Tradition 4 "Looking where we need to look"

Tradition 4 states: Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.

On Tuesday evenings, Sam goes to a candle light meeting held in the basement of a recovery club over in Beaverton. He likes it because it is small and quiet. There is a lot of meditation at the meeting and it is geared toward a sort of spirituality that reminds him of church when he was really little. Besides there was a blond there that he was kind of sweet on.

Everyday Sam talks to his sponsor and on this particular day his sponsor was asking him what meetings he was going to each week. When he listed the Candlelight Tuesday his sponsor erupted. “That is not a real meeting! There is nowhere in any of the literature that talks about candle light meetings…” soon his word began to sound like Charlie Brown’s mother on the phone. When his sponsor was done with his rant, exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds later, Sam simply pointed out that the traditions stated that each meeting should be completely autonomous except in matters affecting other groups. He couldn’t remember which tradition but that wasn’t the point. His sponsor told him still didn’t like it but still shut up.

The traditions protect us from ourselves. All meetings are not created equal. Some are quiet. Some are loud. Some like lots of readings. Some are minimalist. Some are 45 minutes. Some are two hours. Some are geared toward morning people and some are geared toward the late night crowd. Some cater to women, some cater to men. Some involve writing. Some are speakers meetings where not everyone has a chance to share. Some are podium meetings some are circle meetings. Some limit who gets to share: “If you have less than thirty days clean, please remain silent during the meeting and find someone to talk to after the meeting…” Some are geared to encourage the newcomer to share. Some are tightly controlled where people are called on to share. Some are very loose and anyone can speak up and share at any time. All meetings are different.

No meeting can tell another meeting what to do or how to do it. And that is OK. This tradition flows from the tradition above about governance. AA is not governed. It is a complete democracy with each meeting making its own decisions about what it does, and how it does it. This is the way it has to be.

Sam’s sponsor has every right to not like “candle light meetings”. He even may have a good reason for suggesting to Sam that he should attend a different meeting – perhaps the little blond would be a good reason for Sam to go somewhere else, especially if he is in the first year of recovery. But what may not happen is for anyone to tell “Candle light Tuesday” that they are doing it wrong and they should do it another way.

Addicts, politicians, talk show hosts and Christians tend to want to make the problem “out there.” It is far easier to blame stuff other than me for all the world’s problems including my own. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous puts it this way:

Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry indignant, self pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages it well? ….He is like the retired business man who lolls in the Florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who sighs over the sins of the twentieth century; politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would behave; the outlaw safecracker who thinks that society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has lost it all and is locked up. (pps 61-62) 

It is so much easier to blame the world than to look at ourselves: “if only my wife treated me better. We only have sex once a month, and she always nags…” or “My husband is a lazy bum. He comes home from work and only wants to sit read the paper and watch TV. I’m lonely. Of course I drink.” Or “Obama is the problem. Increased taxation and control are ruining business. I can’t afford all this.” Or “The republicans are just haters. They want to control my body, and tell me what to do and what not to do. We’ve got to run them out of office.” Or “liberals are denying the word of God. They are allowing all sorts of promiscuity and encouraging people to live in ways that are contrary to the Bible.” Or “How do conservative Christians so miss Jesus. All that stuff about caring for the poor and the widow… all the stuff about loving your neighbor? They are all probably going to burn in hell… that is if I believed in hell. That settles it. If there is a hell it is for conservatives only!”

Recovery starts with getting the addict to stop thinking the problem is “out there” and getting them to admit the problem is “in here”. The traditions stop the group from doing what the individual can’t do. For just as an individual can’t look out there and, “take everyone else’s inventory.” Neither should the group.

In the same way, Church’s need to realize that the problem is not, “Out there”. It is “in here”. As the confession states, “We have not loved as we ought…” Instead of focusing on this, however, and learning how to love. We focus our attention on what others are doing and try to make them do it our way. AA’s tradition protects against this. We are like the child complaining that we were told to clean our room, “But what about, Maggie? Doesn’t she have to clean her room?”  We want to make sure that others have their houses in order It is easier to look at their mess than our own. We need to start looking at our own beautiful mess, however. For it is by doing this that we will be freed to love and engage our world.

Comments

[Barefootmeg]

This is a rule we need to have in our Sunday school class. We're generally fine during the service and we've even done a decent job of sticking to ourselves and God in our Bible study. But Sunday school sometimes runs off into "they're such a mess" land. Basically all learning ends the moment someone starts on one of those sorts of rants.