Refer to my page about why the service structure is guaranteed to fail: I still believe this to be true, and anyone who does a Concepts workshop, in my experience, is naive and caught up in theory, not in practical reality. But just for fun, I am going to run through the Concepts and show you how they are simply the Traditions at the World Level if it could actually work, which it cannot, under Natural Law.
Concept 2:
The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs.
Nice idea. In Fantasyland. However, the Delegates would have to be re-presenting the Areas and instead, they are presenting themselves – and they are, like every other member of AA- trying to look good without having to BE good. They are good talkers. They lie to themselves. They don’t have good judgement because they are always out for their own personal gain. They are not the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs – they are towing the line of the Board. No one is using the Traditions. If this was working it would be a transfer of power, once again of Traditions 1 and 2 to the World Level.
AAWS just signed up with Google! It is all about promotion. The conference went along with it. The conference is lost. This concept is saying that the Delegates, as a result of thousands of Group Consciences in which the 2nd Tradition (the voice of God through talking and praying and listening long before voting) was utilized and equals the INFORMED group conscience of the whole fellowship. Again, nice idea – however I have not been to one group that uses the Traditions in their group conscience – and I have been to many group consciences. Therefore if the 2nd Tradition is stomped on at the group level, it only gets more about opinions and agendas the further down the service structure you go – till you get to the Conference and then you have the Board (listening to the staff regarding the bottom line) pushing us toward promotion for profit.
And this has been going on FOREVER. Read about it at GSO Watch.
The 2nd Concept is the 2nd Tradition at the world level… in Fantasyland. In reality – the 2nd Concept is a bunch of delegates who don’t know the Traditions go off to New York and are bamboozled into believing that we need to think about diversity, gender neutral language, promotion, affiliation, money, conformity, other issues – like free-thinking, sexual orientation, safety, drugs, gray pages, alcohol reform – and they think that’s the conscience of the whole fellowship – NO!
Our focus is ALCOHOLISM. If you want to stop drinking that’s our business, if you don’t that’s your business. All other stuff is outside of our primary purpose and up to God to take care of.
Anonymous Alcoholics 