Known

A member known to be in A.A. who takes a public side can implicate A.A. without once saying its name. The long form is exact about when a member's opinion becomes A.A.'s problem (Big Book, p. 565): only when it is expressed "in such a way as to implicate A.A." That is the whole of it; his own vote, faith and views are his. But implicating A.A. does not need the word. A man everyone in town knows got sober in those rooms, standing at a microphone for one side of a drinking law, is heard as the rooms speaking, whatever he says about himself. The Big Book's first Foreword told the public what A.A. is (p. xiv): "We are not allied with any particular faith, sect or denomination, nor do we oppose anyone. We simply wish to be helpful to those who are afflicted." Nor do we oppose anyone. A known member at a podium can make that sentence look false to the one person it was written for: the drinker on the other side, who concludes the rooms are against him. Today it is the professional recovery voice, introduced at hearings and on panels by how long he has been sober. Test it tonight: when someone is introduced by his sobriety before he argues a cause, ask what the audience will hear.