Our Real Reason for Existence

Tradition Five gives every A.A. group one job, and the threat it answers is a fellowship trying to do everything. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 563): "Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose—that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers." An entity is a body that acts as one. One purpose, not five. And the alcoholic who still suffers is the one still drinking tonight, not the member already in a chair. In the early years, members wanted A.A. to build hospitals, educate the public and change the laws. Bill W. wrote what experience taught them instead (A.A. Comes of Age): "Most emphatically, then, A.A. has but one single purpose: to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. That is our basic objective, our real reason for existence." Doctors, teachers and lawmakers have their own work. A group that takes on a second purpose doesn't double its good. It splits its attention, and the drunk who hasn't found the door yet is the one who gets dropped. Today the second purpose usually arrives looking helpful: a project, a partner, a program that would like the group's name. Test it tonight: ask what your group did this month that reached someone still drinking.