groups get started, or give a lift to an older group? Encourage other groups to visit us? Or am I (pardon the expression) a tight little island?

2 Show no interest in our Traditions, General Service, or worldwide AA? Have I grown tight with my money when I do not have to be, not realizing that the pamphlets and other services to help other alcoholics “grow not on trees”?

3 Indulge in criticism, resentment, or self-pity toward the group, a member, or members? Complain of boredom, repetition, the speakers, the chairman? Am I becoming part of the problem instead of part of the solution?

4 Criticize a member to other members behind his back with no chance for him to defend himself? Criticize slippers? Take people’s moral inventory?

5 Do these things behind the group’s back without trying to help the situation in any way?

… Do I?

M., Fort Collins, Colo.