Short form: The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the Trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the AA purse for final effectiveness.
- The Concept refers to three forms of empowerment:
- Traditional (the authority traditionally vested in the Conference, based on trust)
- Financial (the flow of funds through the service structure, based on trust)
- Legal (the Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board).
- Tradition reflects internal submission rather than external coercion.
- We submit to the group conscience because doing so works.
- When I submit to the group conscience for direction, I am empowered with the necessary resources.
- That submission is total: my defects are my false gods; in Step Seven I recognise the irreality of the false gods and turn wholly to God.
- The false gods could be described as people, places, and things.
- The false gods could be described as money, property, and prestige (cf. Tradition VI).
- The false gods could be described as the seven areas of self: pride, self-esteem, personal relations, sex relations, ambitions, security, pocketbooks.
- The false gods could be described as the desires for the sex relation, material and emotional security, and companionship (Step Four, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions).
- The false gods could be described as the seven ego goals of sex, money, power, prestige, comfort, thrills, and appearance.
- False gods can be served wholly or partially: if I serve false goods partially, I ultimately ('sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly', page 84, Alcoholics Anonymous) achieve zero results in all departments ('half measures availed us nothing', page 59, Alcoholics Anonymous): 'a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways' (James 1:8).
- In the material world I am 100% responsible for my life: I am fully self-supporting through my own contributions (Tradition VII). That means I rely on the God within (page 55, Alcoholics Anonymous) rather than the false gods without.
- God-reliance means that my primary purpose is to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety (Tradition V).
- A close second is the practising of these principles in all my affairs: the spiritual purpose (atonement, or at-one-ment) always trumps the material purpose (the material purpose of a job or a social occasion).
- Just like the General Service Board must fulfil its legal obligations in the material realm, whilst these are secondary to the spiritual purpose of the fellowship, my material obligations are secondary to my spiritual purpose, my being spirit temporarily housed in a material form.
- The General Service Board rotates, but consciousness never dies: the Trustees will rotate out in time and be reabsorbed into consciousness; so, too, will I: there is no death, only a 'fairly major change of address' (Anne Lamott).
- The spiritual is eternal, which is why it trumps the ephemeral material.
- Even though I am 100% responsible on the material plane, God retains all ultimate authority on the spiritual plane, within which the material is housed.
- The Board cannot act without funds: if it bucks the group conscience, no more bucks will be forthcoming.
- The material cannot survive for long if it denies or opposes the spiritual, because the spiritual is the ultimate source of its power.
- If I go against God, my resources will start to dry up: I will believe I have problems (emotional or practical).
- No situation need become a problem if I recognise my position as an intelligent agent, a spearhead of God's ever-advancing creation (page 55, Alcoholics Anonymous), and immediately seek the direction and strength (resources) I need from the Principal.
- If I forget to do this, and act on my own behalf, like a General Service Board acting outside the authority defined by Conference, situations turn into problems.
- As Dr Paul O would say: if I think I have a problem, I don't, God has a problem, and I need to ask God for my role in its resolution, remembering that God has a perfect track record in the resolution of problems.
- So, when my resources are drying up, I must realign myself with God, speaking through conscience (General Service Conference, group conscience, individual conscience (inspiration, an intuitive thought, a decision, page 86, Alcoholics Anonymous), my sponsor).
- Someone who is their own higher power cannot listen. Listening shows I'm recognising God's authority.
- The drying-up of resources, the closure of the channel of inspiration, the hostility or withdrawal of others, and all other signs around me are not punishments but a call for redirection.
- When these signs occur, instead of reacting, I must pause before responding: I pray for the right thought or action, reminding myself I'm no longer running the show, and saying 'Thy will be done' (page 87, Alcoholics Anonymous).
- To listen to God in part means being sensitive to the reactions of others around me. 'One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day' (Aristotle). Just because one thing goes well does not mean I am on a roll. Similarly, if someone acts like a jerk towards me, it might be that that person is having a bad day. If several people act like jerk towards me, I might need to listen to the group conscience: maybe I am the jerk.
- In order for the power of the purse to remain effective, the General Service Board may not build up excessive funds. Sheldon W says: 'I want just enough money so I don't have to rely on God.'
- Similarly: I must observe Concept XII: Warranty I (not becoming the seat of perilous wealth) and Warranty II (sufficient operating funds plus an ample reserve (one year's operating expenses) being my prudent financial principle). This means abandoning the purpose of wealth accumulation for its own sake.
- If more money comes my way through the service I provide, my job is to entrust that money immediately to God and ask: how can that money best be used to perform service for You?
- The two commodities I need never worry about, because God is in charge of providing them, are direction and strength: I will always be shown what to do, and I will always be given the resources to do it. All other worries are variations on those particular worries, so no worry is ever legitimate. I replace worry with prudence, trust, and faith (Bill W's antidote to fear, November 1959 Grapevine article).
- Lack of power was my dilemma: that dilemma is no more, provided I work the Steps, the Traditions, and the Concepts daily in my everyday life. The flow of power is the measure of the extent to which I am doing that.
- Sometimes the General Service Board, to protect AA, must ask the Conference to reconsider, and may exercise a veto; similarly, the Conference, to protect AA, may veto an appointment to the General Service Board, recommend the withholding of funds, or reorganise the Board. Neither right may be abused, and each right reflects a responsibility: material and spiritual respectively.
- Sometimes I might need to follow my inner conscience and go against the conscience channeled through others including a sponsor, but I need to exercise great caution in doing so. Misalignment almost always calls for further discussion, vote, and substantial unanimity (Concept XII, Warranty IV). Whatever I do, however, the material responsibility is mine.
- In my own life, I am materially responsible, so I take responsibility not just for the decisions I make but for the consequences of those decisions. God gave me free will, which lands me with responsibility for exercise of that free will. I have Right of Decision (Concept III), and I'm an intelligent agent (page 49, Alcoholics Anonymous) not an order-taker, so I cannot blame any decision I make either on God or on those I consulted before making the decision.
- Similarly, I do not have unqualified authority over sponsees: (Concept XII, Warranty III): I may act as a channel for consciousness, but they must take responsibility for deciding to follow any suggestion I make and for the consequences of that decision.
- Just as the Conference does not micromanage the General Service Board, God does not micromanage me, being concerned with larger matters of policy and finance.
- By abandoning ego once and for all (Step Seven) and relying on the 'unsuspected inner resource' (Appendix II, Alcoholics Anonymous) not outer false dependencies (Tradition VII), I am able to take material responsibility in acting on the ultimate authority of God expressing Himself through conscience (Concept VII).
Inventory:
Looking at the above ideas:
Where am I currently falling down?
What can I do differently?