We are not an organization in the conventional sense of the word. There are no fees or dues whatsoever. The only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking. We are not allied with any particular faith, sect or denomination, nor do we oppose anyone. We simply wish to be helpful to those who are afflicted.
- Organisations structure themselves from the top down
- AA groups form an organisation where necessary
- This is like the leaves producing the branches rather than the other way round
- The branches grow from the leaves; the branches do not produce the leaves
- Sometimes the branches of AA forget why they're there
- It is not clear from the text what makes a desire to stop drinking honest
- 'Honest' could be understood to mean 'without deceit'
- This would mean actually wanting to stop drinking rather than just pretending in order to acquire membership
- This seems implausible
- 'Honest' could be understood to mean wholehearted and consistent
- A dishonest desire would be a conflicted and fluctuating desire
- In practice, even those with a conflicted and fluctuating desire to stop drinking are equally welcomed
- An honest desire to stop drinking could also mean a desire to stop drinking for its own sake rather than as an expedient to achieve some other purpose
- In practice, most people seem to come to AA not for the virtue or state of sobriety but because drink is causing problems and they want the problems to cease
- My own experience is that I only stopped returning to alcohol when I wanted to be sober and only to be sober, when I stopped seeing sobriety as a means or a bridge to achieving some other objective and wanted sobriety without equivocation or qualification
- By the time Tradition Three is adopted, the word 'honest' has been dropped
- It would be difficult in practice to police whether people have an honest desire to stop drinking
- But it's easy to find out whether people have a (stated) desire to stop drinking
- You can ask: Do you have a desire to stop drinking?
- The seeds of Traditions Six and Ten are contained within this paragraph
- Relying on God does not mean I do not interact with others and receive help, guidance, etc. from them
- To be free to serve God fully, I have to be reasonably free of other ties
- To be useful in the world, I cannot fight anyone or anything
- Fighting may be necessary, but it's not my particular job
- There are other channels of usefulness, and those are the channels designated for me