ingeniously to overcome. I mean that autonomy sometimes can make free communication and free exchange of experience somewhat difficult.
If we had the kind of chain of command most organizations have, helpful information might travel better or more quickly. If we had echelons of authority, ideas could be forcefully passed down to all units. News of a new pamphlet would automatically be disseminated by governing units to those being governed. Results of new kinds of meetings could be instantly transmitted to all groups and members.
As it is now, thousands of AA members are deprived of knowledge which they would happily use. For example, fewer than half the AA groups in the world take the Grapevine. And, because each group is autonomous, no one can force on them the knowledge that this wonderful (in my opinion) magazine exists. I am continually being surprised, as I visit various groups, to learn that many members have never heard of Bill’s book As Bill Sees It; some have no idea that there is an AA Anniversary International Convention every five years; and some, to be sure, have not been told about any of the Traditions, only about the Steps; and at a meeting I attended last night, I met one young man who had been around AA more than three years before anyone suggested to him, “Have you tried the Steps? They were helpful to me.’’
This seems a heavy, if not a dangerous, price for AA to pay for group autonomy. Is it worth such a risk?
The answer, I believe, is yes, since the alternative would be rigid, doctrinal uniformity imposed on all groups and members. That alternative would threaten my sobriety, dangerously.
Instead, I am free to continue learning and growing at my own rate (or to stand still). That Fourth Tradition offers true independence to me, the individual, as well as to every AA group, so long as we accept some responsibility along with it. But I don’t mind. Who ever said that freedom was for free?
B.L., New York, N. Y.
Real Rotation—or “Back Seat” Indispensables?
May 1953
There may be too much gristle in this soliloquy for many to chew through to the meat, but in spite of inept pens, two of us would like to discuss the underlying cause of a general feeling in many groups, as we see it, of lengthy frustration.
We have been asked too often lately in too many places, “Why doesn’t this group grow?” and we have only shrugged our shoulders with a cheering word to the leader, instead of giving the answer that “Something may be wrong with your group, and you’re the only one who can change it.’’
This is an unaccusing attempt to spread out on the bar the increasingly common occurrence of one or two stable members of a group becoming its most dependable nucleus and never letting go their leadership and experienced guidance. Almost all groups we have known change secretaries and chairmen regularly. Too often the newly chosen become only the nominal leaders of the group, without a single member recognizing the underlying cause. Of course it is suspected, but suspicion for us is always one of the three little steps to degenerative hate.
The situation usually begins when “the best secretary or chairman the group ever had” steps down, and does not go through the difficult process of turning over everything to the new leaders, including his intangibles—pride in the job and the group’s dependence upon him. The tricks of indispensability are instinctive to us “dipsoenthusiacs”—rather than purposefully thought out.
A couple of concrete examples may clarify the matter. We refer not to the group that merely thinks it isn’t doing so well, but to the many groups that have been traveling backward for a year or more. (From here, we will take turns in the first person singular.)
Last year I found myself in the position of having to start a group or not having meetings to go to. When all my so-called experience did not avail, I gave up; then God started the group. It grew like wildfire for four months and then leveled off in a beautiful fellowship. At our half-year party, someone mentioned that there were no brand- new men, in spite of the increasing death rate from alcoholism in the locality. Something reminded me of a hotel room session long ago, when one of the “First Ten” stated that he did not believe that anyone could stay “in the saddle” over AAs for more than six months without the “governed” beginning to develop saddle sores. (We believe he meant “guided” instead of “governed.”)
At the next meeting, I attempted to turn over the leadership to a lad whose new serene enthusiasm could be an extra asset to any group. He squawked and was a little frightened, and for three weeks the group fought my stepping down, even to the extent of an accusation about shirking my duty. But I stepped down.
The new leader was still a little lost at his second meeting, and on seeing why, I found it a real task to turn over to him everything that had been useful in my chairmanship: contacts with outside key members and AA events; my mental fingers on the group’s Twelfth Step work; personal notes of group value; and writing to request the leaders of other groups to contact him directly instead of secondhand through me. And then before long, the group took on a second spurt of growth, better than the first.
But here’s the catch. I have to admit not giving up my sense of possessiveness toward the group. Our correspondence with the New York office and our area secretary had become a steady flow. I was on the inside of any Twelfth Step work involving group mail and all the other group matters so dear to an AA heart. I notified the various secretaries and event chairmen of our new leader’s name and address, but it didn’t take. And second notices didn’t change our file cards in most of those places. Then, to put it mildly, I found myself “judging”; not turning an occasional piece of mail over to him because I thought it time wasting, or not good for the group, or because I wanted to handle that particular matter myself. Of course I had the experience to do it best! Best for whom?
There are three cases in my book where the “unofficial chairman’s” permanent slip caused the group to have its first growing pains. And several related occurrences that can’t be mentioned because they are individual enough to point an accusing finger, however humorous.
Every densely populated area has its pair of mighty swell paternalists, trying to garner a larger group under their alternate chairmanships by moving their meeting place into a more AA-populated region about once a year. But we give them a pat on the back because they are out in the open with their possessiveness.
To quote an old Grapevine: “The background boss who never lets the group forget about the two who became secretary and chairman and promptly slipped, or about the member who never had enough spare cash to get drunk on until he was put in charge of the kitty.”
The steering committee of one, who says he prefers a small group. (It’s easier to control by soft suggestion.) This is not as common as we thought we first recognized, so be careful not to hurt a right guy who completely lets the group have its will in spite of his well-founded fears.
In several very real instances, we have found the control to be the nonalcoholic wife of the seemingly background boss. She wants to maintain the prestige of their position in a major group, never understanding just how the new person is the most important situation within any group function. These are the wives who answer the phone in the daytime and make it nicely difficult for the stranger to find a certain meeting place on the right day.
And the rare area or intergroup secretary who almost forces groups to keep the oldest hands on the reins by subtle intonations, to ensure his or her own reappointment, and since “younger representatives to local headquarters are not so cognizant of great things in the past.”
For one so-called intergroup, including several counties at that time, two persons actually chose by invitation
