The topic of Unity at Speakerjam 2009 in Waverly MN

I'm Sarah. I'm an alcoholic. Good morning, you guys. You can all hear me OK, right.

Umm, I think just on my way up here further very nice introduction. He we had some quite lively banter that day and then the day is following and I really think that's probably the reason that he asked us to come speak here today. Sort of we may have been winning in the discussion or something. And so it was.

We do it. We enjoyed talking to him. I have been in Alcoholics Anonymous for over 8 years now. I'm very grateful for the program. It is. The speakers earlier this morning talked about it.

It changed my life and saved my life and, and that is why I come here when I'm asked and why my I go with my Home group and which is the our common welfare group. Interestingly, you don't have the traditions on the walls, but it's the first tradition. Our common welfare comes first. That's the name of our group. And we go to detox and treatment center also to try to carry the message. So the reason I do that is because the sponsor I happen to find when I got sober did that essentially.

Otherwise I wouldn't have done it because like Pat said, my best thinking really wasn't very good. Usually ended me up in jails and treatment centers and other places that I didn't really think were that fun. So

out of pure misery, I was just willing to follow suggestions. And that was what she did. She'd been sober for 15 years, I think, at the time I met her, and she's still sober today and she does the same thing. She's of service to Area 35, which is northern Minnesota.

How many of you guys are AAA members or have been to an AAA meeting? OK. Oh my God. So there's an imaginary line that divides our state N half and South half, and we're from the north half.

She's been active in that service structure up there. So because she's my sponsor, I sort of follow what she suggests, and that's what I did. Of course, after doing like our first speaker, I don't see him and I forgot his name.

No. Oh, there's two paths in a row. Oh, that's convenient. So I don't have to worry about forgetting names. I like he was saying I would not be able to be of service. We haven't. We have a Home group member that made a very funny comment. I'm sick. How can I help you? That's two stepping. That's really, that's all you do you. I'm sick. I acknowledge the fact that I'm sick and now I'm going to try to be of service to you. And I did that for the first year and then I got drunk. And then the second year I I did the steps

on a daily basis and continue to do them. So that I had, when I got to step 12, I had had a spiritual awakening. So I had something to offer somebody else.

Ironically, when I didn't have anything to offer anyone, I tended to attract people who also didn't really have anything to offer anyone else. So it's a nice, it's a nice kind of change now because

oh, keep talking, OK,

or you can't hear me OK, because I have a husband today and he makes me very, very happy. And when I was, when I was newly sober, I went to a,

there was a speaker, her name was Polly P And I, I had a year of sobriety, had moved to Texas for some reason. And there was a speaker convention that my sponsor was putting on. And they brought in the speaker to talk about how to live the traditions in your relationships. And I had a year of sobriety and I had no relationships with anyone

because I hadn't done the night step yet. So there really hadn't been any resolutions of my family relationships. And I thought, well, that doesn't make any sense at all, living the traditions in your relationship. And then I got married and now I understand a little bit better about how you're supposed to live the traditions in your relationship.

Relationships are tricky things. And again, as the other Pat said earlier, you get a bunch of sick Alcoholics together and we tend to

butt heads a little bit sometimes. Certainly, certainly, Bill. Bill was aware of that.

I think he was right. It was about 15 years after he wrote the Big Book that in 1941 the article titled.

Let's see if I can find it. I should have italicized it.

It was written by,

well, I can't find it now in my wonderful notes, Jack Alexander's article. Anyways, it was titled Something about. It was about a, and it was published in the Saturday Evening Post. I believe after that article got published, there was a huge boom in Alcoholics Anonymous. They quadrupled their membership in less than a year.

And you have all sorts of sick people running in saying please help me. And you have groups expanding and exploding all over the nation. You go from the first three groups that he talked about to hundreds and hundreds of groups and all very nice, healthy, fun Alcoholics who get along well and play well with others. And, and some problems came up. What ended up happening was that Bill, being the prolific writer that he was and being pretty observant,

was able to look around at what was going on in all the groups around him and in

other organizations. Maybe you've heard the Washingtonians or the Oxford Group, and see what they did wrong that caused their failure and ultimate collapse, because those two groups in particular were very, very effective in dealing with Alcoholics. Sometimes we like to think in AAI. Do I like to think in a a that it's such a wonderful organization, it's such a wonderful program. It saved my life. It gave me such a wonderful life. It's the best or the only answer. And that's just not the case at all.

