Trained Doubters

Start with the debt, because it is real and A.A. states it plainly (A.A. Comes of Age). "Without its legions of well-wishers, A.A. could never have grown as it has. Throughout the world favorable publicity has been the principal means of bringing alcoholics into our fellowship." Not one means among several — the principal one. And it is said without grudging: "Veteran newsmen, trained doubters that they are, have gone all out to carry A.A.'s message." So this mechanism has no villain in it either. A journalist wants to write something that will genuinely help. Her editor wants a named human being, because an unnamed one reads as unverifiable, and he is not wrong about that. The pressure lands on a member — not as a demand but as a favour, asked by somebody doing A.A. a kindness. Say no and the piece runs thinner, later, or not at all, and people who would have walked in won't. Say yes and the Tradition is gone in a single paragraph. There is no clever answer to this. There is only the fact that A.A. decided in advance, and in writing, which of those two costs it was going to pay.