Actually It Boils Down To Simplicity

A lot of thoughts and energies went into this…

Mike left a comment today, the gist of which was that some folks were reading letters from a prison inmate at a meeting, looking, in some apparently misguided way, for help for the inmate. The inmate was not attending the meeting. The folks offering the readings also offered comments on the inmate’s daily living challenges. At an AA meeting. Then looking for feedback from the meeting.

Of course this felt awkward, even angering some. My first thoughts ran along the line that this was somehow a violation of our Fifth Tradition.

Then I read “The Language of the Heart” page 133 where Bill W. mentions that, “by 1937, some of us realized that AA needed a standard literature. There would have to be a book. Our word-of-mouth program could be garbled, we might be destroyed by dissension over basic principles, and then our public relations would surely go to pot. We’d fall flat on our obligation to the alcoholic who hadn’t yet heard unless we put our knowledge on paper.”

It dawned on me! How can we read this inmate’s letters in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous??? They aren’t AA approved literature!

Therefore it makes it very easy. This is a deceptive violation of anonymity. And anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions. Sorry, but you’ll have to stop reading these letters in the meeting…