The Same Night

A group that changes its plans without asking the groups they will hurt has stopped at the first sentence of Tradition Four. Picture a small town with two meetings. The big one meets Monday; the small one, eight people who started it so a few women had a room of their own, meets Thursday. The big group's business meeting votes to add a Thursday night, same hour, two blocks away, because the coffee is better there and more people would come. Nobody calls the Thursday group. Within two months the small room is down to three and closes. The big group did nothing outside its own affairs, and it still did harm. The Long Form's second sentence (Big Book, p. 563) was written for exactly this: "But when its plans concern the welfare of neighboring groups also, those groups ought to be consulted." Consulted means asked first, as equals; not permission, not a vote by anyone above them. The Big Book gives the reason the courtesy matters (p. 561): "We alcoholics see that we must work together and hang together, else most of us will finally die alone." The drunk who needed that Thursday room is the one who pays. Test it tonight: before your group changes its time, place or format, ask which other group it will touch, and call them.