Today I was thinking about what my old sponsor’s wife once said to me; AA hasn’t changed, but the people have. This came to mind as a result of a rather mixed meeting today. We were talking about the Third Traditon. You know, the one about the only requirement for membership being a desire to stop drinking. I felt like I was back in the late 1970s again. Not all that bad, really. But there seemed to be a modest movement in the room to modify that particular tradition. To kind of switch the word alcoholic to addict.
Perhaps, I thought, we needed to go back to the First Tradition and why it was written. “Our common welfare comes first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity”. “We stay whole, or AA dies.” The minute someone begins to do something which would tear the group apart, we are told that we’re headed back to the caves, mourning the loss of what might have been. We learn that the individual is but a small part of the whole. The moment we begin to become devisive, we risk deviating from the spiritual principles, which our recovery depends upon. We do so at our own peril and that of others, whose lives depend upon the group. We sicken and die as a result of disobedience to these principles. Many of us have seen the result of this. We have to learn to subvert our desires and make the necessary sacrifices for the good of the whole.
AA is not a bank or lending institution. It’s not a lonely hearts club. And, it’s not a debating society. It’s a fellowship of men and women, who are united in a common purpose, to recover from alcoholism.
When asked at a meeting, I state that my name is Ned and I’m an alcoholic. That statement, seemingly so simple, conveys to others a whole lot of stuff. It tells them that I’m powerless, not only over alcohol, but a whole lot more. It tells them that I have a whole lot of history of deviation from the norms of society. That I have used and abused everything and everybody, including family and friends. I have been a traitor to all that is sacred in life.
That I have broken the laws of society and have transgressed the laws of nature and of the God of my understanding. It carries the message that there is something broken in my ability to think straight. That I suffer from grave and emlotional difficulties. I would say more, but that would begin my Fifth
Step and that would be most boring.
But it also states something else. It tells others that I am sober and in recovery. That I desire to grow along spiritual lines. That I’m in the process of grasping the spiritual principles of this program and am commited to working the twelve steps of recovery and am dedicated to upholding and following the guidlines set out in the twelve traditions of this program. That I have undergone a spiritual awakening and a change in personality. A psychic change. Or, that I am at least on the road, the path set forth, toward those goals. That I am willing to reach out and help someone else who needs or wants my help to recover. And that this is just for today.
It tells them that I am imperfect and always will be, though I struggle toward the perfection I need to stay sober and help others. In my imperfections I am perfect.
I may not have said this well, but that’s what I was thinking.