Bob H. teaching a GSR School at a GSR & Trusted Servant Workshop in Minneapolis, MN

It says somewhere in our literature, there is a statement to this effect. Our leaders do not drive by mandate. They lead by example. In effect, they are saying to them, act for us, but don't boss us. Therefore, a leader in AA service is a man or woman who can personally put principles, plans, and policies into such dedicated and effective action that the rest of us want to back him up and help him with his job.

When a leader power drives us badly, we rebel. But when he too meekly becomes an order taker and he exercises no judgment of his own, well, he really isn't a leader at all. Good leadership originates plans, policies, and ideas for the improvement of our fellowship and its service, But in new and important matters, it will nevertheless consult widely before taking decisions and actions. Good leadership will also remember that a fine plan or idea can come from anybody, anywhere. Consequently, good leadership will often discard its own cherished plans for others that are better, and it will give credit to the source.

Good leadership never passes the buck. Once assured that it has or can obtain general sufficient general black backing, it freely takes decisions and puts them into action forthwith provided, of course, that such action be within the framework of its defined authority and responsibility. Another qualification for leadership is give and take. The the ability to compromise cheerfully whenever a proper compromise can cause a situation to progress in what appears to be the right direction. Compromise comes hard to us all or nothing drunks.

Nevertheless, we must never lose sight of the fact that progress is nearly always characterized by a series of improving compromise. We cannot, however, compromise always. Now and then, it is truly necessary to stick flat footed to one's conviction about an issue until it is settled. These are situations for keen timing and careful discrimination as to which course to take. Leadership is often called upon to face heavy and sometimes long continued criticism.

This is an acid test. Yeah. That's the truth there. There are always the constructive critics, our friends indeed. We ought never fail to give them a careful hearing.

We should be willing to let them modify our opinions or change them completely. Often too, we shall have to disagree and then stand fast without losing their friendship. That's that's our leader, our founder, Bill Wilson. And in that spirit, I give you Bob and Brenda to help us, understand what leadership is about. Bob?

Good morning. Good morning. So nice to be here in in the cities, so many familiar faces and, listening to several of you. I heard somebody say back there that they were here to learn. That's why I'm here.

So maybe you know what you got a hold of right now. But, for me, I I love doing service. I love being of service. Alcoholics Anonymous is what taught me that, and and, when I first got in here, I thought, you know, the old thing, dull, boring, and glum. I thought it was just gonna be horrid.

And, you know, if you when your sponsor or somebody tells you usually it's your sponsor says, it's time to start doing service. And they and for me it was ashtrays, chairs, all that stuff. And then we we graduated to other things like, all that stuff. And then we we graduated to other things like making the coffee, which is a rare privilege, and sometimes they'll help you with the right recipe for that. And then, and then you you just keep doing service.

And and, you know, if if you keep if you stay involved and you're right in the middle of AA, you have very little chance of falling off the edge. And that's kinda what my sponsor taught me as soon as I got in there. And And, there was a friend of mine out of Bozeman, Paul, when somebody asked one time at a workshop we were doing, he says, well, when do you get your, newcomers involved in service? And he said, just before they start to think. And and for me, I tell them their life their life depends on it.

And, actually, their life does depend on it. Your my life depends upon service to Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I, something that Niles read there at at the start about this, did it that catch in anybody's ear about that cheerful compromise? I mean, first time I read that, I laughed. Cheerful compromise.

You won't see that an awful lot of times, but you will see it. It's not it's not completely rare. And, and this, stand flat footed to one's convictions, you know, they'll you'll see that. You'll see that. But the most amazing thing about service, and and I and I just love to share this with you, is is the fact that this is where service to Alcoholics Anonymous and being in the service structure is where I learned how to play in the sandbox with the other kids.

I didn't know how to do that. I took my toys and went home, or I took all the toys, yours included, and went home. And you notice I'm rather large. Sometimes I beat them up and took their toys, but, I didn't know how to behave with other people. And in here, I learned how to do that.

I learned how to disagree vehemently with people about, issues in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then we all go out and have ice cream and we hug each other, and the next time you see each other, you hug and you're so glad to see each other. That's phenomenal to me, how how people of of, our strong convictions can do that, how we can meld together and and compromise, and it's through this. And it's, such a beautiful thing. I I must say that I am a member of the traditions group in, of Alcoholics Anonymous in Billings, Montana.