Obviously there are many other approaches to dealing with alcoholism. There are many other effective approaches. We don't have a monopoly on the answer. We just have one answer, which is a very good thing for me to remember as a, an alcoholic who can tend to get a little, I don't know, self-righteous or opinionated. And, and Bill was aware of these groups and he was aware of the struggles that all the groups in a A were facing, as well as making some being what, four years sober,

a year sober, two years sober at the time that a A started

making quite a few mistakes of his own in the public eye, as well as encouraging other people to make certain mistakes that turned out to be not some great choices as a result of those of seeing the mistakes that they had made and seeing the mistakes other groups had made. He crafted the 12 traditions, which I didn't bring my book up, but he then became the 12 and 1212 steps and then the 12 traditions. Unlike Pat said, the recovery part is how we stay sober, how we can get well. The traditions are the unity part, how we can stay together

so we can help other people get sober. Because I don't know if you belong to a Home group or a meeting that you typically attend on a regular basis, chances are maybe maybe not in your Home group. Maybe it just happens to me that you might butt heads with somebody and disagree on something and it might cause a little bit of friction in the group. And that's what the traditions were, were there to sort of help alleviate so that when the groups that were having problems with each other, with other organizations or whatever, they could go out and

have this thing much like our steps to refer to that would always be there. That would be the same. It would be constant. It wouldn't.

It wouldn't be open so much. Granted, you interpret this will all be my interpretation of the traditions that you hear today, of course, but that we have something in writing so that the message doesn't get lost or changed or warped too much.

Umm, because the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, what's contained in the 1st 164 pages of the big book is what saved my life. And if Alcoholics Anonymous as an organization, as a fellowship is going to crumble, then that book alone in a room by myself, it doesn't, doesn't quite do it. And I tried it the first year I got sober and it just wasn't enough for some reason. I need that, that extra part. I need a sponsor. I need the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous around me if I want to stay sober. And that's that's partly why it's so important to me

that we have the traditions and partly why I was really pleased to be asked to speak about the the issue of unity. Because it's a way to sort of not fulfill my responsibility to Alcoholics Anonymous, which is what I feel that it is to be able to have the opportunity to go and talk to other people about our traditions and what they mean and how important they are.

One thing that always kind of confused me about the unity thing is sometimes I would hear things like

the traditions are there to help a unify with other organizations, like help them to unite with corrections and judges and lawyers and treatment centers and things like that. And that's not true at all. That's not at all the case. Like, again, like Pat said earlier, a A traditions are there to protect a A from ourselves, from the Alcoholics inside the organization because well-intentioned and well meaning as we may be, we do some crazy things sometimes thinking it's for the betterment of a A.

And, and Bill, seeing that, I thought that it would be wise to give some guidelines and some caution as to exactly how you should act or interact with these outside agencies as a fellowship if you wanted to stay united. Now what I'm, what I'm hopefully going to do is give you a little bit of background about the traditions, which I'm obviously doing now and, and then get into each of the traditions, just a little bit of my interpretation or experience with those.

So

let's see where I'm at right now.

Well, all of that really ties into me to the responsibility statement, which is what my Home group closes our meetings with now for a very nice, calm and loving group conscience discussion that lasted for, I don't know, three months or so to change it from the Lords Prayer to the responsibility declaration. Now the Lord's Prayer, I just had read something and I took it out of my notes about that. But that Bill said it came where Bill said it came from. But

maybe the guy who spoke earlier will know. You can ask him later if you want to know why it is we close most a meetings with the Lord's Prayer. There is a reason that he had identified

UMM, but anyways, our group had a group conscious discussion and decided we wanted to change it. And the responsibility statement simply is the statement. I'm responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help. I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that I'm responsible. Again, this is a very strong theme for me. That's why I'm here. That's why the other speakers I'm sure are here. And if you become active and responsible a A members, it will be something that should be hopefully be important to you as well.

