The Fundamentals - In Retrospect

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The Fundamentals - In Retrospect
By Dr. Bob Smith
>From the September 1948, AA Grapevine It is gratifying to feel that
one belongs to and has a definite personal part in the work of a
growing and spiritually prospering organization for the release of
the alcoholics of mankind from a deadly enslavement. For me, there is
double gratification in the realization that, more than thirteen
years ago, an all-wise Providence, whose ways must always be
mysterious to our limited understandings, brought me to "see my duty
clear" and to contribute in decent humility, as have so many others,
my part in guiding the first trembling steps of the then-infant
organization, Alcoholics Anonymous. [AA began June 10, 1935, with the
start of Dr. Bob's lasting sobriety. He died November 16, 1950.] It
is fitting at this time to indulge in some retrospect regarding
certain fundamentals. Much has been written; much has been said about
the Twelve Steps of AA. These tenets of our faith and practice were
not worked out overnight and then
presented to our members as an opportunist creed. Born of our early
trials and many tribulations, they were and are the result of humble
and sincere desire, sought in personal prayer, for divine guidance.
As finally expressed and offered, they are simple in language, plain
in meaning. They are also workable by any person having a sincere
desire to obtain and keep sobriety. The results are the proof. Their
simplicity and workability are such that no special interpretations,
and certainly no reservations, have ever been necessary. And it has
become increasingly clear that the degree of harmonious living that
we achieve is in direct ratio to our earnest attempt to follow them
literally under divine guidance to the best of our ability. Yet there
are no shibboleths ("long-standing formula, doctrine, or phrase,
etc., held to be true by a group) in AA. We are not bound by
theological doctrines. None of us may be excommunicated and cast into
outer darkness. For we are many
minds in our organization, and an AA Decalogue ("Ten Commandments" )
in the language of "Thou shalt not" would gall ("irritate") us
indeed. Look at our Twelve Traditions. No random expressions, these,
based on just casual observation. On the contrary, they represent the
sum of our experiences as individuals, as groups within AA, and
similarly with our fellows and other organizations in the great
fellowship of humanity under God throughout the world. They are all
suggestions, yet the spirit in which they have been conceived merits
their serious, prayerful consideration as the guidepost of AA policy
for the individual, the group, and our various committees, local and
national. We have found it wise policy, too, to hold to no
glorification of the individual. Obviously that is sound. Most of us
will concede that when it came to the personal showdown of admitting
our failures and deciding to surrender our will and our lives to
Almighty God, as we understood him, we still had
some sneaking ideas of personal justification and excuse. We had to
discard them, but the ego of the alcoholic dies a hard death. Many of
us, because of activity, have received praise, not only from our
fellow AAs, but also from the world at large. We would be ungrateful
indeed to be boorish when that happens; still, it is so easy for us
to become, privately perhaps, just a little vain about it all. Yet
fitting and wearing halos are not for us. We've all seen the new
member who stays sober for a time, largely through sponsor-worship.
Then maybe the sponsor gets drunk, and you know what usually happens.
Left without a human prop, the new member gets drunk, too. He has
been glorifying an individual, instead of following the program.
Certainly, we need leaders, but we must regard them as the human
agents of the Higher Power and not with undue adulation as
individuals. The Fourth and Tenth Steps cannot be too strongly
emphasized here - "Made a searching and fearless moral
inventory of ourselves... Continued to take personal inventory and
when we were wrong promptly admitted it." There is your perfect
antidote for halo poisoning. So with the question of anonymity. If we
have a banner, that word, speaking of the surrender of the
individual - the ego - is emblazoned on it. Let us dwell thoughtfully
on its full meaning and learn thereby to remain humble, modest, and
ever conscious that we are eternally under divine direction.
Alcoholics Anonymous was nurtured in its early days around a kitchen
table. Many of our pioneer groups and some of our most resultful
meetings and best programs have their origin around that modest piece
of furniture, with the coffeepot handy on the stove. True, we have
progressed materially to better furniture and more comfortable
surroundings. Yet the kitchen table must ever be appropriate for us.
It is the perfect symbol of simplicity. In AA we have no VIPs, nor
have we need of any. Our organization needs neither
titleholders nor grandiose buildings. That is by design. Experience
has taught us that simplicity is basic in preservation of our
personal sobriety and helping those in need. Far better it is for us
to fully understand the meaning and practice of "thou good and
faithful servant" than to listen to "With 60,000 members [in 1948]
you should have a sixty-stories- high administration headquarters in
New York with an assortment of trained 'ists' to direct your
affairs." We need nothing of the sort. God grant that AA may ever
stay simple. Over the years, we have tested and developed suitable
techniques for our purpose. They are entirely flexible. We have all
known and seen miracles - the healing of broken individuals, the
rebuilding of broken homes. And always, it has been the constructive,
personal Twelfth Step work based on an ever-upward- looking faith
that has done the job. In as large an organization as ours, we
naturally have had our share of those who fail to measure
up to certain obvious standards of conduct. They have included
schemers for personal gain, petty swindlers and confidence men,
crooks of various kinds, and other human fallibles. Relatively, their
number has been small, much smaller than in many religious and social-
uplift organizations. Yet they have been a problem and not an easy
one. They have caused many an AA to stop thinking and working
constructively for a time. We cannot condone their actions, yet we
must concede that when we have used normal caution and precaution in
dealing with such cases, we may safely leave them to the Higher
Power. Let me reiterate that we AAs are many men and women, that we
are of many minds. It will be well for us to concentrate on the goal
of personal sobriety and active work. We humans and alcoholics, on
strict moral stocktaking, must confess to at least a slight degree of
larcenous ("characterized by the wrongful taking of the personal
goods of another") instinct. We can hardly
arrogate ("to assume to ourself without right") the roles of judges
and executioners. Thirteen grand years! To have been a part of it all
from the beginning has been reward indeed.