Court of Last Appeal

A meeting that only a facility's residents may attend has closed A.A.'s door on the drunk it was built for. Bill W. described the moment the early groups stopped being afraid of newcomers (A.A. Comes of Age): "Who are we to keep anybody out? To many a desperate drunk A.A. is the court of his last appeal. How can we slam the door on anybody who stands outside?" A court of last appeal is the last place you can go when every other court has said no. For the man still drinking, the hospitals, the jails and his family have often said no already. The Long Form makes the open door the duty of every group (Big Book, p. 563): "Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover." Now watch it get hollowed out. A treatment centre holds a meeting on its locked unit, or in its residence after hours, and calls it A.A. The residents attend. The drunk off the street, with no insurance and no bed there, cannot get past the front desk. Nobody voted to refuse him. The building did it. A room he cannot enter is not keeping Tradition 3, whatever it reads at the start. Test it tonight: if a stranger smelling of drink walked up to your meeting's door, would anyone but the members decide whether he came in?