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Just For Today

Up Or Down

'This is our road to spiritual growth. We change every day.... This growth is not the result of wishing but of action and prayer.'

Basic Text, p. 35-36

Our spiritual condition is never static; if it's not growing, it's decaying. If we stand still, our spiritual progress will lose its upward momentum. Gradually, our growth will slow, then halt, then reverse itself. Our tolerance will wear thin; our willingness to serve others will wane; our minds will narrow and close. Before long, we'll be right back where we started: in conflict with everyone and everything around us, unable to bear even ourselves.

Our only option is to actively participate in our program of spiritual growth. We pray, seeking knowledge greater than our own from a Power greater than ourselves. We open our minds and keep them open, becoming teachable and taking advantage of what others have to share with us. We demonstrate our willingness to try new ideas and new ways of doing things, experiencing life in a whole new way. Our spiritual progress picks up speed and momentum, driven by the Higher Power we are coming to understand better each day.

Up or down - it's one or the other, with very little in between, where spiritual growth is concerned. Recovery is not fueled by wishing and dreaming, we've discovered, but by prayer and action.

Just for today: The only constant in my spiritual condition is change. I cannot rely on yesterday's program. Today, I seek new spiritual growth through prayer and action.

pg. 238

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Anonymity

Anonymity

Our fellowship has evolved to the lowest common denominator in its definition and practice of anonymity. This is probably due to the large amount of newcomers who are naturally reluctant to disclose much about themselves initially. To a large degree though, it is also due to a lack of knowledge or diligence by the old-timers in instructing the newcomers.

For the newcomer who is scared to death and reluctant to disclose himself the anonymity tradition can be easily confused as a veil of secrecy to hide behind, sometimes forever. To the old-timer anonymity all to often just means not using your last name at the level of press, radio, television and films. The first is a complete misunderstanding of anonymity and the second is a severely limited model of the breadth and depth of this very spiritual tradition.

No one demands that the newcomer tell all about himself in his first meeting. We understand the need to take time to identify and to begin to feel secure. We also understand the need for members to practice patience and tolerance with newcomers. They are sometimes on very thin emotional ice and we do not want to destroy what little faith they have in AA by making too many demands on them too soon. The fear of exposure is a very real fear. Most newcomers believe that if their community knew they were coming to AA they would be ruined financially, or at the very least they would be mocked publicly as being emotionally weak. They are naturally very reluctant to risk this emotional pain.

When we speak of certain AA members breaking the tradition by being anonymous below the level of press, radio and film, we are speaking about people who have been around long enough to begin working the steps and becoming responsible AA members and still stay anonymous (secret) in their own communities. We are talking about people who have had a chance to get their spiritual feet on the ground and who now have a support system behind them. It is in this population that a lack of understanding of anonymity becomes an obstruction to living a more spiritual life--and of helping newcomers do the same. By this time we should be grateful for our delivery from alcoholism and willing enough to help others that we don't mind others knowing we are alcoholic. Trying to keep our disease a secret seems to say that we really don't think it is a disease. If it were, why be secretive? When we incorrectly apply the principle of anonymity to our lives (and remain secret in our communities), we cut ourselves off from the "Sunlight of the Spirit." If we do not allow our victory over alcohol through AA to be known, then how are we going to be of help to others? How can they come to us for help when they don't know what we have to offer?

Father John Powell's best selling book is entitled: "Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am?" It speaks to the point that until we can feel fully loved, we have to believe we are fully understood, and to be fully understood we have to have shared our darkest secrets with at least one other person.

At the level of our communities we do not share our darkest secrets but we do share the fact that we were alcoholic and that we recovered in AA. Being exposed as what we are, instead of what we want others to think we are, gives our friends and neighbors an opportunity to see and judge us in a new light.

Now they can curse us, laugh at us, or ignore us. Unfortunately, this is what most AA's think will happen. Not so. Invariably they come and congratulate us on our recovery and compliment us on our new lifestyle. After hearing this from a throng of neighbors and friends we come to believe and accept that we are OK, alcoholism and all. This is the situation we must create for ourselves if we are to walk in the sunlight of the spirit.

It is in this manner that we demonstrate the principles of AA in our daily lives for others to see and judge. If they like what they see, and if they or one of their friends needs help, they can come to us or go directly to AA. It sounds so simple to be saying this but this is the primary way we carry the message.

