Improve on Our Methods

A group that can't change its own ways can't find better ones, and that freedom is the first thing a captured meeting loses. Defending group autonomy against people who thought it went too far, Bill W. said (A.A. Comes of Age): "If, on the other hand, they found something better than A.A., or if they were able to improve on our methods, then in all probability we would adopt what they discovered for general use everywhere." He meant A.A. groups, answering to no one else. And: "Healthy trial and error always have their day and place in A.A." That is how A.A. was meant to learn: one group tries something, it works, and others take it up. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 563) protects the trying, because a group answerable only to "its own conscience" can vote to change its format next month. Now look at a meeting run inside a program. Its format is part of the program's curriculum, the same in every room the program runs, approved by people who never attend. The members can't vote it differently, so nothing new ever comes out of that room, and nothing better can travel from it to the rest of A.A. Test it tonight: name one thing your group does differently from the group across town, and ask who decided it.