I live in Huntley. The flyer said Great Falls. I've been there, and I, you know, I'd I I prefer to live in Huntley. But, in fact, we were all just there a while back. We were all in Great Falls for the regional service conference and, or the regional forum.

And, for those of you who have never attended a regional forum or regional service conference, do not miss them. You have a really great opportunity in March. That's March 4, 5, 6, or something like that. It's it's the 1st weekend in March that has a March date in it, the way it's written up in the our guidelines for the region. And, please go to that.

Avail yourself of that. You get to see people from all over our region, and they're all interested in service, in serving, and trying to reach the still suffering alcohol. It is a great event. You'll get to make meet lots of deli all the delegates from around the region, and you'll meet lots of people that are involved in service just like you, GSRs, DCMs. And everybody understands what those letters stand for.

Right? Okay. It's not God's special representative either. It's I thought that at one time. One thing we are going to encourage, throughout this is if you have a question, please ask it right away.

We thought about having you take notes and then ask them at the end of it, but I know how I do that. And I've I don't take the notes, and then I forgot most of the questions. By the time I get to the end, I ask the one that pertains to the last thing talked about. So if it if it strikes your fancy and you have a question about something, please ask. Besides that, we probably need a breather, or we'll just run off the end of the page, take you with us.

There's a couple things here that well, first off, I guess, for us, since this is a workshop on on the general service representative, there's a lot of literature to read, and I know that you've all read it. You've all read let's see. I was gonna hold up that service manual, but I better hold up the current one. This service manual, the one with the little print in it. These and, this service manual is so important.

I know that when my sponsor told me to read it, I swore it was in Greek. It did not mean anything to me. I didn't it it boy, it'll put you to sleep. It really puts you to sleep, and I had a heck of a time getting through it. But you'll find out how important this is and how it starts coming alive as you enter into a few service phrase, we'll call it.

You know, where you and it used to be I know in our area at the at the assembly, if you had a service manual, you were kinda like, oh, they got a service manual. And you'd jerk it up, and you'd read a portion, and everybody'd go, oh, it's a service manual. And they just listen to it and shut up. And however, things have progressed yes, ma'am? Question.

Do service manuals change all the time? Yes. They do. That's a good question. And most of the time, they reflect the changes from the previous conference.

And on the new ones, do they still put that black line down the side of the page where the changes are? And they they'll have a black line down the, outside of the page to indicate where like on this one, this is an older one, but there's a black line on this page to indicate the changes that have taken place, that took place in the last conference. They keep it up to date. So every year, you need to get a new one. And if you're like me, you hoard them.

I have rows of those things, and, they're very it's very interesting to see some of the changes that have taken place. Does that does that answer your question? Yes, ma'am. Okay. There's a lot of information held in these things.

In the service manual, when I started to read it and I got into more things in service, then all of a sudden you go back and you read it and it makes sense. Kinda like the big book. Some of you have noticed they change that thing occasionally. And after you've gone through something, and usually it has to do with pain, all of a sudden the words are understandable. It it means more.

And the service manual is quite the same. Getting involved with the service manual and reading it will help you immensely. And, even though you may not think so to begin with, just keep with it and keep reading it and read the things in there. And there's a vast amount of of information in there, and there's so many things that are great to read. If you read the introduction to the concepts and stuff, it'd make you laugh.

It's I mean, they, Bill had a tag. He knew what was coming. He knew we were on the way. And, some of the stuff that they wrote in there is so so, applicable today. It's unbelievable.

So, take a read of all of this stuff and, keep with it and keep it with you all the time and refer to it because this is what guides us. The principles of our program guide us with this to do service of AA and not try to become the power drivers and try to, rule by mandate. Tried that a few times. It just doesn't work with alcoholics. They usually give you a bunch of lip and you get a resentment, and then you get to work on that.

And so it's just time consuming. There's a couple of things that I would like to read, and it's not because I don't believe you can, but I'd I like to read these, upfront. And one of them is right in the front of the service manual. It's AA's legacy of service. And it says, our 12 step carrying the message is the basic service that the AA fellowship gives.

This is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence. Therefore, AA is more than a set of principles. It is a society of alcoholics in action. We must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither, and those who haven't been given the truth may die. And I won't read anymore, but you'd go on to read in there and it explains what what this is all about.

