Internet and AA - group web stie

(Context: for a few days I'm thinking through some perspectives on AA and the internet in preparation for a workshop)

Probably one of the few really "controversial" things my home group has ever decided to do was to set up a web site for our group.  We've never been questioned more about "what is the purpose?" and "do you really think that is OK with our traditions?" for anything as much as this decision.

The decision to try out a web site happened at a group inventory discussion one time when one of our members mentioned that he had a hosting service that he wasn't using as it was originally intended (it was set up for a class reunion that had come and gone) and so there was about 9 months hosting service that was not being used.  So it was available to us for free and we just decided to set it up and use it.

Previously, the same member had set up a trial for us of a "discussion forum" in support of our group conscience.  We'd not used that much but we saw the value and thought if we went to a better forum software package, it might be more useful.

In our Area, one group had a party about nine years ago.  A member took pictures throughout the afternoon and, as a service to the group, registered and set up a group web site and posted all the pictures to the site.  I don't remember for sure if full names were included, but I think they were.  (makes a better story anyway)

Of course, there was much discussion at the ensuing emergency group conscience meeting.  The group then decided that they did want to have a web site but they took down the pictures and set up their site in accordance with agreed upon constraints.

My group's web site really has a fairly narrow scope and purpose.  We use it to:

1. Communicate meeting times and places to new and visiting folks
2. Offer directions and parking instructions
3. Relate, if anyone would care, our group's history
4. Communicate via a forum
5. Share speaker audio (mp3's) among members
   

There is both a "public" and a  "private" forum.  Both the public and the private forum are probably going to die soon due to lack of use.  There are much better forums for their purposed discussions to the general public and our current members seem to not be able or willing to utilize this as a means of communication (it was thought that forum-style discussion would be easier and better than emails).

Even with this limited scope, our group has been accused of "promotion" and being more impersonal in AA.  I guess the thought is that, if someone wants to know something about our group, we should chase them down and tell them about it in person. (?)

Anyway, it's been up about a year now and the major accusations and discussion seems to have died down.  As with so much in my service experience as well as my own walk in this path, the whole hoopla (on a group web site) has been largely overblown (you would have thought we were actively working to kill AA by some peoples' positions).  I am amazed sometimes when it seems we want to leave no good deed unpunished...

It has been useful to a few people and that is probably a good thing.

Politics...

I met with a sponsee this morning. He prepared me Monday by saying he had a major "political" question that we'd need to deal with this morning. While they're not necessarily my favorite conversations to have, I have been in service for most of my 25 years so it does come up and we get through it...

It turns out that our Intergroup has published a set of night watch procedures which he took great exception to some of what was stated and directions that were given. Night watch is when our central office closes at night and the phones are turned over to a member of the program's phone and they can then answer calls to our Central Office (like, instead of the answering service). I agreed with him. I think we could be killing people by following those directions exactly.

So, braced by the context his first question was "Is Intergroup part of AA?". At this point I felt like I could have been channeling Mr. SponsorPants - but it was just my experience.

In my opinion, any effort of one alcoholic helping another alcoholic with experience, strength and hope in the AA program of recovery is AA. So, yes, unreservedly, Intergroup is of and part of AA. What is also true is that Intergroup is not part of AA's General Service Structure. As a result, it has it's own processes whereby it works in accordance with AA's traditions to be an extension of the groups it serves. These processes vary across different Intergroups, but our Intergroup does have a process for accountability.

The next question was "Does Intergroup abide by AA's traditions and principles?" My answer was that I expected my Intergroup would and, if it didn't, I bore some personal responsibility in seeing that it does.

So, we agreed on a 3-fold plan of dealing directly with the problem we identified.

1. As of now, we would not follow the specific advice offered in the night watch process and would recommend others taking night watch similarly ignore these parts of the process.
2. We would each talk to our Intergroup representatives and other members of Intergroup to see if we could open a discussion at Intergroup to improve the documented process - keeping much that is good in the guidelines and modifying those things that don't work in our opinion. Given that my sponsee didn't know for sure if his group even had an Intergroup representative, I thought that might be a great piece of the conversation for him and his group as well.
   
3. Intergroup, as a whole, could then either take some suggestions and make changes or not.

We agreed that, in the unlikely event Intergroup elected to not take input into these guidelines, we would elect to not do night watch shifts - given that we could not accept the processes that the group conscience supported went against what we thought appropriate for a 12 step call. Also, at that time, we would need to evaluate our participation (time and financial) with Intergroup.

Seemed simple enough after all...

Liberty...

(In the course of writing this, it occurred to me that some readers may not be familiar with AA's 6 Warranties. These Warranties, sometimes referred to as AA's "Bill of Rights" are contained in Concept 12 - Warranty 3 states: "that it (the General Service Conference of AA) place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others)

At a workshop the other day, someone mentioned the principle of "liberty" as being aligned with our 3rd warranty. This sort of surprised me - I don't think of terms like "liberty" or "democracy" as a part of AA (even though the founders certainly did...) so it came as a bit of a mind cramp for me.

I think I take the liberties offered in our program for granted - one of the many things that has come for me with longer term sobriety is I forget how comfortable those early meetings were for me. It had been a long time since I'd had someone really listen to what I'd said and understand me. Not my many problems or my drinking history or the consequences I was facing for living the life of the active alcoholic. They seemed to have "read my mail" and had way more understanding than I would have thought possible about how I ran my life and the pain that came as a consequence.

This understanding affected me at my very core.

Of course, that's not exactly the liberty expressed in warranty 3 - it expresses that there be no "dictators" in AA - that there should be no unqualified authority. This comes along with the "right of participation" that is expressed in another of the 12 Concepts.

What does that have to do with my sobriety today?

The way this outfit is set up, no one can tell me they're right and I'm wrong. I can't do that to others as well. As generous and patient as those folks were with me in early sobriety - listening to my aches and pains and problems and offering their experience and the suggestions - I can offer the same generosity to let folks run amok until their done or what they do is no longer my affair. As much as I'd love to tell them to "shut up and get with the program", what I get to do instead is offer my experience, if they want it. If no-one wants my experience (has not happened yet), I can bring it here and offer it to the blogosphere.

The promise of our Big Book and our program is that I can be useful somewhere today. That's true freedom.