I wrote this post “And Yes…They Voted To CHANGE THE BIG BOOK!!!” May 20, 2021, and I am still getting comments on it. Truly amazing the comments that I get on this post. The most arrogant fools comment on this post, about how it should be changed – and today about the the 5th Edition how those 3 chapters that will be taken out of the 5th Edition will be put in the Experience, Strength and Hope Book, like that is some kind of comfort????
The workshop I am doing just finished The Family Afterward and started To The Employer today. We were discussing all the fantastic principles that are enumerated in these chapters that will be lost to the average alcoholic in years to come. I had an “employer” alcoholic in the group today who commented on the relevance today of To The Employer. He talked about someone he knew in the fellowship who worked for the Railroad – and how the Railroad sent this guy to treatment 7 times – the guy never got sober and died… the Railroad obviously never read “To The Employer”. My friend gave “To The Employer” to his boss, a restaurant owner, who had a bunch of drunks working in the restaurant and it really helped the Employer to read it.
We discussed how there will be a break in AA over this bullshit and how we will not use the new book. The masses will start out in the new books and meetings will become polluted with the verbage of these new books and we will leave Fake-A
And we discussed how It isn’t even AA now – because now they are using the Code of Conduct – not the Traditions to run AA into the ground.
I believe there will be a renewal of AA at some point soon – a movement back to the Traditions and back to the old ways. I look forward to that day, and to the rest of these people who think they are “right” – leaving these stupid comments on this post – I say – we have 2 powers in AA – God and John Barleycorn, and I leave your fate up to them.
I have also noticed in a non-AA group that I am involved in, how much havoc texting and social media have wreaked upon us as humans, and I am quite sure the same effect is befalling AA. I am going to share this here – as well – considering that today I am just rambling…
Here is a letter I wrote to the group – for a group meeting we will be having tomorrow night.
We are using Formal Consensus for this group. Formal Consensus should be used by Groups to learn how to use the Traditions, actually.
This group has been giving lip-service to using it until now – and now things have gone off the rails.
Lt’s time to consult the Principles of how to find Unity in a Group so that we succeed!
It’s likely because we began asking for more Spiritual Help– that we must now solidify ourselves more in the Principles of what makes a group successful – and remember – if this was easy – everyone would be doing it!
It’s time we all do together.
1. Review p. 22-26 of On Conflict and Consensus – the Principles and the paragraphs under each one and the impediments to consensus. – We chose to use the principles provided in the book, because of course that meant we didn’t have to actually DO anything because that would require too much work – and we don’t want to have to work.
Discuss what each means to us.
It’s not what we do, but how we do it. What does this actually mean? For example –
is it just about “putting on a barter market”? Or, because the purpose of the barter market is to create community, do we not, as a group, have to set an example of what that means (since our materialistic society has incrementally beaten the humanity out of us by systematically destroying how we have successfully treated each other for millennia – ie manners, principles, morality?
The Golden Rule – do unto others as we would have others do unto us – and how to implement that?
So therefore, the Barter Market – and how it is run – will reflect the Unity we have discovered together as a group? And – being in a group – is a Spiritual Experience – is it not?
In other words, by agreeing to get on Board with this together – we “agreed” to go through a process – perhaps we didn’t realize that we were agreeing to – right? p. 1-9 of the book talks about the Group Dynamics– How do we find Unity as a group (just US) so we can demonstrate that unity to the Community and beyond?
Attraction vs. Promotion
The public would like us to fail (because of the apathy) so that they can be “right” – that “oh we tried that and it didn’t work” – so now we can just go back to complaining which is much more comfortable therefore, WE, as a group, must be a United front. 2. What is our group? Is it just 4 individual people that gather – or do we, as a group, as a result of prayer and asking for supernatural assistance, become, when we are gathered, greater than the sum of our parts?
Are we not, in fact, when together, a Spiritual Entity? – and if that is the case, when we are apart– are we then, simply Agents of that Principal? Therefore – we as individuals cannot make decisions for the Group, outside of the Group? And therefore, the decisions we make as a group are Sacred?
And, based upon Natural Law (the 2nd Tradition) – in which there is no authority, other than “God” and “The Laws” – we being all equal – one of us cannot direct another to make a change that was not directed by the Group when gathered.
Right of Decision – another principle – if there is an emergency situation, in which a decision must be made, but none of the other group members are present, we could individually make a decision for the group, based upon our Foundation principles and our own membership.
What do we do when someone from outside the Board has a suggestion for what we should do? Tools we have at our disposal and how we use them: Meeting face to face
The phone – calling and voicemail
Texting Signal and the Signal Chat For a later meeting: If we need someone else to help us, like a Networker, what would we need from them in order to integrate them into the group?
Orientation to the group?-Read Hometown Money by Paul Glover and discuss it with us?-
Read On Conflict and Consensus, especially p. 22-26 and discuss it with us?- Read the Website – Mainly the Pages – which include the History, etc.
And even eventually – we need to come up with – How you become a member of the Board – if you want to become one? This is all in the book – On Conflict and Consensus
How you get out from being a member of the Board – ? If you have done a lot of work, etc. How we would get people out if we had to?
What happened in this group is that after we split up for the night last week, one member texted me the next day and told me to change something. This violated our group agreement – Tradition 1, 2, 5, – which falls under what I stated re the Formal Consensus book – we have to review our principles and then we have to learn to uphold them – which is being violently abused by society as society encourages us to be more and more self-centered and also encourages us to let text and social media interupt our face-to-face meetings. It is encouraging us to be double minded – which for alcoholics is death – we need single-mindedness – Unity- of mine, body and spirit under God – but now we have people talking about “text autonomy” at work which is really “stealing time”. Our society is being systematically thrown into chaos by these tools of technology.
It’s because technology is a violation of Natural Law because, as above so below, we created a servitor to be our slaves and as a result we will become more enslaved. This may seem like an outside issue, however look around the room and see how many people are on their phones?
If AA used Formal Consensus instead of Robert’s Rules of Order, it would lead to a much more egalitarian way to operate – and at this point we need that example.
Anonymous Alcoholics 