And to me, very briefly, the service structure is the life support system for the 12 step, you know, for that 12 step work that we do out there. Going out there and one alcoholic talking to another. It is to help one alcoholic talk to another alcoholic in more places at more times, carrying that message out there to the people who are still out there living and dying on the street. And to me, that's the most important thing. And sometimes I got carried away in my in in service structure is a good place to get trimmed up on your ego.

They'll hand it to you on a plate every now and then. And, in fact, I think some of the times the service structure was designed basically for those of us who couldn't be humbled in any other way, because you'll have your peers just do it for you. And this thing really works. It really works. And to me, it's the most important thing to carry that message, and we try to get it out to as many people as we can.

And I heard several people in here that are serving as treatment chairs, correction chairs, doing several all of this stuff, and that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. It's not about me having a position and being president of AA. I've been accused of that by nonalcoholics out where I live and how like, because I'm always involved in a lot of stuff, and they say, well, you must you're the president, aren't you? And my natural response is to say, yeah, but, say no with that false humility.

But, that's what that's what the service, structure is is really all about. And, there is a a thing here, and it's called why do we need a conference? And it says the late Bernard b Smith, nonalcoholic then chairperson of our board of trustees and one of the architects of the conference structure answered the question superbly in his opening talk at the 1954 meeting. We may not need a general service conference to ensure our own recovery. We do need it to ensure the recovery of the alcoholic who still stumbles in the darkness one short block from this room.

We need it to ensure the recovery of a child being born tonight, destined to alcoholism. We need it to provide in keeping with our 12 step, a permanent haven for all alcoholics who in the ages ahead can find NAA that rebirth which brought us back to life. We need it because more than all others, because we more than all others are conscious of the devastating effect of the human urge for power and prestige, which we must ensure can never invade AA. We needed to ensure AA against government while insulating it against anarchy. We needed to protect AA against disintegration while preventing over integration.

We needed so that Alcoholics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous alone is the ultimate repository of its 12 steps, its 12 traditions, and of all its services. We needed to ensure that changes within AA come only as a response to those needs and wants of all AA and not any few. We needed to ensure that the doors of of the halls of AA never have locks on them so that all people for all time who have an alcoholic problem may enter these halls unasked and feel welcome. We need it to ensure the that Alcoholics Anonymous never asks of anyone who needs us what his or her race is, what his or her creed is, or what her his or her social position is. And to me, that's just phenomenal how we can, you know, Bill wrote that we are people who would ordinarily not we ordinarily would not mix.

Boy, did he tag it. I mean, look at me, he's standing up here. You know? A lot of you probably wouldn't have ever associated with an old cowboy like me, especially when I was drunk. Lots of folks didn't wanna associate with me, but, you know, we get into these rooms and we meet, with people of every professional, every profession, and we all have one thing in common, one thing that we wanna do.

We have to save our own cells. We have to stay alive, but the only way we can do that is by helping other alcoholics. That's what Ebby told Bill in Bill's story. He said that the only way that we are ever gonna stay sober through the trials and bumps that are coming at us, Now this is an approximate quote for those who are really particular. This is approximate.

For the trials and troubles that are gonna be coming at us and the curves that are gonna be thrown at us in life, there's only one way to stay sober and enhance our spiritual life, and that is through self sacrifice and working for others. Not on others, for others. That's sometimes I try to carry Bob's message and I get carried away, but this this service structure is what helps me. And for me, self sacrifice is just like a dirty word. It was.

It's today, it's it's gotten a lot better, sacrificing of self. I still have have a tendency now and then. I'll I'll kinda lose it, and then I'll I'll try to throw money at it rather than devote time. And times with, I don't know. It seems like we get a little stingy with the time.

And, for me, I know. And, I'll try to I'll buy a bunch of books if you deliver them, you know, instead of me going there and taking a book to an alcoholic and doing the doing the 12 step work. I got one more thing, just a portion of it to read, and this is kinda coming up, and there's somebody here that's gonna be involved in a celebration of this. This happened, at the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh, it says, be it therefore resolved that the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous should become as of this date, July 3, 1955, the guardian of the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, the perpetrators of the world services of our society, the voice of the group conscience of our entire fellowship, and the sole successor of its cofounders, doctor Bob and Bill.

