Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, this is Tim from Philadelphia, and you're about to listen to the daily reflection podcast . Yeah. Our literature tells us , uh , do not preach to the newcomer from a moral or spiritual Hilltop. You know, I have to remember that as well. That that goes for any of us and our beliefs. We have to get to know, get to know the newcomers coming through the door rather than talking at them.

Speaker 2 0:26

Welcome to the daily reflection podcast. My name is Michael Lin from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

Speaker 3 0:30

And I'm leaving again from Leesburg, Virginia,

Speaker 2 0:33

As members of the recovery community. We created this podcast as a way to provide experience strength and hope through the lens of the daily reflection book. Each day, we interview members of the recovery community in the hope that their experience may provide inspiration.

Speaker 3 0:45

We value inclusion and diversity, and we really want to provide a platform for all the voices of recovery. We aren't affiliated with any 12 step or recovery program, but you may hear these mentioned throughout the course of an interview.

Speaker 2 0:57

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Speaker 3 1:08

We hope you enjoy this episode.

Speaker 2 1:11

Thanks so much to Jeff bane , Frederick, Maryland for editing services. Appreciate your help.

Speaker 3 1:16

So we've got Tim EI from Philadelphia back in the studio. Again, it is April 29th, and he's here to share with us on the daily reflection for today, which is group autonomy. Okay,

Speaker 2 1:27

Fantastic, Tim. It's great to have you back in. Hi ,

Speaker 1 1:31

Pretty good. Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be back. Fantastic. Well, we always get started with

Speaker 2 1:37

The guest reading, the daily reflection. Can you help us get started Tim?

Speaker 1 1:41

Absolutely. This is the daily reflection for today. April 29th group autonomy. Some may think that we have carried the principle of group autonomy to extremes for example, and its long form tradition for declares, any two or three gathered together for sobriety may call themselves in a group, provided that as a group, they have no other affiliation, but this ultra Liberty is not so risky as it looks. And that's from AA comes of age pages, one Oh four and one Oh five as an active alcoholic. I've used every Liberty that life afforded. How could AA expect me to respect the ultra Liberty? Bestowed by tradition for learning respect has become a lifetime job. AA has made me fully accept the necessity of discipline and that if I do not assert it from within, then I will pay for it. This applies to groups to tradition, four points me in a spiritual direction in spite of my alcoholic. Inclinations.

Speaker 3 2:33

Awesome. Thanks for reading. So we're obviously talking about tradition for this time. I want to ask you why the traditions are important to us and why should we, you know, why should we care about this?

Speaker 1 2:49

I think the traditions are an amazing framework for putting together an organization. That's going to last a long time when you have people with egos as big as mine involved. Uh, I think it's just really important to have, you know, the principles before personalities I think is really what ties it all together as well. The AA unity, and it's very specific in allowing us to have a complete and total flat membership. I've said it before. AA is an anarchy in the best sense of the word and that, you know, if you show up on day one and you declare yourself a member of alcoholics anonymous, congratulations, you've reached the highest rank of alcoholics anonymous member. And that's a wonderful starting point that ties together with the tradition . One being all about AA, unity and tradition. Four kind of does that at the group level by saying each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. That ensures that there's also a home for everybody who wants to come in. There's a wide diversity of groups and , uh, you know, here in Philadelphia, we're lucky enough to have close to 1800 meetings a week. Sometimes I chuckle when I hear people saying, Oh, you know, I can't find a meeting that really fits for me. It's like, well, you know, they're 1800 to check out, maybe look around. Cause you know, the , the tradition for it allows us to have that variety and the traditions as a whole allow us to make sure that AA continues to work in spite of ourselves sometimes. And uh, without the traditions, you know, I don't think there would be an AA today. So, you know, going from that, there would not be this podcast without the tradition. So I'm very thankful for the traditions

Speaker 4 4:22

As MII . I mean, it's fantastic and I love the traditions and, and I have a great respect for the folks that have gone before me. I mean, obviously I'm a member of alcoholics anonymous and I'm grateful that it's here and that it has managed to stay for so long. And, and I would largely to , uh, you know, to the formation of the traditions. But before we leave the, the introduction that this phenomenal daily reflection provides the intro paragraph that comes from the , uh , AA comes of age, page one, four to one Oh five. It States, for example, in its original long form tradition for declares, any two or three gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group and it goes on, but I understand that that's actually not correct. Can you, can you help us understand why that's not correct?

