Not-God (27 page)

“Responsibility” declared and the trustee ratio change effected, Bill Wilson’s last years — in many ways A.A.’s first years — were quiet. More and more wracked by the emphysema that would eventually kill him, his public appearances became fewer, and even his letter writing diminished to a comparative trickle. At the Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in Miami Beach in 1970, Bill was brought before the conventioneers in a wheelchair to receive their tribute in a standing ovation. Within seven months he would be dead, but now he “reached up, gripped the lectern with both hands, and in one smooth motion hauled himself to his full six-foot-three height” to address briefly those gathered. The keynote of the convention was its “Declaration of Unity,” and to this Bill Wilson gave hearty and appropriate blessing. “This we owe to A.A.’s future: to place our common welfare first; to keep our Fellowship united. For on A.A. unity depend our lives and the lives of those to come.”
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It was a significant theme: a reminder of limitation. For twenty-five years, a consistent and ultimately momentous problem had harassed A.A. and Bill Wilson: how to maintain the
unity
of Alcoholics Anonymous? A.A.’s unity was rooted in and sprang from its singleness of purpose — helping the alcoholic. Two corollaries flowed from this identity of unity with singleness of purpose. First, Alcoholics Anonymous restricted its endeavors to the one problem shared by all alcoholics — their alcoholism. Second, because all alcoholics shared the problem of alcoholism, any claim to “specialness” — to
difference
from other alcoholics — threatened their sobriety. At depth, as A.A.’s insight of the centrality of the need for the alcoholic to “quit playing God” made clear, it was the claim to specialness that was “the root of [the alcoholic’s] troubles.” The program of Alcoholics Anonymous worked because it deflated the alcoholic’s claim to specialness. Yet precisely because its program worked, A.A.’s very success in time gave rise to a new manifestation of the problem of specialness. This outcome was not surprising, for also fundamental to A.A.’s insight was the perception that even sober alcoholics continued to be
alcoholics
. The problem of A.A.’s success, then, became how to maintain its unity when because of its success some who continued to consider themselves “special” exerted constant pressure either to narrow the gateway to their particular expression of A.A. or to claim wider competence for the program and fellowship as a whole. The threat to the basic Alcoholics Anonymous principle that identified its unity and its singleness of purpose had come, over the years, in two ways: as a challenge to the adequacy of the fellowship’s claim to be “Anonymous;” and as a constant tug to expand its understanding of “Alcoholics.”
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An early and constant concern had been the inclination of some members of Alcoholics Anonymous to form “special groups.”
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The more general A.A. attitude was summed up in the title of the fellowship’s 1976 pamphlet, “Do You Think You’re
Different?”
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Alcoholics Anonymous by its very name promised anonymity. A common reminder was often spoken at the end of meetings. “This has been a typical meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. We remind you that we are ‘Alcoholics Anonymous,’ and ask that you remember from tonight what you have heard and not whom you have seen.” Yet some occupations and professions were from the beginning especially fearful of the perils of broken anonymity. Periodically, groups of physicians, clergy, and police indicated a desire to meet separately. The main consideration was that assured protection of anonymity would help potential newcomers. Through such “special groups,” requisite identification could more easily take place, and they would remove a barrier to acceptance of Alcoholics Anonymous — the fear of professional ostracism or of diminished occupational effectiveness.
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Another main impetus for “special groups” came from the same concern with the wary potential newcomer but sprang also from some perception of the religion inherent in Alcoholics Anonymous. Some within A.A. who shared a particular religious tradition at times indicated anxiety that their religious peers mistrusted the program’s closeness to religion. Further, these believed that they could explore the “spiritual depths” of the A.A. way of life more deeply with others who shared their religious convictions.
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Given the Alcoholics Anonymous definition of an A.A. group — “Traditionally two or more alcoholics meeting together for purposes of sobriety may consider themselves an A.A. group,” — there seemed no intrinsic barrier to such “special groups.” Yet Alcoholics Anonymous did not grant such gatherings recognition as A.A. groups. An “official” A.A. group was one listed in some publication, national, regional, or local; and A.A.’s New York General Service Office and its local Central Service Offices listed only those groups to which access was totally open, i.e., those that applied the traditional sole criterion for membership of “a desire to stop drinking.” Any other restriction indicated to Alcoholics Anonymous that such was not an A.A. group.
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Further, in a fairly short time, virtually all members of Alcoholics Anonymous became so imbued with the philosophy and spirit of the program that they themselves insisted that such “special groups” were “not really A.A.” Such gatherings convened usually for the indicated purpose of making easier investigation by the separately self-conscious potential members described. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous present at these “meetings,” however, insisted that such gatherings were “not really A.A.;” and they especially stressed the importance of “identification with and through feelings” rather than according to externals. Once the wary newcomer found others who shared his or her “special-ness” as well as “drinking problem,” these others began shepherding the novice to “regular, real” meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.
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The essential point was that saying, “I am an alcoholic doctor, or minister, or policeman, or Catholic, or Jew, or Humanist, or
anything
was in no way equivalent to the crucial acceptance of “bottom” inherent in “I am an alcoholic — Period.” The self-consciously professional and religious were usually marked as “getting the program” when they could speak without indicating what they did to earn a living, or how, specifically, they related to their “Higher Power” beyond the fundamental acceptance of the “Power greater than ourselves” of the Second Step of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