This was in Saint Louis, and Brenda's gonna be down there this year, speaking at that. You know, that was a big thing. Bob and Bill knew they needed to turn this thing over because they weren't gonna live forever, and they handed it over to us. And when they handed it over to us, they charged us with the responsibility of carrying this on and doing carry making sure that this went forward, and we carry this to other alcoholics. And our responsibility isn't just to set it and this is the way I take it.

I'm not boy. If I if I start to sound like preaching, raise your hand if I start to sound like I can do that. But for me, it's it's, this service structure and the history of it and how it came about was a lot of hard work by a lot of people and especially by a lot of nonalcoholics who helped us. And when it comes down to the to the final end, it was turned over to us because they knew that they could not they could not keep living. They had to give it to somebody, and they turned it over to our our general service structure, our conference.

And when they're talking to the conference, that's everybody sitting in this room, you know, all of you that are in the service structure. It's that's us. And it's turned over to us, and we have a a deep responsibility to maintain that. And if we're going to, serve, and that's part of the purpose of this workshop today, like the GSR workshop, and then later on the the, what does it mean to be a trusted servant, Being as well informed as I can be to do the job that's been given me in AA is the most important thing for me. I have to do that.

I I owe that responsibility. And in our service literature, it says it's our responsibility to pick the absolutely best person available to do the job. And this is on this is a personal thing here. The a a railroad should have gone out of service a long time ago. It's just it's maybe way back when there was hardly anybody around, that was fine.

But now to elect somebody when they're out of the room and laugh about it when they come back, that's just not doing service to AA. Picking the best person possible. I personally have voted for people that I didn't particularly care for, but I knew they would do the job. I have friends that I wouldn't vote for because I know they won't do the job. They're still my friends, but I just know they won't do that job.

They they they're to go there and fulfill that commitment. Some of them are terrified of it, and they just wouldn't wouldn't put them in that. But that's the most important thing is that we we find the most important person. Yes? I might miss something, but I'm not sure what what I didn't understand what time I was gonna speak at in San Diego.

Oh, you have any flyers on that here? Yes. Would you, please? And excuse me. I was asked to, repeat the questions so that they would know on the tape what was asked, and it was asked, what is this celebration that's gonna take place on July 3rd or approximately July 3rd?

Well, it's this month. This this month, but it's in Saint Louis. And it's, in 1955, and this being 05. We're still there celebrating the 50 year anniversary of that when the conference was turned over. And, Brenda answered that question.

I'm just repeating what she said, in case that there's any repercussions to that. And earlier, it was asked it was asked, do the service manuals get changed on a regular basis? And, yes, they do. They get changed every year to reflect the new changes, brought them out by the the previous conference. That was all of them, wasn't it?

Okay. We'll try to remember to do that. Wave at me. Okay. I don't want to to go into too much reading of the of the service manual and a lot of these things because I know that all of you study this regularly, and you read it.

There there's such important information in here to help you do the service position that you're going to be doing, but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to pick good people. Because to me, the the the job is more important than the person in AA. And and, it our first tradition leads to that too. You know, it tells us that the the group is more important than the individual, but the individuals come shortly thereafter. And this deal amount well, let's put them in there.

This will be good for them. You know? And if your group isn't adequately represented in bringing this information to the rest of the the service structure, then there isn't a really a good, you're it's eating away at the informed group conscience of your district, of your area, of your group. It it's eating away at all of that, because we need to hear from everybody. Not just those that have money to travel to these things.

We needed to hear from everybody. All the I'm sure you have districts in in your in your, area that are quite remote, and there's probably very small groups there, and they can hardly afford to make it to the assembly. I know what out there in Montana, you know, I think the farthest anybody travels is, like, 400 miles. We kinda solve the long distance stuff. We put it in the middle of the state.

And, a lot of those, DCMs and GSRs have to pay their own way because the groups just can't even afford it. They don't have the money to do it. It, but we need their voice. We need to hear from them so that we know what's going on there so that we can adequately represent our area. And that's the same thing.

Our sparsely populated, areas need to be heard at the conference so that the conference knows it and as well as the largely the large populated areas, and that's reflected in a lot of our literature. So this is extremely important that we that we choose good people that will go there and represent us and are knowledgeable about what their position is. And about the time you really get to where you know what you're doing, they replace you. And there's a reason for that. And that's pointed out in the pamphlet, the AA group.

