A Town-Meeting Democracy

Before anyone wrote Tradition Four, the groups had already found out that a room of drunks has to govern itself, and that it does it by vote. Bill W. told how it happened (A.A. Comes of Age). First came freedom: "We cannot be compelled to do anything. In that sense this society is a benign anarchy." Anarchy means no government; benign means kindly. Then the groups had to act: find a room, pay the rent, open the door on time. Freedom alone didn't get that done. "As the old-timers retired, we began to elect our servants by majority vote. Each group in this sense became a town-meeting democracy." A town meeting is where the people who live there show up, argue and vote, and nobody above them decides. That is what a group conscience looks like in practice: the members in a room, with a motion and a show of hands. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 563) put it in one sentence: each group is responsible "to no other authority than its own conscience." The old-timers stepping back made room for it. Today the old-timers are often replaced by staff, who never retire from the room, because the room is their job. Test it tonight: ask who your group elected to serve it, and when.