Everyone in That Town

The month ends where Tradition Five begins: every A.A. group exists for the drinker it hasn't reached yet, and the threat is forgetting he is out there. The Big Book ends its story of the first groups with one member just starting out in a big city, and says what follows once a few men there find their feet (p. 164): "there will be no stopping until everyone in that town has had his opportunity to recover— if he can and will." Everyone in that town. Not everyone who comes to the meeting. The book isn't counting members; it is counting drinkers, all of them, and it doesn't stop until each has had his chance. That is the Long Form's sentence in a picture (Big Book, p. 563): "carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers." Everything this month has warned against, the good causes, the paid helpers, the court's paperwork, the dead phone line, the class instead of the message, does the same thing: it lets a group forget the town. A group can be warm, solvent, well run and full, and still be doing nothing for the man drinking alone three streets away. Test it tonight: think of your group's town, and ask how many drinkers in it have had their opportunity from you.