Would Disintegrate

A group breaks Tradition Five on its own the night it votes to stop going out to the drinker. Picture the business meeting. For years the group has sent two members to the detox ward on Thursdays. Lately the slot is hard to fill. Someone says the facility runs its own meeting now. Someone else says the local A.A. office handles hospitals. The motion passes: drop it. Nothing else changes. The meeting still opens on time, and the coffee is still good. Bill W. wrote in 1947 about what lasting groups do instead (A.A. pamphlet P-17, p. 38): "they stick to their single purpose of helping alcoholics to recover." And why: "Groups see they would disintegrate if they didn't." Disintegrate means come apart, slowly, piece by piece. A group that has stopped reaching drinkers has nobody new coming through the door, and in a few years it is the same twelve people, then eight. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 563) gives the job to each group, not to a committee somewhere else: "carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers." Test it tonight: ask what your group did last month that reached a drinker who wasn't already in the room.