Republican A.A. Groups

Tradition 3 ends on a clause that keeps A.A. in one piece, so that a drunk never has to pick a side to get in the door. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 563): "Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation." Affiliation means being officially joined to something else. Bill W. spelled out the danger (A.A. Comes of Age): "Obviously we could not very well have Catholic A.A. groups, Protestant A.A. groups," nor, he went on, Republican, Democratic or Communist ones. Picture that meeting list. A drinker from the wrong church or the wrong party reads it and finds no room that is simply his. Every second label on a group marks the door for somebody and against somebody else. Notice, too, how Bill says the line is kept: any group is "urged—though never commanded—not to make any other affiliation." Nobody polices it from above. The groups hold it themselves, or it isn't held. Today the second label is rarely a party. It is a treatment program, a clinic or a recovery residence, printed beside the words "A.A. meeting." Test it tonight: read your meeting's name and listing out loud, and ask whether a drinker from anywhere would hear his own room.