'Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.'
- The notion of non-professionalism
- Love is giving of yourself for fun and for free, expecting nothing in return.
- Service is the active expression of love.
- Wanting anything in return lowers the activity from the spiritual to the material plane.
- Non-professionalism in sponsorship
- If a sponsor wants something back, he will be frightened of jeopardising the return and so fail to say anything that might threaten the relationship.
- Effective sponsorship requires being able to say anything one is guided to say by God, even if that does threaten the relationship.
- Unconditional love heals: a sponsee is healed when he reveals his full history and the sponsor loves him notwithstanding.
- If the sponsor were being paid, the sponsee would not trust that the continued appearance of love were genuine.
- Non-professionalism in service
- If I am not professional I am not expected to meet certain standards.
- Any standard I perform to in AA in good faith is sufficient in and of itself, given the level of my development to date.
- There is no fear because there is no disciplinary authority on the material plane for failing to come up to a professional standard.
- If the delegating authority is happy with my service work, they will continue to delegate to me.
- If they are not, they can censure, redirect, reorganise, or replace (Concept III).
- Payment and service workers
- Payment can be made in AA for services that make twelfth-step work possible.
- This means we pay the out-of-pocket expenses of serving members where the activity is at the level of avocation (i.e. in addition to their everyday jobs).
- We pay the salaries of staff, at a market rate, for performing professional duties (i.e. as their everyday jobs).
Inventory:
Looking at the above ideas:
Where am I currently falling down?
What can I do differently?