As as such, I take it as my responsibility as an A A member to

to know our traditions, to be educated of them, to understand them. Like I said, the 1st in my first introduction to the traditions was

to be told that you could work them in a relationship, which I didn't have and didn't make sense. After that the sponsor I got said, well why don't you just try to work them in a group? You belong to an Alcoholics Anonymous group and you struggle with that being selfish and self-centered and you could probably help you if you applied them to the group and understood them. And so she got me to read the 12 and 12 and think about it and it by no means do I understand all the implications of the traditions there. A lot like the big book,

every time you read it, something new will stand out and something new would touch me or would I would see something new in them. So I'm still definitely learning on this. But I I do, I have learned a little bit about how they've been applied to my group up till now. And the larger AA as a whole, too.

Oh, there's my Saturday Evening Post article. Yeah,

so the first thing that Bill did after

looking at all of the problems the other groups were having was start writing Grapevine articles. If you guys are aware of the Language of the Heart, that's a wonderful book that's full of Bill's writings. As I said, he wrote about almost everything and had an opinion on almost everything. And some of his early articles he started to lay out what he thought were solid principles for how Alcoholics Anonymous could deal with other people, and he started publishing them in that book. So he called them things like the 12 suggested points of a tradition or 12 points to assure, ensure a as future and things like that.

I really think that that's what they are. If we, if we stray from our traditions, it's very much like an alcoholic straying from the 12 steps. You get away from the 12 steps, you sicken and you drink again or die. If a group or Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole gets away from the traditions, then they sicken and typically fall apart and die. And you can watch groups when you're around long enough that that that happens to. So it's not just needless groundless fears. It actually can happen.

I know that after going through the traditions, it was,

umm, it was kind of looking at it as a good alcoholic thinking, are you really going to tell me what I can do and what I can't do?

And no, you know, just like anything else now clocks on this. Nobody in Alcoholics Anonymous, not even the general service office, the conference, your GSR, whoever you know, your treasurer, secretary, nobody can tell you what you can and can't do. But just like the suggestion to have a parachute when you jump out of an airplane and pull the cord. So you might want to use the traditions in Alcoholics Anonymous if you want your group to survive and stay healthy. And that was definitely very true for me.

Of course, Bill himself warned about having too many rules. They have the tradition that talks about rule that group that invented up like up to 62 rules. And the 62nd rule was don't take yourself so seriously. That's always good for me to remember too, because we are not always going to agree and I frequently don't agree with people. Apparently I'm just antagonistic kind of person. But if I have the traditions and I'm and I'm putting principles before personalities, like Dustin said, that's why even if we disagree, we can overcome that and still

together for the betterment of a as a whole and to reach out to the still suffering alcoholic, because that's ultimately what's most important to us. All you know is to help people who are suffering from alcoholism who want our solution to ensure that a will continue to be there and that we have a message that's worth sharing.

Okay, so

the first tradition that I would talk about is our common welfare. I might finish really early, so I'm sure you guys won't mind getting to lunch early though, will you? Although food might not be back there. I might have to tell you some personal stories or something to fill the time. But the first tradition, like I said, my Home group is our common welfare. And the first tradition being our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon a unity. Now

a lot of times when they read this in the meeting, like if you go to any club, you'll usually see the traditions on the wall and they'll read it at the beginning of the meeting. But if it, it's almost an unfortunate thing, like how it works to me, it's almost unfortunate that we read it at the beginning of every meeting because it becomes this thing like that. You just tune out, you know, as soon as you hear it, it's the same cadence. Everybody says them the same exact way. If someone doesn't, you'll notice it'll probably irritate you. It does mean, you know, so

I see that say that's unfortunate because then people seem to think that that's they just block it out and don't think about them or listen to him so much.

If you're fortunate, like some people, their groups do a tradition study or something. So then you have to look more deeply at it. But for a long time I just, you know, zone out and get done and then, OK, now we can start the meeting, you know, and the traditions and the steps are what makes the meetings possible. So they are important. And that first one,

it, it helps me to to remember the importance I need to place on everyone's welfare, not just my own, which is, which is a really big step for me because that's all I think about is myself. Even after having gone through the steps, I really still am largely selfish

and I want to get what I want to get out of the meeting and I want the meeting to go. I think it should go. And I want you to stop talking because you're not making any sense.

