According to Bill W, writing in the AA Grapevine in February 1958:
Sobriety—freedom
from alcohol— through the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps is the sole
purpose of an AA group. Groups have repeatedly tried other activities, and they
have always failed. … If we don't stick to these principles, we shall almost surely
collapse. And if we collapse, we cannot
help anyone.
How the Steps are conveyed is verbally. We tell stories that
illustrate the Twelve Steps in practice. We relate such biographical
information as provides a context for the real substance: how we know we are
alcoholics, what we have done about it, and what the results have been. The
result is two-fold. Firstly, we help ourselves by being of service to others
and reinforcing the spiritual framework of our lives. Secondly, people are
helped by identification, so they can determine they are in the right place,
and by the adequate presentation of a solution, to encourage the solution to be
grasped and to provide practical detail about how the solution can be applied.
As a by-product, certain other things happen. When I share a
difficulty, I gain temporary relief. Relief is necessary but does not itself
constitute recovery. The pleasurable sensation of relief can be so exhilarating
that one can go through the whole of sobriety believing that this relief will
somehow add up to recovery. It will not. If the sharing is not backed up by
concerted action, the result will be drinking or madness. The central purpose
of meetings is not to give people a modicum of relief from the pain of
untreated alcoholism. In fact, to do so may in fact be harming them by
reinforcing the belief that relief is recovery.
The other danger is that a collection of miserable people
can reinforce in each other the belief that their misery is a necessary
corollary of sobriety, that their suffering is inevitable as recovery is so
terribly slow one must learn to endure the hard world outside and the
brokenness within. The relief that discovering one is not the only person
plagued with irrational fear and unreasoning resentment is inimical to recovery
if it serves to make one comfortable in one's unhappiness. Recovery is indeed
possible, however: from alcoholism and from the emotional and psychological
twists that accompanying the underlying spiritual problem—separation from God
and others chiefly due to resentment, unfinished amends, and a failure to find
our purpose in serving God.
To sum up: AA meetings are most effective when they focus
not on recounting the events of the week, emotional twists and turns, and
excessive biographical detail but on sharing a solution to alcoholism.
An Anthony de Mello story:
When the neurotic comes for help, he rarely wants to be
healed, for healing is a painful thing. What he really wants is to be made
comfortable in his neurosis. Often he is looking for a miracle—a painless cure.
The old man
dearly loved his after-dinner pipe. One night his wife smelled something
burning and shouted, "For heaven's sake, Pa! You've set your whiskers on
fire."
"I
know," answered the old man, angrily. "Can't you see I'm praying for
rain?"