It's talked about rotation, the spirit of rotation. And, boy, it's tough, especially when it's time to rotate and there doesn't seem to be anybody else who's gonna stand up and do it. And you think, well, I'm the only one that stand you know, gonna do it, and nobody else will, so I better just keep doing it. Nobody else will ever stand up. They'll you'll just keep doing it, and nobody else will stand up because you're doing the job.

We're alcoholics. We'll lay back and let the other person do it most of the time. And the best thing we can do, and it it tells us in there that the best thing we can do at that time is to step down, and somebody will have to stand up. And we can help them. We can encourage them.

We can back them up. But in our service structure, I know that it, you heard some heard some, some of us are odd numbered and some of us are even numbered. I was a panel 42, and, Denny from your from your area, Denny b was a panel 42. Esther was a panel 43. I got to serve with both of those beautiful people.

I really enjoyed them. But, you know, that odd and even is so that when we go to the conference, you have half rotating every year, is to try to keep it somewhat even so that about half leave and half stay there so there's some kind of, continuity to the conference so that you haven't got a whole bunch of brand new ones every time. And in our region, we we realigned that here a while back. We had 6 new delegates every 2 years and then 2 new delegates the next time. And, we changed that, and now it's 4 and 4.

Montana and North Dakota chose to do a 3 year we did a 1 year rotation, and then you could stand again to because if you didn't do a full, 2 year rotation in that job, you could stand one more time. And some of the people stood for 3 years. And then we got it all lined up, so now we have 4 new delegates each time, which really helps out because you have 4 new delegates and 4 old, past delegates or I shouldn't say past, that served 1 year that are helping them come into there and know what they're doing and help them out at the general service conference. Is there any are there any more questions on general service conference or structure? Think I covered that pretty well?

Alright. Brenda's up. Are you sure that, you don't have a lot of questions for Bob? You're gonna let him off this easy? I mean, you must have questions.

Sure. Wow. Where'd you dig down? Okay. I it was asked to try to describe try to describe the legal separation between the groups and the conference and the, our corporations and the board?

Okay. We have, we have a general we have a a a board which has 21, the general service board of alcoholics anonymous, and we have 21, members, trustees on that. And, 7 of them are nonalcoholic. They call them class a, and you'll hear them all the time refer to that as amateur. The rest are class b.

In fact, you had a class b trustee right here that lived right here in Minneapolis, Don Bee. I got to serve with him too. Fantastic, man. And, what at one time one time way back, they wanted to, incorporate all of AA in one shot, and that's in this book. Talks about it.

And they wanted to incorporate all of AA and bring it under one umbrella so everybody isn't protected. Well, can you imagine the legal battles that we would have if AA was trying to defend all the groups and all the stuff that we're I mean, we'd be in public controversy all the time. So there had to be, the only separation there really is legally is between the general service board and our corporations, and those are set aside as businesses. They actually belong to the trustees, and they rotate on a on a regular basis too. The class a's, can serve 2, 3 up to 2, 3 year terms, and the class a's serve 4 years.

And, did I say that right? Class b serve 4. Class b serve 4. I thought I said it wrong. Class b serve 4, and, the class a's can serve up up to 6 years doing it in 2, 3 year terms.

However, our chairman of the board only serves 4. And that happened, I think, when I was back there, we decided that everybody needed to understand the spirit of rotation and experience it. And there was some reluctance, but now they they do it. It works good for us. But this legal separation is there's because of anonymity, we need people to represent us out there in the public.

And, AA itself, we can't own anything, but the board owns the corporations. Does everybody know what the corporations are? Alright. You know. Which ones are they?

Right. It was said that there's there's Grapevine and Alcoholics Anonymous World Services. And, yeah, those are those are our 2 corporations. We also have the general service office, but the general service office isn't a corporation. That's the office where the people do the work for us.

Does that come anywhere close, or does anybody need anything more? Did I say anything else wrong? There's a little picture that serves It's well, well, it's amazing what's in here. You, and even in here, for those of you who are visually impaired like me, it's bigger. It in fact, they stopped that onion skin one, so we don't have that wrinkly paper service manual that you can't highlight because it goes straight through.

Now we can go back to highlighting your service manual. Is that it? Is that Miles? Last question. Now we we, And the general service office has rotation amongst their positions.

I think it's every so many years. My question is is is there a rotation or a mandate or any kind of format for the, for the general service office manager as far as rotation goes? Thank you, Niles. I believe, normally, the general service the general service office manager has served, is it 6? 6 years has been kind of the normal 6 to 7 years, been the normal rotation, and we're coming up on that.

