Nobody Was Asked

A group can lose Tradition Four without anyone taking it, simply by never using it. Picture a Tuesday night meeting that has run the same way for six years. Same opening, same readings, same man at the front, because nobody else put a hand up. Nobody remembers a business meeting. When the coffee money runs short he covers it, and when the format needs changing he changes it. Nobody objects, and nobody was asked. The Long Form gives the group the decision, and the group has stopped making it. A conscience that never meets can't decide anything, so the decisions slide to whoever is willing to make them. Bill W. described how groups were meant to work (A.A. pamphlet P-17, p. 38): "They prefer rotating committees to handle their simple affairs. These committees are invariably regarded as servants — they have only the authorization to serve, never to command. Each committee carries out what it believes to be the wishes of its group." Rotating means the job passes on. The wishes of the group: someone has to ask the group for them. Today this quiet drift is the most common way a free room ends up run by one person or by one facility, because the members never claimed what was theirs. Test it tonight: ask when your group last held a business meeting, and when anyone last rotated out.