rigidity in AA

wise words spoken at General Service:

"I echo those who feel that if this Fellowship ever falters or fails, it will not be because of any outside cause. No, it will not be because of treatment centers or professionals in the field, or non-Conference-approved literature, or young people, or the dually-addicted, or even the "druggies" trying to come to our closed meetings. If we stick close to our Traditions, Concepts, and Warranties, and if we keep an open mind and an open heart, we can deal with these and any other problems that we have or ever will have. If we ever falter and fail, it will be simply because of us. It will be because we can't control our own egos or get along well enough with each other. It will be because we have too much fear and rigidity and not enough trust and common sense.                                                                                                                                             

If you were to ask me what is the greatest danger facing A.A. today, I would have to answer: the growing rigidity -- the increasing demand for absolute answers to nit-picking questions; pressure for G.S.O. to "enforce" our Traditions; screening alcoholics at closed meetings; prohibiting non-Conference-approved literature, i.e., "banning books"; laying more and more rules on groups and members. And in this trend toward rigidity, we are drifting farther and farther away from our co- founders. Bill, in particular, must be spinning in his grave, for he was perhaps the most permissive person I ever met. One of his favorite sayings was, "Every group has the right to be wrong." He was maddeningly tolerant of his critics, and he had absolute faith that faults in A.A. were self-correcting."

Bob Pearson (1917-2008) was General Manager of the General Service Office from 1974 to 1984, and then served as Senior Advisor to the G.S.O. from 1985 until his retirement. His story is in the Big Book as "AA Taught Him to Handle Sobriety," 3rd edit. (1976) pp. 554-561, 4th edit. (2001) pp. 553-559.
These words were spoken as part of Bob P's last address to GSO late in the 1980s.  The good question to ask from this is, "Does AA display more ridity or more common sense now than the day he spoke?"  This is a good question for me every day when I look in the mirror.  It's healthy to look at my fellowship with a critical eye, but it is made up of almost 2 million people more similar than differnt than me.  Am I rigid, am I petty or do I practice "love and tolerence" as my code?

Bill Wilson insigths on AA from a Century 21 vantage point

Imagine if Bill Wilson were here today.  Here are some examples of some of his recorded insights and I invite everyone to consider what Bill W would say to us if he were alive in the 21^st century.

“Steps and Traditions represent the approximate truths which we need for our particular purpose. The more we practice them, the more we like them. So there is little doubt that AA principles will continue to be advocated in the form they stand now. If our basics are so firmly fixed as all this, then what is there left to change or to improve? The answer will immediately occur to us. While we need not alter our truths, we can surely improve their application to ourselves, to AA and a whole and to our relation with the world around us…

As we now enter upon the next great phase of AA’s life, let us therefore rededicate ourselves to an even greater responsibility for our general welfare. Let us continue to take our inventory as a Fellowship, searching out our flaws and confessing them freely. Let us devote ourselves to the repair of all faulty relations that may exist, whether within or without.

And above all, let us remember that great legions who still suffer from alcoholism and who are still without hope. Let us, at any cost or sacrifice, so improve our communication with all these that they may find what we have found.” Bill Wilson, ©The AA Grapevine, February 1961

Bill Wilson was not celebrating AA’s 25^th birthday; he was concerned with what the next quarter century would look like.  Feel free to google this article to read it word for word.  You will find that he is talking about the 12 Steps leading to a relationship with God.  That was clearly true for him at the time and I am not avoiding the fact that he saw AA and God-consciousness as being a packaged offering to the still-suffering alcoholic.  The concern about agnostics being intellectual hold-outs was still part of his lexicon, although he had softened dramatically from when he penned Alcoholics Anonymous over 20 years previously.

I would ask everyone to ponder what Bill Wilson would be saying in 2011, looking forward to AA’s 4^th quarter century.  He would see that absolute belief in God was a minority opinion almost everywhere.  He would have seen that atheism in the USA had tripled since he wrote this in the early 1960s.  He would see that this was no handicap as, from 1975 until now, agnostic meetings have not only asserted their right to autonomy, but these members have for the most part, not let their divergent views slow down their service and fellowship in the mainstream of Alcoholics Anonymous.  He would have non-believer in his home group and he would talk about the Steps and principles of the program with the same identification and ease that he conversed with anyone else.  He would know Buddhists, Taoists and agnostics who, though as spiritual as he, did not use the world “God” in their lexicon.  He would have seen a world that grew to respect freedom of religion but acknowledge that this also meant freedom from religion.  He would have seen the Agnostic 12-Steps and would he not agree as he said above that the principle of AA were equally embraced in this wording as his own words?  Would he be as adamant that everyone take him as literally as our rigid conservative members do?  Or would he be saying, “Dude, chill out; we’re about inclusion, not semantics.” 

Would he look at the Humanist 12-Steps which not only remove the word “God,” but also remove all the Christian morality (moral inventory, character defects et al) and not say, “If this is working for you, keep it up?”   Would he not be glad that SMART Recovery, SOS and Rational Recovery all had track records of helping alcoholics achieve sobriety, but would it hurt him that many had been to AA, grew weary of proselytizing and left because they felt they were unwelcome?

Would he say that the original 164 pages were beyond reproach or would he be shocked that we hadn’t headed his invitation, “We know only a little, more will be revealed?”  I think he would say, “The first writing was a great start, but I bet we can do better. Math hasn’t changed in 75 years but the update kids school books every generation to ensure they are speaking the language of the day and incorporating the newest teaching techniques.  Why hasn’t anyone changed ‘To Wives’ to ‘To Loved ones?”  “Isn’t there a more recent “Doctor’s opinion?”

Other insightful Bill W Quotes:

“Intolerant you say? Well we were frightened. Naturally, we began to act like most everybody does when afraid. After all, isn’t fear the true basis of intolerance? Yes we were intolerant. How could we guess that all those fears were to prove groundless? How could we know that thousands of these sometimes frightening people were to make astonishing recoveries and become our greatest workers and intimate friends?”

“Let us always remember that any society of men and women that cannot freely correct its own faults must surely fall into decay if not into collapse. Such is the universal penalty for the failure to go on growing.”

“Let us never fear needed change. Certainly we have to discriminate between changes for the worse and changes for the better. But once a need becomes clearly apparent in an individual, in a group, or in AA as a whole, it has long since been found out that we cannot stand still and look the other way. The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.”

“Let us always remember that any society of men and women that cannot freely correct its own faults must surely fall into decay if not into collapse.  Such is the universal penalty for the failure to go on growing.”

“In AA’s first year, I all but ruined the whole undertaking with this sort of unconscious arrogance. God as I understood Him has to be for everybody.  Sometimes my aggression was subtle and sometimes it was crude.  But either way it was damaging – perhaps fatally so – to numbers of non-believers.  Of course, this kind of thing isn’t confined to Twelfth Step work.  It is very apt to leak out into our relations with everybody.  Even now, I catch myself chanting the same old barrier-building refrain: Do as I do, believe as I do – or else.” Grapevine, April 1961

“The well-heard minority, therefore, is our chief protection against an uninformed, misinformed, hasty or angry majority.”  Concept V, The World Service Manual.