And, and they've and they've rotated. It's been handed on to the next person. When I was at the conference, as a matter of fact, when Danny and I, George Dorsey was just coming on then. And since then, Greg is coming in. It was Wayne Parks.

About 2 years. Yeah. And there was there was a little bit of a problem there, and he rotated early. Oh, yeah. The question was, is there a rotation for the general service office manager and what would be that length?

And at this point in time, it's been normally and we expect it to be 7 years, but, that could change. Yes. Just was that enough noise? Yes. Okay.

Yes. The question was is, if somebody in in your group is saying that they don't want to, they don't wanna get involved in general service, normally, the term is politics. They would call it politics. They don't wanna get involved in the politics of AA or into the general service. They just wanna do their AA.

And what do we do, to help encourage these folks or maybe help them understand what it's all about? That's a good question because it happens all the time. They I always say that there are no politics in AA. There's just politicians. And, because that's who it is.

It's us. The enemy is us. But, with that, I try to I try to point them at the service mandate. I try to discuss with them how important it is and that it is it isn't about it's not about being the president or being the king of the group or the king of the district or anything like that. It's not about power and prestige.

It's about being a servant and helping to have this lifeblood system of the service structure help to carry the message into more places. And through this service structure is how we get in how we have meetings on a regular basis in the psych wards, and in the jails, and in the prisons, in the hospitals, nursing homes, any place that other places that you have, homeless shelters, all of these, having those meetings in their high schools, you know, reaching out to these people. That doesn't happen from somebody just sitting in their group going to their meeting. That happens from us having a service structure. And another nice part about the service structure is that it frees those people from those, hospitals and all these places from having to deal with each group individually in an in a district.

Because you can imagine, if you're the if you're the, person in charge of, say, the hospital or the jail, and here come all the groups, and each one send in a a representative to talk to the to the jailer. And, they just get tired of us. They don't wanna hear from us. But if our district elects 1 person to be our representative there, they develop a relationship with them. And they they come to us with the problems that they see, and we go to them with the problems that we see.

And we have a relationship, and therefore, we get to maintain meetings in those places and carry the message to alcoholics who definitely need to hear from us and and maybe get that message and live. Does that help? And and then there's some you just won't be able to, and you just get to love them and, encourage them to keep coming to the meetings, and maybe they'll get that later on. Yes, Niles. What is the benefit to my group, to myself being involved in service when, you know, I go to meetings and I I listen.

And when I went to a few service things, they talked about all this googley googley googley goog that I don't understand anyway. So what's the purpose? Or why should why should my group spend money sending people to Montana or whatever? Why should we do this? The question was, why do why do we need to send people to these things, from our group, because it's stuff that we're a lot of us aren't really interested in anyway.

And, why do we spend money, our our group money, sending people to activities such as the regional, forum that went on in Montana or to the ones that go on within your state or your neighboring, areas? Well, number 1, you should have sent them to Montana just because it's a beautiful state, and I was there. But one of the things is is that's what helps carry this message and keeps every group informed and helps every everybody else be informed within within our AA structure. And I I don't know how many of you have have in the in the time that I've been sober oh, and I should say this. I've been sober since March 28, 1982.

That's also my bellybutton birthday. I wish I could take credit for it, but you know exactly how that is. But in the time that I've been in AA, I've watched it you know, you get to see a lot of groups. You get to watch a lot of people. I've watched 1,000 go back out and die.

But I've seen I've watched a lot of groups, and I've been in groups, and and my home group is the traditions group in buildings, but I attend a lot of other groups on a regular basis. I do not vote in those groups. I get one vote, my home group. I don't need to vote in all the other groups because I'm not special. Well, I am, but, I don't get 2 votes.

And, what happens is I've watched in fact, there's a group that I'm watching right now that used to be very active in the in the service, and they had a GSR, and they had an intergroup representative, and they had people going to these things, and they participated in carrying the message to the psych ward and the jail and all this, and they've just quit. Over time, it just slowed up, and pretty soon their GSR wasn't coming to the meetings, and it just started slowing down. And what I'm watching in that group now is the group is dying. It's suffering terribly. They're not involved in AA.