And the, and the point is that Alcoholics Anonymous is there for all suffering Alcoholics. And whether I agree or disagree with you, I should respect that and try to uphold that always, always acting in a way that the group, the whole group, and not just my little Home group, that it goes to all the other groups, to all the groups in the nation, to all the groups in the world, to the districts and the areas. I should always act in a way that I can preserve that unity. So, so that I'm not being argumentative intentionally or

picking fights or picking sides or taking contentious positions. I really think the the first tradition deals with a lot of our other traditions.

It ties into him in the way that we always ought to first try to preserve the unity and Alcoholics Anonymous. If we're fighting about something and all we're doing is fighting, maybe we should just put it aside for a little while so that we can

have take some time to calm down and ask God into our group conscience and come back to it. So we don't destroy, we don't destroy the unity in the group. I can remember the very first group conscience meeting I went to, my husband was actually, I wasn't my husband at the time, but he was, I don't know, secretary or treasurer or something of that meeting. And he had the 12 and 12 in one hand and his first raised in the other hand. And it was the word and it wasn't his fault. But then there were several other members with also with their hands waving in the air and red

and, and they both may have had a point and one of the two may have been right. They both may have been right. But all I could remember is a newcomer was how awful that was. It was just awful. They were yelling, I was uncomfortable and I didn't understand any of it. Now part of that was cuz I had never read the traditions at all and I didn't know what they were even arguing about. So it was easy for me to just go to just completely absolve myself of any responsibility for Alcoholics Anonymous and say I don't want to have anything to do with that. I'm done.

You know that you guys are annoying and you're arguing and I'm done. And I did and I left that meeting.

Fortunately, like I said, I got a sponsor who showed me that they actually the traditions are important. And you staying for that business meeting and trying to make it a better place, more unified place by understanding what's going on is what you should be doing, not running away.

Yeah, I haven't had it. I haven't ever had an experience like that since then. So and it that was by far the worst, some of my worst group conscience experience. So, you know, it can always get better.

I

again, this concept also or the tradition, sorry, also reminds me of the other groups that were around before Alcoholics Anonymous that were helping and they were very successful. They had, I think one group had like 100,000 members at one time. And,

and this ties into some of the later traditions I'm going to talk about too, about what happened when they got very successful was I don't think I got bored or something. I think Bill talked about that in the beginning when he was writing traditions, being concerned that we would be overwhelmed by our success when a a got bigger and would forget to be responsible for it. And that's maybe what happened to these groups. But whatever it was, they started taking on

causes, personal pet projects, publicity things, going out and supporting certain political candidates.

And then they started fighting with each other and then they fell apart. And then they couldn't help any Alcoholics. And that's, and again, what all the traditions are there to kind of guard us against is that process of fighting with each other inside a A so that we fall apart.

The second tradition to that there's one ultimate authority in our a, a group. So loving God as he expresses himself in our group conscience and in that tradition.

Again, I don't want to paint Alcoholics Anonymous as a really controversial new organization, but I don't know. We tend to argue with each other. We just, I, I, I think I have, I've told people this before. I have an innate capacity to pick out another alcoholic just because we'll disagree and, and, and fight. I just naturally draw it out in people and they seem to draw it out in me. It could be a little unrecovered alcoholism,

but whatever it is, we tend to disagree a little bit and,

and this tradition comes very, very much into play in that case. That you, they always remember that it isn't me against you. It's not I'm right and you're wrong or you're right and I'm trying to battle you. That we're just, we're being guided by God and that God is the most important thing in our meetings and that we should try to do as the master would have us do. What would the right thing, what would the very best thing for Alcoholics Anonymous be? Sometimes that means making hard choices on things that we would like to do that we think are a good idea, but that may not be the best thing for all of a A

or may cause other groups to follow suit likewise, and could cause problems if everybody did it. So always thinking about other people

and remembering that God is the one that ultimately is guiding us. And

as one of my Home group members said once when we got into an adamant fight over changing the closing of our meeting, am I trying to do what's best or am I just trying to be right? Am I really trying to do what's best for a, A right now with whatever it is that I'm fighting for him? I just do. I just want to be right because I'll fight pretty hard if I want to be to be right. You know, I don't like being wrong.

Another thing that the 2nd tradition reminds me of is, is the

the concept of a minority opinion or the dissenting voice.

