Heaven Knows What Else

Tradition Five exists because A.A. was once tempted to become everything for every drunk, and that would have cost it the one thing only it could do. Bill W. recalled the debate (A.A. Comes of Age). The conservatives said: "One alcoholic carries the message to another. Let's keep it that simple and stay out of money trouble." The radicals answered: "We need hospitals, paid therapists, traveling lecturers, rehabilitation centers, and heaven knows what else." A rehabilitation center is a place where people live for weeks under a program. The fellowship let that dream go: "When we got rid of our grandiose ideas about hospitals, research, rehabilitation, and education, not much of a bill was left to pay." Grandiose means far too big. What was left is the Long Form's one sentence (Big Book, p. 563): each group "ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose—that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers." Now read the radicals' list again. It is today's treatment industry, almost item for item, and some of it calls its rooms A.A. The early members looked at that whole list and said no, so the groups would stay free to do the one job. Test it tonight: ask whether anything your group runs, hosts or lends its name to is on that list.