Responsibility Statement
“I am Responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.”
Table of Contents
Service in Alcoholics Anonymous
The main purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is to help alcoholics achieve and maintain sobriety. In order to do so, members are encouraged to be of service and help others.
The 12th step in the Big Book discusses service as carrying the message about AA, recovery, and the sober life. An integral part of the AA philosophy is that helping other alcoholics (or addicts) find their way to the program and recovery is vital to remaining sober. One AA cliché is “you have to give it away in order to keep it.” Being of service helps the individual as much as it does the people he or she is helping.
AA meetings are run solely by volunteers. They are what keep AA going. All meetings are organized, chaired, and run by recovering addicts and alcoholics, and none of them get any financial reward or compensation for completing their duties. What they get is recovery and the more they do, the stronger that recovery becomes.
So what exactly does service in AA look like?
Service is anything that directly or indirectly helps other alcoholics or addicts get and stay sober. Simply attending meetings and participating by sharing his or her experience, strength, and hope is one way. Here are some other examples of service in the AA program at the group level:
- Greeting members and newcomers at meetings
- Making coffee at meetings
- Providing cupcakes or cookies for meetings
- Holding a group position such as secretary, treasurer or literature person
- Chairing meetings
- Sponsorship
- Helping homeless alcoholics or addicts
- Taking AA meetings in to hospitals or institutions
- Taking phone calls on an AA Hotline from those calling for help
- Speaking to the public about addiction
District Service Positions
Members may also volunteer for positions that serve at the District level. All groups are encouraged to have a General Service Representatives (GSR). The GSR transmits concerns and information to and from the Group to the District Committee. Each District within an Area such as (California Northern Interior Area of which we are a part) has a set of officers who serve as volunteers for set periods to conduct the business of the District. They include: DCM, Alternate DCM, Treasurer, Recording Secretary, Registrar, Webmaster, and several committee chairs.
General Service Representative (GSR)
THE GSR PREAMBLE
We are the General Service Representatives. We are the link in the chain of communication for our groups with the General Service Conference and the world of A.A.
We realize that the ultimate authority in A.A. is a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. As trusted servants, our job is to bring information to our groups in order that the group can reach an informed group conscience. Passing along this group conscience we are helping to maintain the unity and strength so vital to our fellowship.
Let us, therefore, have the patience and tolerance to listen while others share, the courage to speak up when we have something to share, and the wisdom to do what is right for our groups and A.A. as a whole.
Why We Need a General Service Conference
The late Bernard B. Smith, nonalcoholic, then chairperson of the board of trustees, and one of the architects of the Conference structure, answered that question superbly in his opening talk at the 1954 meeting:
“We may not need a General Service Conference to ensure our own recovery. We do need it to ensure the recovery of the alcoholic who still stumbles in the darkness one short block from this room. We need it to ensure the recovery of a child being born tonight, destined for alcoholism. We need it to provide, in keeping with our Twelfth Step, a permanent haven for all alcoholics who, in the ages ahead, can find in A.A. that rebirth that brought us back to life.
“We need it because we, more than all others, are conscious of the devastating effect of the human urge for power and prestige which we must ensure can never invade A.A. We need it to ensure A.A. against government, while insulating it against anarchy; we need it to protect A.A. against disintegration while preventing over-integration. We need it so that Alcoholics Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous alone, is the ultimate repository of its Twelve Steps, its Twelve Traditions, and all of its services.
“We need it to ensure that changes within A.A. come only as a response to the needs and the wants of all A.A., and not of any few. We need it to ensure that the doors of the halls of A.A. never have locks on them, so that all people for all time who have an alcoholic problem may enter these halls unasked and feel welcome. We need it to ensure that Alcoholics Anonymous never asks of anyone who needs us what his or her race is, what his or her creed is, what his or her social position is.”
Copyright © 2020 California Northern Interior Area 07 | All rights reserved
CNIA, P.O. Box 161712, Sacramento, CA 95816-1712
The Twelve Traditions
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 nonprofessional, 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.
Copyright © 2017 by AA Grapevine, Inc., and Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. First printing 1952. Revised 1981.
All rights reserved. www.aa.org
The Twelve Traditions Illustrated
The Twelve Concepts for World Service
The Twelve Concepts for World Service were written by A.A.’s co-founder Bill W., and were adopted by the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1962. The Concepts are an interpretation of A.A.’s world service structure as it emerged through A.A.’s early history and experience. The short form of the Concepts reads:
1. Final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship.
2. The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole society in its world affairs.
3. To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of A.A.—the Conference, the General Service Board and its service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives—with a traditional “Right of Decision.”
4. At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional “Right of Participation,” allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.
5. Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
6. The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board.
7. The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness.
8. The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of over-all policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.
9. Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.
10. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.
11. The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.
12. The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and whenever possible, substantial unanimity; that its actions never be
personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government; that, like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.
Copyright © 1962 Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
All rights reserved
The text of the complete Concepts is printed in The A.A. Service Manual/Twelve Concepts for World Service (BM-31).
California Northern Interior Area 07 (CNIA)
California Northern Interior Area (CNIA) is one of six A.A. General Service Areas in California and extends from the Oregon border in the inland valleys south to Kings and Tulare Counties. CNIA contains 29 Districts including four Spanish Language Districts.
Perhaps more than any other group of people in A.A., the area committee is responsible for the health of the Conference structure and thus for growth and harmony in the A.A. Fellowship. If G.S.R.s are lax, if there is a lack of harmony in a district, if there are difficulties in public information or some other service area, the committee member knows it and can turn to the full committee for help.
Basically the committee is composed of all district committee members (D.C.M.), area officers and chairs of area service committees. There should be enough districts and committee members to ensure good communication between the committee and the groups. In the absence of a D.C.M., the alternate D.C.M. is a voting member.
Here are maps of the Area 07 of which we are District 21.
District Geographical Boundaries
CA Area Geographical Boundaries
General Service Office
How GSO Began
In the late 1930s, a small office in Newark, N.J., staffed by
co-founder Bill W. and a secretary, was enough to maintain contact among the first 100 A.A. members. Soon, the
fast-spreading Fellowship needed a real world service
office, and “headquarters” was shifted to New York City,
with moves from Vesey Street to Lexington Avenue to East
44th Street and to East 45th as membership grew into
the hundreds of thousands. From 1970 to 1992 G.S.O.
was located at 468 Park Avenue South.
G.S.O. Today
In 1992, G.S.O. moved to 475 Riverside Drive, where both
A.A. World Services and Grapevine personnel are now
housed on the same floor. For the present membership
of over two million, an all-A.A. staff offers the services
outlined in this pamphlet. A.A. and non-A.A. employees handle finances; prepare letters and bulletins; note
group records, literature orders and contributions; ship
material your way; and file incoming letters to add to the
rich storehouse of A.A. experience at your G.S.O.
To learn more, click on Your A.A. General Service Office F-6
© The above graphic is used with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.