And sometimes in the interest of unity, people will say, well everybody should just agree so that we are unified.

OK, so you're telling me that if I have a really serious objection to some sort of policy you're putting in place, I should just keep my mouth shut so that I don't upset the boat?

I have a little problem with that. That isn't what the traditions ask us to do. But they do ask us to be good leaders and be good stewards of a A and to open our minds a little bit and to listen if somebody has a dissenting opinion and listen to their opinion. Listen to what their criticism might be of a, A, A, A, you. All you have to do is Google. I think it's like the Orange Pages or something. I mean, all you have to do is Google a A and and

crock or crap or cult or anything

else you can think of and you will get so many criticisms about Cox Anonymous.

But to look at those criticisms, and Bill had those criticisms early when I ate early first started too, you know, that it was a way too religious of an organization And they were drawn. And I think in the 70s there was a criticism or 60s that Alcoholics Anonymous was destroying religious organizations because they were anti religious and it was just a big group of people who hated religion. And so those types of things are things to watch out for,

aware of those to say, you know, and that gets into our later traditions, of course, but that we always look at those criticisms for their value and we listen to the dissenting voice and we don't try to stifle it, that we try to hear it and say, is there any validity to what they're saying at all? And these are ways we can grow and become more effective in Alcox Anonymous. The third tradition,

probably the only one I knew when I first came in because I would run around citing it. I can be here. The third tradition, I can be here. Anybody can be here if I say I have a, if I have a problem, a desire to stop drinking

and, and it is, you know, the only requirement for a membership is a desire to stop drinking. The only requirement we're Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know how much more clear it can be. That's what we do. You know, it'd be like if you went to what's a podiatrist do? Are they foot doctor? If you went to podiatrist and said my ears, nose and throat hurt. And then the doctor, he's not being mean, he's not being rude. He's just saying that's outside of our area of expertise. I do not do ear, nose and throat. I do feet.

You got a bunion, I can help you. You got a sore throat, There's doctor so and so in the other building. You know, I mean, it's, it's that's really as simple as it needs to be.

We can't afford to try to, as Alcoholics Anonymous. We can't afford to try to solve all the problems. Just like no Doctor Who tried to treat everything would be very good at any one of those things he treated, because there's just so much. So would Alcoholics Anonymous become completely ineffective. And that's not just a needless, baseless fear. That's again the experience of the Oxford Group and the Washingtonians who tried to take on and solve all the world's problems

and ended up you've never heard of them, right? Unless you're, unless you study a history. I'd never heard of them before. They're gone,

um, because of that, because of a lot of reasons, but that's, that being one of them. So again, as a member of Alcohol Anonymous, it's my responsibility to say here's what our traditions are. I'm not going to apologize for them and I'm not going to change them. I'm not trying to be mean or rude or exclusive or hurtful, but I don't want to hurt other organizations either. And I don't want to take your NA members, your CA members, your GA members, your SSAA members and say, come on in here, guys, because those organizations need them. You know, if you're

in my area, if you're a meth addict, we need meth addicts to start their own groups. You know, we need them there because if, if they don't have a group, then that methodic that walks in and I've never done, I've done okay. I've never been addicted to it. I can't sit there and look you in the eye and say, I understand, I relate. You know, the biggest life changing moment for me was when another alcoholic sat me down and started sharing about his drinking. And it was, you know, a guy who was 15 years older than me who happened to be a counselor to treatment center. We had nothing

and he was a jock. I was absolutely not. And he started talking about the way he drank and how that affected his life and the choices it made him make and the way that alcohol made him feel. And deep down in the very bottom of my heart, I went, Oh my God, that's what's wrong with me. And I knew with 100% without a doubt that I was an alcoholic. I can't say that when I went to the CA meeting that I went to in Texas because my sponsor was a cocaine addict and I'd done cocaine. So I thought, I've done it. I can go. I, you know, want to not do cocaine anymore. That's like the only

requirement, right? Within about 5 minutes I knew I was in the wrong place. I just knew. I mean, I did not.

I related to the general principles. They were talking about the 12 steps in the traditions that of Alcox Anonymous have been used for all the other organizations as a basis. Those general principles are the same. But that common problem is not, it's just, it was not for me. It was absolutely the most awkward and uncomfortable experience in my life. And I kept waiting for them to find me out. And then they were so like hyper and excited. I thought they'd just pick me up, all of them, and throw me out the door together and one fell swoop.

