Delegate's Page (shows Area Committee Structure)

December 2005

While looking back upon the enormity of my experience as your General Service Conference Delegate, I reflect, and I conclude that our Home Group is the key ingredient to our individual welfare and the continuity of Alcoholics Anonymous. A.A. offers the complete path for the alcoholic who wishes to accept the incredible transformation from “hopeless state of mind and body” to “useful member of society” – from desperation to fulfilment.

We begin with a thorough admission of hopelessness in the first three steps and a decision to take a specific course of action. In steps four and five, we examine the exact nature of our hopelessness – “selfishness, self-centredness – that we think is the root of our troubles.” We find, except for becoming ready, that we can only turn the whole issue over to a Higher Power in steps six and seven. In steps eight and nine, we see even more clearly how ‘self’ caused grief for ourselves and others.

Being quite clear as usual, the Big Book tells us we must be ‘rid of self’ – moving from roughly 100% self to approximately 0% self – a very tall order! But not so depressing really, because the eleventh step tells us that “It is through self-forgetting that we find.” We finally see the truth and believe it! For me that is the ‘spiritual awakening’ referred to in the twelfth step.

Fortunately A.A. does not leave us hanging at the end of the Twelve Steps. In fact it continues with a very specific path to follow. But I think many AAs miss out on a huge opportunity at this juncture. It’s the ‘we’ opportunity, the experience of ‘unity’. One-on-one work with another alcoholic is a key ingredient to sobriety. But unless we get more involved in the Home Group, and consequently A.A. as a whole, we forego an awesome contribution to our maturity – a key ingredient to emotional sobriety.

Bill W. stated that A.A. “is a society of alcoholics in action.” Joining together in our common purpose is the opportunity for self-forgetting, real anonymity – the spiritual foundation! The Home Group is the basic unit of this ‘society of alcoholics in action’, the basic unit of ‘we’ and a crucial step toward ‘usefulness.’ Exchanging the ‘I, Me, Mine’ of self for the ‘We, Us, Our’ in home group business meetings may be, for many, the only opportunity to practise self-forgetting, at least initially. Of course, A.A. invites us to overcome any remaining contempt and travel further in this ‘spiritual experience’, because from our home group, there are endless possibilities for selfless service.

How free of self would we like to be? As alcoholics, we have to be careful – we wouldn’t want to feel good all the time! The essence of spirituality in Alcoholics Anonymous is freedom from “the bondage of self” and once into the steps, we begin to walk the walk in our Home Group.

Thank you Area 78 for the blessings of service you have afforded me,

Vic P. Panel 54 Delegate, Area 78 (Alberta, parts of British Columbia, The Northwest Territories and Western Nunavut)