Responsibility, Not Authority

Every service job in A.A. looks like a position, and none of them are one. The pamphlet is exact about the difference (A.A. pamphlet P-43): "All the way from coffee-brewers to trustees on the General Service Board, those who take part in A.A. service work are assuming responsibility — not taking on authority." Then it lists who answers to whom, and the list runs one way only. "Group officers are responsible to the members of the group; intergroup committees, to the groups in one locality," and on up until "the General Service Office and Board and the board's committees, to all groups and members everywhere." Hold that against the way every other organisation you have dealt with is built. The same pamphlet does it for you: "In an average business corporation, the board has final power to determine company plans and policy." And then A.A.'s: "In industry, branch offices jump when the home office speaks. Our GSO is just a clearinghouse of A.A. information, offering suggestions based on experiences reported to it by groups." So the question to ask about anything doing A.A.'s work is not what it is called, or who runs it, or whether they mean well. It is which way the sentences run. A body that reports to the people it serves is doing A.A. service. A body that instructs them has become something else, and it did not need to announce the change.