They, they didn't, you know, but and I made some very good friends

in that meeting that we hung out outside of the meeting, but that was where they went and I went say A and we met up afterwards.

Yeah.

And I think that's about all I really need to go on and about that one. So moving on to the 4th tradition, then each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or a as a whole. So

when I wanted to start a new group because I thought we needed another, well, I don't remember what it was the time, big book study or something in my hometown. The very first thing my sponsor said to me was, are there any other groups that meet that night in your nearby city, in your area, nearby streets or towns, things that I would never think of. How is my action that I'm taking right now going to affect other groups?

If I create a meeting that's just for women, how is that going to affect all the men in the area that might need a meeting? Do we maybe need a more broad meeting so that they can all come? Or is there another meeting that I might take away from that I might kill because I'm stealing all their members? I'm competing with them. Those types of things, thinking about others and about how to be considerate of other, you know, were things that maybe normal people just do naturally, But I had to learn them and I had to have principles written down to follow and oh, Yep, OK, that's right,

don't do that.

Umm,

another, another thing that kind of ties into that is, and Jim's going to talk a little more about service, but as, as an AA member, as an, a group member, you have a vote through your GSR about things that go on nationwide, worldwide in Alcoholics Anonymous, about decisions that are made, literature that's printed, things that are created, public service announcements that go on TV while posters that go in guidance counselor's office, training videos for professionals about what a is and isn't. We have a decision based on all of these things.

And

if we

forget that the proposals that we put forth, that the things we ask the general service office to do affect everybody, if we just do it because, you know, my group has this problem with this particular issue, I want you to make something to help me fix this. That then effects every other group. You know, so every action that we take as an organization effects each other. And to keep that in mind is basically what I think that spirit of tradition for is

Tradition 5, that each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

I think I expounded quite a bit on this one already under Tradition 3. Again, that's why my Home group goes the places that we go. And that's why when I'm asked to come speak somewhere about something I do. I'm trying to tell you that if there, if you have a problem with alcohol and you want to get well and you want to have a life beyond your wildest dreams, then there's an organization here for you. And I'm guarding our traditions in order to ensure that there will always be an organization, hopefully

here for you, one among many, of course, but still here for you.

And yeah, again, anytime a group has tried to do anything else, and they really did try to sponsor political candidates. Really a group. Could you imagine? I just find it so

beyond me that could you imagine your little A, A group, the meeting you go to all of a sudden getting behind your local mayor

and going out with their little signs and you know, and coming in it. Could you imagine that? That just seems so insane to me. But on a much smaller level, that happens all the time. You know, it kind of gets into the later tradition on affiliation. So I won't touch on it too much. But to people who are new coming to AA, when, when what you're meeting talks about and what they do is what a A is to these new people. So being aware of the message you're carrying when you're in your a a group, do you do you sit and do you talk about how horrible your day was? And I remember a meeting I went to, a guy talked for 45 minutes

about his dog, the neighbor's dog, I'm sorry, and how he wanted to kill the dog for 45 minutes. And I was new and I was about ready to go drink after that meeting. I mean, it was, it was just awful. What I should have done was gotten up and left. If if you ever go to a meeting and somebody rambles on about their dog for 45 minutes, just raise your hand and say the speaker I heard once named Sarah said I could leave when you did this. I'm out of here, just go. You should hear the solution in Alcox Anonymous. That's what my sponsor told me. You should always hear the message of how you can get well. If you don't hear that message when you go to

meeting and you're either not at an AAA meeting or you need to find a new one, you know, because of our traditions, we can't enforce anything in AA. I can't go to this group that I think is doing things wrong and say you can't talk about that stuff here. You need to take it somewhere else. It's their right to do what they want. If they want to survive, they'll hopefully abide by the traditions. But if they want to do it and they can do whatever they want.

And was I on 6? No group. Oh, look at that. It was a nice little segue. No group. I endorse finance or lend the a name to any related facility or outside enterprise

to avoid problems of money, property and prestige.

More than I ever knew.