Speaker 1 5:08

Absolutely. So it's kind of funny cause it's clearly talking about groups, but this quote is actually from the long form of tradition three, not tradition four , but they're written in such a way that one leads to the other. So if we look at the long form of tradition, three, it States our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. So it's talking about the individuals that make up our wonderful fellowship. It goes on to say, hence, we may refuse none who wished to recover. So it's starting to talk about how the fellowship can't refuse anybody. If somebody decides they're a member of AA, then they are a member of AA equal to all others. Then it says, nor ought AA membership ever depend upon money or conformity and any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an AA group, provided that as a group, they have no other affiliation. So that's the, of the long form of the third tradition, which is serving as a bridge to what we say in the fourth tradition, which then States the fourth tradition begins with, with respect to its own affairs. Each AA group should be responsible to no other authority then its own conscience. But when it plans concerned , the welfare of neighboring groups, also those groups ought to be consulted and no group regional committee or individual should ever take any action that might greatly affect AA as a whole, without conferring with the trustees and the general service board on such issues. Our Commonwealth there is paramount. So three, the quote from a, it comes of age is three leading into Ford's star . It's moving from the individual to talk about the group and then tradition for in the long form ties back to AA, unity by talking about, you know , consulting AA as a whole, instead of being an individual. So they do all tie together. It's , it's a completely understandable mistake. Um, but just to clarify that that quote actually does come from the long form of the third tradition.

Speaker 3 7:00

And it's really interesting because it's talking about autonomy and yet the primary mission to keep AA as a whole alive and well. So the individual member has, or I guess the, just explain to us the anarchy in the best sense of the word that you talk about a lot.

Speaker 1 7:18

So there are two major parts of that that I like. And the first is that member is the highest rank. As, as I've mentioned , um, you know, everybody is just a member, nobody, nobody is higher than any body else, a sponsor and a sponsee meet as equals. Um, these things are said over and over and it's , uh , that's a very important part to remember. The other part is that each group is autonomous. So , um, you know, nobody at the general service office can tell me to shut down my group. No other group can say that my group is doing it wrong and change it unless they become a member of my group and, you know, bring something up at a business meeting. And , um, you know, that really is an anarchy in the best sense of the word and that everybody is equal. And , um, you know, everybody is free to try their own things and Hey really understands the limits of freedom in a civilized society. You know, I am free to swing my fists wildly through the air, but that freedom ends at the tip of your nose. You know, there is no such thing as unlimited freedom. You know, you can't yell fire in a crowded movie theater as the example that gets brought up so frequently, you know, there are limits on free speech when it endangers the safety of another, you know, that's sort of what we're talking about with the groups here that you're free to do whatever you want in a group, as long as it does not affect another group or AA as a whole. And interpretations of freedom have been, you know , somewhat contentious topic in this past year, in the era of the pandemic. I think it's caused a lot of us to really reflect on, you know, where, where, and how do are there limits to freedom, you know, does a one person's to not wear a mask, supersede another person's freedom to safely walk down the street to get medication. And these are, these are difficult topics to wrestle with. I'll leave that up to the philosophers.

Speaker 4 9:07

Yeah. And so I know both of us have been involved heavily in service at the group level, and I know you've actually started , uh , meetings. And I'm curious if you've experienced this challenge of, you know, proposed changes or, or actions on, on behalf of the group that, that may put AA as a whole in danger . I mean, have you experienced this personally?

Speaker 1 9:30

So I have experienced , uh, some concerns about a group I've started. I saw a need in Philadelphia. Several of my friends had talked about how, you know, AA sometimes felt like a boys club and AA is very traditional and it didn't feel very progressive. And we started a meeting to sort of counteract that it's, you know, people call it the atheist meeting, but we want it to be very clear from the outset that we were not a meeting for ATS . We were an AA meeting that follows a secular format. We did not want to be a bunch of Richard Dawkins fans sitting around bad mouthing people who believe no, we wanted to perhaps enhance people's beliefs. So the person who found it with me is actually one of the most devout Catholics. I know she attends mass four days a week. I described myself as an atheist. I'm a non-believer and the two of us started this meeting with a secular format. And , uh, we also did a couple other things. We changed the preamble slightly to say fellowship of people instead of fellowship of men and women. Um, another thing we did is we say right in our group conscience that we alternate chairs every other month between men and women and people who don't identify with binary gender can share any monthly, like , so we've gone out of our way to try a couple of things, to make AA feel a little bit less like a boy's club for some people and comfortable for people who may not be believers in America, the fastest growing religious quote unquote demographic by far is none over the past two decades. The amount of people who check out none or not affiliated under religion has grown faster than any other religion by far. You know, I think for AA to continue, we're going to have to offer these options. Now, happy accident has come with this. We've actually had a bunch of people who regularly come to our meeting on their way to church on Sunday because they say they enjoy the sort of real discussion, the real open discussion of spirituality and the different perspectives of spirituality that we offer at our meetings. And , uh, you know, some people have been shocked to come in and find out, you know, we're not in their burning crosses . It's pretty much a normal AA meeting. Uh, we just make sure that our format is fully secular,

Speaker 4 11:47

Such a wonderful thing that you guys have done. And I, and I know that secular meetings are becoming more and popular too. I think

Speaker 3 11:54

There's a website that you can go find secular meetings. And I can't remember the name of it right now, but why do we care? Why is this important? Of course, inclusivity is just a value that I think a lot of us share, but how does, what does it have to do with age ?