But what happens if we remain secret, or as secret as possible, in our communities? In these circumstances we live in a state of perpetual anxiety. After all, who can be really comfortable hiding his identity as an alcoholic knowing that at any minute someone may walk up to him and confront him with the fact that he has been "found out." Of course this rarely happens but we always fear that "someone will learn the truth about us and that the truth will be bad."

Before going further it might bode well for us to examine an authority on anonymity. Let us look at what Dr. Bob Smith, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, had to say about anonymity. In doing so we need to bear in mind that it was Dr. Bob who maintained his anonymity while Bill was recklessly breaking his anonymity in a quest for stardom. Much was written by Bill on this subject after Dr. Bob died but no one disputed who the authority was on anonymity while Dr. Bob was still alive.

It was Dr. Bob Smith who, on his death bed counseled Bill, "let's you and me get buried just like everyone else." Dr. Bob also counseled others about anonymity. He is quoted in Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers as saying: "Since our tradition on anonymity designates the exact level where the line should be held, it must be obvious to everyone who can read and understand the English language that to maintain anonymity at any other level is definitely a violation of this Tradition.

"The AA who hides his identity from his fellow AA by using only a given name violates the Tradition just as much as the AA who permits his name to appear in the press in connection with matters pertaining to AA."

"The former is maintaining his anonymity below the level of press, radio, and films, and the latter is maintaining his anonymity above the level of press, radio, and films--whereas the Tradition states that we should maintain our anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films."

Page 264, 265 of Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers

These two pages give a perfect example of why we cannot be anonymous in our own groups and meetings. If we are anonymous at this level, (below the level of press, radio, and film) we are not making ourselves spiritually available to our fellowman. If we understand that the measure of our spirituality is exactly parallel to our availability to our fellowman. If we believe our book is correct when it says the only purpose of the program is to "make us of maximum service to God and our Fellow Man, then we must come to a new and more enlightened understanding about anonymity.

Again, we can hardly be of help if our own fellowship doesn't know how to get in touch with us. By extension we cannot reach other suffering alcoholics by referral if our nonalcoholic friends and neighbors do not know that we are alcoholic and have "recovered from a seemingly helpless state of mind and body." They simply would not know where to send loved ones for help if we remain anonymous at this level. At the person to person and the neighborhood level being anonymous is the same as being secret and this is the exact opposite of carrying the message.

It is often said that we must always act as a good example of Alcoholics Anonymous because we may be the only copy of the big book that someone may ever see. But how will they know that we are an example of the big book if they do not know we are alcoholic? It should be obvious that we must be identified with both Alcoholics Anonymous as well as with Spiritual Living in order to attract others to AA and recovery. Again; how can we be a program of attraction to AA if the people in our communities do not know we belong to AA?

Why then the big deal about anonymity? Our 12th tradition explains what is meant. It reads: "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities." In the long form it goes on to say that "we are to practice a genuine humility Just how do we do this?

First, we do not go public at the level of press, radio and film to prevent our galloping ego's from getting out of control, but there is something far more important than that. That thing is keeping our good deeds and our good works anonymous.

Human nature is sometimes a strange thing. It seems almost natural for alcoholic and nonalcoholic alike to want to be loved and admired. One of the ways we attempt to get this love and admiration is in letting our good deeds be known to our fellows so that we are elevated in their appraisal of us. At times we very cunningly "admit" that so-and-so was in trouble and it fell on us to rescue him from one peril or another. Very quietly we go about the process of elevating ourselves, rarely realizing that we are doing so at the expense of the fellow we are professing to have helped.

The flip side of the coin is that we have gossiped about a frailty or shortcoming of one of our fellow man. Thus we have defamed or ridiculed him. At the very least we have lowered his character and prestige compared to our own. This insidious, gossiping behavior can be prevented if only we only keep our good deeds anonymous. This is the main feature of anonymity. Now a couple of questions seem to present themselves.

How may times do your hear your fellow alcoholics talk of Jim A. etc in meetings? The measure here is a direct measure of our adherence to the Tradition of anonymity.

How many times to you hear your fellow alcoholics talk of the good deeds they have done? Again we can measure our progress in practicing anonymity simply by listening and taking stock of how well we keep our good deeds to ourselves as a society.

It might bode well for AA for us to go back to the drawing board and study the real meaning of anonymity and its implications for us as a fellowship. But first we must ask ourselves: Just what kind of anonymity is being practiced here?

The Twelve Steps		The Twelve Traditions
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptlym admitted it. 11. Sought though prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.		1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity. 2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. 3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. 4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole. 5. Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers. 9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.