For the Good of the Movement

A group can break Tradition 3 with one vote, cast by sober people who mean well. Picture the business meeting. A man has come back drunk three times this year, and once he shouted. Someone moves that he not be welcome until he has thirty days. It sounds like protecting the room. It is a membership rule, and the Long Form has already answered it (Big Book, p. 563): "Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover." Bill W. wrote down how such votes look years later (A.A. pamphlet P-17, p. 13): "Every older A.A. shudders when he remembers the names of persons he once condemned; people he confidently predicted would never sober up; persons he was sure ought to be thrown out of A.A. for the good of the movement." Some of those very persons, he went on, have since been sober for years and are now among the old-timer's best friends. So the old-timer asks himself: "What if A.A. had slammed its door in their faces? Where would they be now?" Thirty days is a fine thing to want for that man. It is not a thing a group can demand of him before he may sit down. Test it tonight: has your group ever voted on who may come, and could the person it was aimed at still walk in tomorrow?