A Center of Service

If A.A.'s own head office could never govern a group, no outside office can, and that is why a facility's hold on a meeting has no standing in A.A. Bill W. wrote in 1947 (A.A. pamphlet P-17, p. 39): "Here at the General Office we have long known that we can merely supply certain indispensable services." Indispensable means the groups couldn't do without them; merely means that is all they are. Then came his list: information, literature, advice to new groups "if asked," help in settling disputes. His conclusion: "even here at the very center of A.A., there can only exist a center of service". The Long Form (Big Book, p. 563) leaves each group "responsible to no other authority than its own conscience," and A.A.'s own office accepted that it was not one. Now picture the facility down the road. It has no standing in A.A. at all, yet it decides when the meeting runs, who chairs, and whether it runs at all. It has taken the power that A.A.'s own headquarters refused. The way in is usually service: a room, coffee, a staff member to help. Help that comes with the final say is government. Test it tonight: ask who could cancel your meeting without the members voting, and whether that is a servant or a boss.