AA

in a Nutshell
(with notes for service work)

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship designed and administered by a bunch of ex-drunks whose only qualification for membership is that we finally realized that we couldn’t hold our liquor and wanted to stop trying to impossibly learn how to hold it successfully.

It has no rules, dues, or fees, nor anything else that any sensible organization seems to require.

At meetings, the speaker starts on a subject, winds up talking about something entirely different, and concludes by saying he doesn’t know anything about the program, except that it works.

The groups are often broke; yet always seem to have money to carry on. (Just what was that hospitality room budget anyway?)

We are always losing members, but seem to grow. (Our committees often change chair people in mid-stream, lose and gain members randomly, and yet always seem to have the right people in the right place at the right time)

We claim AA is a selfish program, but always seem to be doing something for others. (Like organize conferences that offer an abundance of opportunities to share experience, strength, hope and fellowship)

Every group passes laws, rules, edicts, and pronouncements, which everyone blithely ignores.

Members who disagree with anything are free to walk out in a huff, quitting forever, only to return as though nothing had happened, and greeted accordingly.

Nothing we discuss in AA is planned in advance, yet great results are born from the things we share with each other, and our lives get better. (OK – some things are planned in advance.)

How can we survive like this?

Perhaps it’s because we have learned to live and laugh at ourselves and with each other.

God made us. He made laughter too.

Perhaps He is pleased with our disorganized efforts and makes things right no matter who pushes the wrong buttons.

Maybe God is pleased with our simple yet sincere efforts to do what’s right for others and us.

Maybe He is pleased with our trying to be nobody but ourselves.

We don’t know how it works, but it does, and members keep receiving their dividend checks from their AA investment.

It is wise to be sober, and it is much easier, my friend, to stay sober than to get sober. (And it is easier to achieve this, my friend, by participating in service work!!)