Speaker 1 12:09

So I've always felt that AA is at its best when we are at our most inclusive. So if you look at the history of the preamble as an example, our most, I think if you look at meetings across AA, across the world, the preamble would be the most common thread. We have to tie all meetings together. It's been changed a couple of times over the years and every time it's been changed, it has been to be more inclusive. So for example, when it was first published in the modern forum that we all know, and I believe 1947, it said that the only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking. And who gets to be the arbiter of what is honest. You know, that seems to me to go to fly directly in the face of sort of self-selection that we have in AA through the conditions of, you know, if you say you're a member, you're a member. So in 1958, they dropped the word, honest from it. And that's just one example of us being at our best when we get more inclusive. When I start hearing things like AA does this or AA does that, you know, my, my spidey senses start tingling because, you know, AA doesn't do anything group conscience does. So whether that's at the meeting level or the intergroup level or the national level, you know, we attempt our best to figure out what the group conscience is of AA at that particular level. And when I hear people say things like AA meetings start on time and they end on time, it's like, well, unless this group, you know, voted at a business meeting or to put it in the format that, you know, we will start on time now, you know, that fits perfectly with my lifestyle. I like meetings that start on time and end on time. I like putting things in very neat boxes, but that might not be everybody. And there may be some meetings that decide to, you know, run until everybody has a chance to share. And that's okay too, but you can't make black blanket statements about alcoholics. And I guess I just made a blanket statement about alcoholics anonymous by saying you can't make a blanket statement about alcoholics anonymous, but the , uh, the irony isn't lost on me there.

Speaker 4 14:11

So I want to touch a little bit on what you said about , um, being an unbeliever and, you know, they're kind of two key , two camps. You know, the , the book States clearly in several places that you must have a higher power that you must have a spiritual experience. That's the , the goal of the book. And, and many, I feel interpret that as that there must be belief in God and I've found a really comfortable conception of my own higher power, but I do believe in something, something divine, something outside myself. Would you describe yourself as someone who believes in something outside yourself that that can help you or, or maybe talk a little bit about what your, your conception

Speaker 1 14:52

Is and how you deal with that? Absolutely. Well, my favorite number is 47. It always has been, you know, it was my hockey number growing up and I have a Jersey with 47 on it. So if we turn to page 47 in the big book, right at the very top, it says, when, therefore we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. This applies to, to other spiritual expressions, which you find in this book do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms to tell you from honestly, asking yourself what they mean to you. You know, that was a , that was a big thing to read from me because while I don't enjoy doing mental gymnastics and word replacement and stuff like that, I've been able to sort of find my own way. And here in Philadelphia, you know , the AA in Philadelphia was founded by Jimmy B thought by many to be the third founder of alcoholics anonymous. He was one of the famous early agnostics and atheists who made sure the steps are suggestions rather than rules and added. As we understood him to steps three and 11 and removed on our knees from step seven, they did a lot to temporary down and also put in tons of references to higher power rather than God. And these were big concessions by, you know , the more religious side of it. Bill w and Dr. Bob over the course of bill W's life. He came to appreciate these early agnostics and atheists and their contributions and thanked them for widening the gateway again, making a more inclusive, so more people could enter, you know, over time that's been huge because more and more people are able to enter of all face or non-face . And for me, you know, faith can be a nice acronym, too . It can be finding answers in the heart. It can be making sure that I shut off my brain and stop overthinking everything and, you know, go with what I feel in my heart. And for me, my higher power, you know, just a few days ago , um, I had six years in this program and, you know, I've been largely isolated for a year, but I had a sponsee over and we worked through steps two and three over the course of an evening. And at the end, I got to give them a hug. And after not having hugged a fellow AA in a year that I was working on step work with after, you know , doing a fairly major accomplishment, it was , uh , it was really, it was a magic moment. It was a spiritual moment and we both felt it. And you know, my higher power I think is when one alcoholic or an addict gets honest with another alcoholic or addict. There's an energy that forms between them that I've never been able to quite put my finger on, nor do I care to know that rigorous honesty really is what fills up my spirituality tank and keeps me sober and keeps me coming back.

