Step Two
Tradition Two
If I am a member of a group, I am to adopt the purpose of the group, which is to communicate to suffering alcoholics how to recover from alcoholism by establishing a relationship with God. How are we going to do that? The group, on the basis of an informed group conscience with time and space for sound contemplation, resolves by discussion, vote, and substantial unanimity (Concept Twelve) what the group should do and how. I am permitted to have my say and even voice a minority opinion (Concept Five) if I think a bad decision has been made. But then I get on with serving the group and let time and experience resolve the issue. If I am on the losing side, having said my piece if I wish, I simply wait. I do not keep calling group conscience meetings until I get my own way. If the decision was right, all will be well. If the decision was wrong, this will become evident. God’s mills grind slowly but exceedingly well. Any rift will heal if the group's decision is respected. AA is like dough: if it is cut, the cut will vanish under the kneading hands of God, leaving no trace. I trust the group conscience, because it is presided over by the same Power that has been keeping me and everyone else sober.
Concept Two
God has no hands but ours—He trusts us, His representatives on earth, to whom He has given Right of Decision, to do the work we are delegated on the material plane. So, as AA members, we trust our GSRs, who elect our Conference Delegates, to do the work delegated to them. Step Eleven and the informed group conscience in Tradition Two form the chain from God to the Conference Delegates to see God’s work performed in AA, with decisions made then implemented through further delegated authority to the General Service Board and onwards. In Step Eleven, prayer and meditation allow for two-way dialogue between God and me. In a group conscience meeting guided by Tradition Two, the group listens to its individual members and then expresses its will, as a reflection of God’s will, in the substantially unanimous decision arrived at. In Concept Two, these two aspects are complemented by a third: the consultation between GSRs and Conference Delegates, so that the Delegates, when deliberating in committee and plenary session, can best serve God’s purpose in AA. Having asked and consulted, they act and and report back, so closing the circle.
I came to believe that a Higher Power could restore me to sanity because I observed that a Higher Power had restored other people in AA to sanity. For a start, they were not drinking, and some of them had not drunk for thirty years. That was the sanity that I was to be restored to, in contrast to the insanity of returning to the first drink when the first drink would inevitably lead soon or later to unacceptable consequences. The same principle has applied to other problems as well, which all boil down to a persistent return to a destructive pattern. Those destructive patterns came in the form of unhealthy relationships with unhealthy people, unhealthy relationships with unhealthy organisations, and—more broadly—worship at the altar of my own self-aggrandising negativity and condemnation, which stemmed from fear. God has proved the solution to fear: my spirit can never be harmed, and I have always been and will always be perfectly safe, even if my reputation and my circumstances are compromised or destroyed. God is not a protection against monsters under the bed but the light that proves there were no monsters in the first place. With the dissolution of fear go the grounds for negativity and condemnation, and I am free to engage in constructive work for God in the place of my own plans and designs. Sanity is serving God not self, because God is all there really is.
Tradition Two
If I am a member of a group, I am to adopt the purpose of the group, which is to communicate to suffering alcoholics how to recover from alcoholism by establishing a relationship with God. How are we going to do that? The group, on the basis of an informed group conscience with time and space for sound contemplation, resolves by discussion, vote, and substantial unanimity (Concept Twelve) what the group should do and how. I am permitted to have my say and even voice a minority opinion (Concept Five) if I think a bad decision has been made. But then I get on with serving the group and let time and experience resolve the issue. If I am on the losing side, having said my piece if I wish, I simply wait. I do not keep calling group conscience meetings until I get my own way. If the decision was right, all will be well. If the decision was wrong, this will become evident. God’s mills grind slowly but exceedingly well. Any rift will heal if the group's decision is respected. AA is like dough: if it is cut, the cut will vanish under the kneading hands of God, leaving no trace. I trust the group conscience, because it is presided over by the same Power that has been keeping me and everyone else sober.
Concept Two
God has no hands but ours—He trusts us, His representatives on earth, to whom He has given Right of Decision, to do the work we are delegated on the material plane. So, as AA members, we trust our GSRs, who elect our Conference Delegates, to do the work delegated to them. Step Eleven and the informed group conscience in Tradition Two form the chain from God to the Conference Delegates to see God’s work performed in AA, with decisions made then implemented through further delegated authority to the General Service Board and onwards. In Step Eleven, prayer and meditation allow for two-way dialogue between God and me. In a group conscience meeting guided by Tradition Two, the group listens to its individual members and then expresses its will, as a reflection of God’s will, in the substantially unanimous decision arrived at. In Concept Two, these two aspects are complemented by a third: the consultation between GSRs and Conference Delegates, so that the Delegates, when deliberating in committee and plenary session, can best serve God’s purpose in AA. Having asked and consulted, they act and and report back, so closing the circle.