They're they're not even a group. They're a meeting. And everybody knows in the pamphlet, the AA group, the difference between a meeting and a group. A meeting exists for about an hour, and then it's over. That's it.

It's done. That's over with. A group exists after the meeting's over. Like my home group, we exist on a regular basis, and we exist. We show up at those other places to take those meetings into people.

And what happens to a group that doesn't do that, they lose the, what our AA is all about. And, in fact, I was I was down here a few years ago on a topic of apathy in AA, and I don't believe there's such a thing as apathy in AA. I believe it's untreated alcoholism. You get into the 12 and 12, and Bill wrote in there about, when we do having, had this spiritual experience, we are gonna be charged with a new enthusiasm and a new excitement to go out there and carry this message. That's the result, not a result.

It's the result. We wanna we go out there and do that, and we're in charge with a new enthusiasm to do that. An alcoholic charged with a new enthusiasm is a big deal. But when we're charged with that, that's a that's the result of these 12 steps, and we wanna go out and do that. And what happens when you just exist in a meeting and pretty soon you're into talking family dynamics, you keep talking about AA and carrying the message to the still suffering alcoholic, staying with singleness of purpose and all these things, that's when the group starts to dwindle and wither, and the message that they have is that near as strong as it used to be.

It's a meeting and a lot of good friends in there, and they'll meet. And I I'm sure the same thing happens here. And and a newcomer comes in, and everybody's talking about farming or they're talking about whatever. Whatever. You got little clicks, and you kinda sit and talk to yourself, and you forget to go greet the newcomer anymore.

This is the stuff that happens. This has been my experience of what it does. And by putting our share in the basket and sending this on, that's kind of an a very that's practice in anonymity. We turn that money over to somebody else to help carry this message, and by sending our people there, we are supporting this afternoon, we'll be talking about that, about supporting our trusted servants. Yes, Niles.

Oh, you're good. Well, you know, what I don't understand is wouldn't unity of a group be better enhanced by having dances every Friday night after the meetings and social events versus and putting our money that way versus, just talking about all this high minded stuff. I know. You know, I've played the devil's advocate too before. The the question was, wouldn't our group be better off, holding dances and pizza parties and, little short trips or something with that money to enhance the unity of our group.

And, you can try it. I would suggest try it. Invest heavily in it and see what happens. But for, this is something that, to me, our group is responsible that when we pass that basket, our group knows what we're gonna do with it. But anybody who's there visiting, when they drop that money in the basket, they are trusting us to do exactly what we say.

This is a basket, and this is we're gonna pay our bills. We're gonna pay for the coffee and and literature and that stuff, and the rest is gonna be passed on into the service structure to help carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's what we do, and that's the guarantee we give them as an AA group when we pass that basket. For us to do anything less, collect money from them for a pizza party or if somebody in the group, has a problem and we buy an airline ticket from to go visit their family, that's not right. That's that's not using the that's that's such a, violation of that trust of of what people put that money in there for.

And the parties and the potlucks and all the stuff that we do, our group does that, but we don't do it with the money that's been put in the hat. We do not do that. We do that as individuals outside the meeting. In fact, our group does a thing. We started this it was we were doing it when I was first in the AM.

We've started back doing it the last 3 years. At our business meeting, we've we, choose which group we're gonna go visit within our district or outside of our district on, a day that our group doesn't meet, which usually is a Friday or a Saturday. And we meet, we have supper together, and then we go visit this group, or we'll go to the group and then have supper together, and then we go home. And we tell that group when we're there that we're visiting as a group. And we usually the the core of our group goes and, drag in newcomers.

We drag the newcomers along. It's amazing what that does to unity within our group. And there, we're not spending the AA dollar. We're spending our own, but I'll tell you what, for newcomers, especially the distance as we travel, you go to a night meeting, it's daylight when you're going there. You have supper, you feed them, then you you have a meeting all the way there.

Then you go to the meeting and it's spiritual. Then you're coming home and you're in that car and it's dark, and they're in the back seat usually. Don't want them to drive when they're too new. But they're in the back seat, and they get fairly spiritual, and they'll start talking about some things. And the unity of our group has we did it as a unity thing for our district, you know, to help the district and that.

But the unity that has happened within our group is just amazing what that has done. We do it as a group. To go out and and spend that money, you you couldn't even get to 1st base doing that in my home group. They would they would have you. But that money is not intended for that, and we can do that as individuals off to the side.