Speaker 3 17:39

I really love that the , the energy between two alcoholics is this is a healing energy, and it's an energy that is greater than each individual. And that, I mean, it works to keep a lot of people sober. And I love in the book you read, and actually you were making me think about that, that paragraph on the top of page 47, when you were talking about the meeting that you started and how everyone's sharing their own conceptions and ideas and stuff. And I think it does tell us that not only should we be thinking about these things, but we should be thinking about all the different things and how they land with us and all that. And then also for the people that are coming into the program, or maybe not coming into the program, because somehow they heard it was a religious program or that they had to believe in God. I mean, I know that it scares a lot of people off. He tells us , um , on the first page of the chapter that, you know, to the one who feels he is atheist or agnostic, this seems impossible to choose between, you know, the death March or a spiritual life. And yet he says don't fret because nearly half of us were or have that built , right. Either agnostic or atheist. And here we are with a program like, and we're talking about a tradition that has kept this program alive, or the traditions that have kept the program alive for so long, which really have nothing to do with whether someone believes in any particular thing or not. So it's just crazy how it all kind of fits together. So what, what do you want newcomers to know as they're listening to this episode, they might just be like, wow, this is, I don't know how , what does this have to do with me not drinking today?

Speaker 1 19:12

I think the most important thing for newcomers to know is that your higher power can evolve as your sobriety evolves. You know, my higher power evolves on a day-to-day basis and I've been, you know, very lucky to have it be what I needed to be on any given day. It seems to, you know, it's not a static entity for me and that's fine for people. You know, it's important that the fourth tradition allows us to have this variety of groups because at different times of my sobriety I've needed different types of groups. So it's okay to change your home group. It's okay to have multiple home groups. It's okay to have a variety of meetings. In fact, I highly recommend it , you know, absolutely when you start find a home base, but be sure you have a variety in your meetings as well. You know, think your home group is the greatest group in the world because for you, it probably is. But also be sure that you're building that network out because there are going to be times in your recovery where a little bit of a variety is a very good thing, not to run away from the people, you know, best or care about you best, but to get a different perspective, to keep things from getting stale, it's always a very good thing. And the fourth tradition guarantees us that we have this wide variety of AA groups and, you know, every voice enhances us. Uh, every group enhances us. It gives us an opportunity for learning and an opportunity for growth. It gives us an opportunity for spiritual progress. Well, Tim, I really appreciate you coming in. And , uh , I just want to make sure we would give you a space. Is there anything else that you'd like the audience to hear? So I want to encourage anybody who hasn't to read tradition for in the 12 and 12. It's my favorite part of the 12 and 12. It talks about the Middleton group, which is, you know, our primary purpose is always going to be about the newcomer. It's going to be to help the alcoholic who still suffers. And the middle 10 group had the best intentions of the world. They were going to set up the perfect AA group. They were going to, you know , have a perfect set of rules. And they ended up coming up with 61 rules to have this absolutely perfect group and being a bunch of drugs. Of course, it all goes to hell and they're not helping out the newcomer like they thought they were, but they did an important thing and taught us an important lesson that in AA, we always write in pencil. So if you make a mistake, we can correct it. And after making these 61 rules, they've come up with what is well known throughout the rooms now of rule number 62, which is don't take yourself too seriously. And , uh, you know, as long as we can keep it a little bit light and continue to write in pencil, we will be there for the newcomer. We will be able to, you know , continue to reach out to the still second suffering alcoholic and really that's our primary purpose. And we always have to keep, keep that in mind.

Speaker 3 21:53

I love that. And I think that's , you know, you just summed it up perfectly. All this is about making sure that we are helping that suffering alcoholic. And if we have to make it as wide open and inclusive as we possibly can, I mean, we get to do that. But if the only reason is to make sure that that one person out there feels comfortable coming in and that that's what we need to do. Yeah .

Speaker 1 22:12

Our literature tells us do not preach to the newcomer from a moral or spiritual Hilltop. You know, I have to remember that as well. That that goes for any of us and our beliefs. We have to get to know, get to know the newcomers coming through the door rather than, yeah .

Speaker 2 22:30

Tim , thanks so much for coming. Absolutely. My friends. It's a pleasure. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to find us online, you can follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/daily reflection podcast. You can find us on Twitter at daily reflector. You can read stories of recovery from our community at blog, that daily reflection, podcast.com. Please don't forget to give us a rating on your podcast app. We greatly appreciate it. This podcast was produced by Lee McGuinness and Michael Lin editing services by Jeff bane .