A more sensitive facet of the “special group” question arose from the long-standing American practice of segregation by color. Alcoholics Anonymous was harshly criticized on this score, and legend held that Bill Wilson, a Vermont Yankee, private-school graduate who had inhabited the world of Wall Street, was discomfited by black people.
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Wilson did engage in correspondence on this question. Complainants of both sides appealed to him. His suggestions — as always, he rarely proposed “answers” — contained two themes. First, obey the law, do not make A.A. too odd for any community — “we are outcast enough already;” and “live the program” — “take your own inventory,” not that of others. Second, however, he responded here in exactly the same way as to any question of “special groups” or exclusionary practice. Alcoholics Anonymous would never print “whites only” or “blacks only” in a listing of meetings, but if the community understood such from the listed meeting place, well, that was reality — part of “the things I cannot change.” Those excluded, given the A.A. understanding of its history and tradition, were perhaps by this very fact being invited by their Higher Power to form a needed new group. This last could be and has been viewed as cowardly evasion as applied to the question at hand; yet such judgment seems eminently rash as well as profoundly unhistorical, given the broad range of problems for which this faith-rooted solution was suggested and Bill Wilson’s acceptance of his own — and A.A.’s — limitations.
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But “special groups” concerned over anonymity or even over the very special problem of segregation by color were not the only nor even the major problem posed by the sense of “special” to which some in Alcoholics Anonymous clung. A more profound threat to the fellowship’s understanding of itself arose from the tendency of some members who had problems other than alcoholism to expand the scope of “their program” to others with whom they shared
only
that “other problem.” Efforts to form groups called “Alcoholics Anonymous” that would treat
both
problems were especially great among those whose “other problems” involved psychoactive drugs other than alcohol — the “Pill Problem” to which Bill Wilson and Alcoholics Anonymous had adverted as early as 1945. One aspect of the solution here was the development of the concept of “chemical dependency” and of treatment for it outside of Alcoholics Anonymous even if often by A.A. members.
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More ticklish was the problem of members with other problems who sought to restrict their “A.A.” to those like themselves; i.e., alcoholics
also
addicted to “pills.” Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Bill Wilson and Alcoholics Anonymous wrestled with this question. Significantly, on this fundamentally philosophical rather than organizational problem, the fellowship turned implicitly, instinctively, and apparently without awareness of any inconsistency to its “retired” co-founder for guidance. Resolutely, Wilson in many letters and one key article drew from two principles one significant and revealing practical conclusion.
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The first principle: since in order to be “Alcoholics Anonymous” a group must be “of alcoholics” and “seeking sobriety, … it has … been learned that
there is no possible way to make nonalcoholics into A.A. members;”
“a group [even] of A.A.s dedicated to a special purpose [other than sobriety] … is not an A.A. group.” The second principle: “as individuals we ought to carry our A.A. knowledge and experience into other areas. … All of us want the widest use of A.A. principles and practice to be the privilege of anyone who wishes to try.” The practical conclusion:
“But not under straight A.A. auspices.”
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In every letter as well as in his “Problems Other Than Alcohol” article, Wilson drove home two points. Alcoholics Anonymous had limitations:
therefore
, the name
Alcoholics Anonymous
was to be restricted to alcoholics seeking sobriety.
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Such conjunction of A.A.’s concern to protect the exclusiveness of its
name
with insistence that A.A.’s essential
unity
derived from and was even identical with its acceptance of its own limitation bore a profound significance. Alcoholics Anonymous here applied to itself as fellowship the stricture of not-God-ness that its program imposed upon its members. Thus, under the guidance of its co-founder, Alcoholics Anonymous witnessed in its very being that the acceptance of limitation begot a saving wholeness.
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The sense that a saving strength arises from the acceptance of weakness is a profoundly religious insight. A.A.’s own intuition of this was clear, and, surprisingly, most clear in a choice the fellowship made about
not
protecting its name long before the problem of “other problems” began to pinch. Early in 1951, seeking “to protect its name,” the newly-formed General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous investigated the wisdom of seeking legal incorporation through a Congressional charter similar to that held by the American Red Cross. The Committee assigned this exploratory task recommended against such incorporation. The last two of the nine reasons given for this decision established the point:

8. We believe that “spiritual faith” and a “way of life” cannot be incorporated.

9. A.A. can and will survive so long as it remains a spiritual faith and a way of life open to all men and women who suffer from alcoholism.
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The prime witness of the name “Alcoholics Anonymous” lay in its declaration of weakness and limitation. An “alcoholic” was one who could not control his or her drinking, and anonymity served as an effective reminder of the vulnerability of this condition. This very proclamation of weakness, the source of the fellowship’s only but glorious “success,” demonstrated as first truth that strength comes from weakness, ability from impotence, identity from limitation.
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The A.A. member who lived the program in the fellowship discovered that the precise factor in his life that provided the basis for his sharing in the salvation of sobriety was individual weakness. Members shared identically that which was the First Step toward their salvation — the acceptance of personal weakness and of the limitation imposed by their powerlessness over alcohol. Thus Alcoholics Anonymous solved the paradoxical challenge of the alcoholic’s sense of being “different” in a way that allowed, opened to, and indeed even enforced a joyous pluralism. A unity of identity founded in shared weakness could not be threatened — on the contrary, could only be enriched — by “differences;” for “difference” became by definition “good” when its basis was identical identifying weakness.
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Thus Alcoholics Anonymous unraveled the “But I’m Different” denial that had haunted it from the first words of Bill D., “A.A. Number 3.” The program proclaimed the telling truth:
“Yes
, you are different, only not in the limitation that identifies you with others identically limited, but in whatever strength in you arises from that weakness. Acknowledge that you share our weakness that we may also share in each other’s strength — it is the necessary first step.” The anonymous alcoholic within Alcoholics Anonymous achieved identity by positive reference — identification — with weakness. Then and only then could individuating identity by the negative reference of felt-difference beneficially take place. The sense of “But I’m Different” thus became a source of social living rather than the alienating fear it had been in the tortured life of the drinking alcoholic.
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