One Group's Yes

One group cannot say yes for A.A., and that is exactly the yes outside programs come looking for. A treatment program wants A.A. on its brochure. It asks one friendly group to meet in its building, on its night, and to let it tell families that A.A. is part of its care. One group agrees. Look at what was decided. The public now reads A.A. as a piece of that program. Every other group in town is asked why it won't do the same. That plan greatly affects A.A. as a whole, which the Long Form says no group may take on alone without conferring with A.A.'s trustees, and it ends (Big Book, p. 563): "On such issues our common welfare is paramount." Paramount means first, above everything else. Bill W. had already drawn the line in 1947 (A.A. pamphlet P-17, p. 24): "neither A.A. as a whole nor any A.A. group ought to enter any activity other than straight A.A." And: "we cannot link the A.A. name to other enterprises in the alcohol field to the extent that the public gets the impression we have abandoned our sole aim." A group's freedom covers its own meeting, never the name every group shares. Test it tonight: ask whether any brochure or website lists your meeting as part of somebody's program.