Really, more than I ever knew. Can this cause problems? When I was newly sober, I was so excited about being sober, about this new life that I was given, about this chance for sobriety, that I just couldn't imagine fighting over something stupid like who gets to make coffee, or who gets to take the money after the meeting closes, or who gets to speak when asked how many times they've spoken. And

you know, if their story is better, I do remember very early on thinking, Oh, my story really sucks. I should probably go drink more so I could have a more interesting story because no ones going to want to listen to me.

Luckily, that's not that's not the case at all. We we're here to try to get well again, alcoholism, recovery from it being our primary focus

things is thinking about things as simple as what you call your meeting. What does that say to a newcomer? I went to a group that called itself the Temple Baptist a, a Monday night meeting.

So is it a church? Is it a Baptist group? Is it a soup kitchen meeting 'cause it met at the soup kitchen we had. It was, it was, it's confusing and it's, it's always something that you want to consider. How much are you affiliating with any given entity or organization? I went to that meeting anyways. I'm not saying don't go to meetings that name themselves after churches, but but as a member, it's, it's my responsibility to think about those kinds of things and to try to try to be as inclusive

as possible and not do things that could exclude people. That was kind of the reason that we changed our closing of our of our meeting was our group felt that

it was, it could be exclusive to some people, not that it makes them feel uncomfortable. That's completely separate thing that it excludes them completely from the meeting. If you are not a Christian and you come in and you hear a very, very Christian prayer, you immediately feel like you're not a part of that group. It could be. Not that that always happens, but that was the rationale behind why we changed it.

Umm,

on the same, on the same note, hopefully I didn't say my last name when I got up here, but when when I go to speak somewhere, when I go to speak at a treatment center or like here where you guys are, then I make sure that I don't affiliate Alcoholics Anonymous with that place. Like I go into detox. The people in detox have no idea how I get to come in and then leave at my home free will. Like that just doesn't make sense to them. So then the only people that do that are the people that work there,

right? So explaining to people that Alcox Anonymous is its own entity, It is separate from any other entity. We cooperate with these facilities, detoxes, treatment centers, deals, prisons,

judges and court systems. But we are not them. We don't. We have our own traditions and we have our own

policies that we follow, and they may not necessarily correspond to other things. If any of you have ever had to have the little slip signed from the court, Yeah, thanks. I knew somebody in your had to have been. I could be the only one. That's not an AA thing. You know, hopefully when hopefully that's made clear when you go to meetings, you know, these are not. We don't keep membership,

we don't keep track of our members. We don't,

we might call you if you don't show up, but it's not because we want to know where you are. We just are concerned or we're really weird and we care, right? So,

but these other rules signing getting a sponsor before you get out of treatment, our local treatment center requires that and I make sure that I make it very clear to people that that asked me to sponsor them. I am not doing this to fulfill your obligation there. Alcox Anonymous doesn't require you get a sponsor, it's just suggested.

Umm 6? Was it 7 just seven every? A group ought to be fully self supporting, declining outside contributions.

You know, I don't want to pick anyone tradition as being more important than the other ones, but this one is certainly undervalued. I think

I like money. I like to have my money. I didn't have a lot of money when I was drinking. As soon as I got some money, I wanted to keep it in my pocket, not yours. And I really didn't understand the importance of giving to somebody else so that they could do things again. Learning about the traditions and learning where the money goes. When it goes into a basket, do you know where it goes?

It's your money. It was my hard earned money. I didn't even if it was just a dollar I wanted, you know, where is it going? Is it going somewhere good? Is it going to serve Alcoholics Anonymous or is it going to buy flowers for, you know, whatever to buy to put in the Kitty for the card game at the end of the, you know, like a big jackpot. Is it a prize? Is it what do they use it for? It's very uncomfortable thing to walk into a meeting and say where does that go?

Where, where's that money going? What are you doing with it?

But it's also very interesting. It's very interesting experiment. So I have done that a few times. It's received differently at different places depending on what it is. But it is very important to me. It's why on my birthday, because I'm grateful for my sobriety every year on my a birthday. The general service office way back in the day when they were trying to encourage groups to be self supporting came up with a thing called a birthday plan and they said if every A a member would just contribute.

You can shout it out if you remember a certain amount. A dollar,

$3, six something would just contribute some money on their a birthday. AAA would be completely self supporting. We would not need to take money from anywhere outside.