Flipping the Triangle [Season 1, Episode 1]

- The views and opinions expressed during this podcast are those of our guests. No one person speaks for AA as a whole. - In 2018, researchers discovered evidence of a 13,000 year old brewery. While we don't know for sure if ancient peoples were getting drunk, there's a pretty good chance they were. Throughout the centuries, societies around the world have warned of possible severe consequences of excessive drinking.

Of course, most people can drink responsibly or stop if they want to, but some people just can't For them, consuming alcohol creates a physical and psychological dependency that renders the strongest willed individuals powerless to control their cravings for it. They have a disease, it's called alcoholism. Hi, my name is Nathan and I'm an alcoholic.

This is our primary purpose, a podcast produced by the General Service Office On behalf of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in the US and Canada. We'll take a close look at what goes on at the General Service Office, or GSO as we call it, as well as the people and organization it serves. Whether you're a member of AA or just want to learn more about this almost 90-year-old organization, we welcome you to this journey. We have a lot to explore. So let's get started. Welcome to GSO.

Let's start at the beginning of the AA story. How did AA start? How does AA continue to flourish around the world? Today? I've invited Sandra, director of Staff Services at GSO to help me tell this story. Hi, Sandra. - Hi, Nathan. - Sandra, how was addiction to alcohol treated before Alcoholics Anonymous? - Well, Nathan, in the time before AA in medical support became available for alcoholics in the 20th century.

Alcoholism was primarily considered a moral failing, and the treatments were often barbaric. Chronic alcoholics were locked up in prisons and insane asylums. They were subjected to all kinds of experimental treatments. Many were unsuccessful and often tortures. We also saw the rise of the Temperance Movement in the 19th century. Outta this movement came a group called the Washingtonians.

It was started by six alcoholics who thought they could stay sober by joining together and supporting one another. Their ideas caught on at first, but eventually the group fell apart because of fighting over the social issues of the day. Then comes prohibition in 1920, which outlawed the sale of alcohol in the United States. - Then Prohibition ends in 1933. - Yes, and W enters our story.

- Bill W is a 38-year-old struggling businessman living in Brooklyn, New York, and suffering from severe alcoholism. He had been hospitalized numerous times for his drinking and would chronically return to the bottle after being released. - At this point, bill is desperate. A later description said that terror, self-hatred and suicidal thoughts were his constant companions. It was at this low point when Bill was visited by his friend, Eby T, - Old drinking buddies.

- Bill immediately offers Eby a drink, - Gin and pineapple juice, - But Eby declines. Bill knows Eby to be a hardened alcoholic like himself, but here he was sober sitting at Bill's kitchen table. When Bill asked how he had done it, Eby says he accepted the spiritual principles of something called the Oxford Group. - Right off the bat, bill doesn't like the idea of anything religious. When Eby asks him, why don't you choose your own conception of God?

Bill's resistance begins to melt, - But this isn't enough to keep Bill sober. Less than a month later, bill is admitted to Towns hospital in New York City for treatment. Again. Here he meets Dr. William d Silkworth. The doctor shares his belief that alcoholism is not a moral failure, but a physical allergy to alcohol causing a compulsion and mental obsession to drink. Here, bill experiences a profound spiritual awakening, and he never has another drink again.

- That's not to say that the temptation to drink disappeared. - That's right. Bill learns that in order to stay sober, he needs to take action as well and connect with other alcoholics. - Bill makes that connection. In spring 1935 on an unsuccessful business trip to Akron, Ohio, he's struggling and finds himself in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel, tempted by the party in the hotel bar.

Bill has an overwhelming urge to drink, but, and this is an important moment in the history of aa, he remembers that talking to another alcoholic might help. He sees the church directory posted on the wall in the hotel lobby. Bill's call to a church eventually leads him to meet another alcoholic, Dr. Bob. Yes, when they meet on May 12th, 1935, Dr. Bob plans to talk with Bill for only 15 minutes. He has a severe hangover, but they end up talking long into the night.

It was a profound experience for both men. For the first time, there is another person who really understands their drinking and their many failed attempts to get sober. - Now, Dr. Bob does keep drinking, but with Bill's help, he finally has his last drink.

On June 10th, 1935, a date that marks the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous, - Bill and Bob soon realized that the best way to help other alcoholics was to talk about their own drinking and the idea that alcoholism was a disease, not a moral failing. - Later that summer, bill returns to New York and begins to have success with patients from Towns hospital.

He and his wife Lois, welcome alcoholics at their small Brooklyn apartment just as Dr. Bob and his wife Anne were doing in their home in Akron. By late 1937, bill and Dr. Bob are astonished to find that after two years of working with dozens of alcoholics, about 40 were staying sober. AA was up and running. - Now they look for ways to carry this message of hope to even more suffering alcoholics. They agree to write a book.

Here we come to the pivotal story of how Bill, through his connections, ends up meeting with John d Rockefeller, Jr. To ask for a $50,000 contribution to the book Project. Rockefeller was a prominent financier and philanthropist. He agrees only to a $5,000 contribution after one of his advisors asks, isn't money going to spoil this thing? A light bulb goes on for Bill, and the idea of AA self-support takes root. More to come on that in this episode, - But back to Bill and Dr. Bob's book project.

After more than a year of writing, bill thinks we need a definite statement of concrete principles that these drunks can't wiggle out of. So he writes a first draft of the 12 steps. The book, which is officially titled Alcoholics Anonymous, is published on April 10th, 1939, 4,650. Copies of the first edition roll off the presses - Today, the book is known by millions as the big book. It has sold more than 40 million copies in English alone and is available in 75 languages in 1940.

The first general service office is established in lower Manhattan to provide general service to the rapidly growing organization. By 1950, there are a hundred thousand recovering alcoholics in AA worldwide. - The growth of AA since that time has been pretty amazing. AA is active in more than 180 countries, and our publications have been translated into 110 languages and counting.

Today, the general service office in New York City serves AA in the United States and Canada, and also offers services to AA internationally, especially to countries where there's no service structure. Since we're a large nonprofit organization, we do have board governance, but our service structure is unique. It's a bottom up versus top down structure and involves members throughout the organization. - We'll hear more about our service structure later in the episode.

Sandra, thank you for that glimpse of AA history. - Nathan, - It has been my pleasure. For more information about aa, please visit our website@aa.org. - Briefly mentioned in the AA story were the 12 steps. These steps are suggested as a program of recovery, and they're a big part of what AA is all about. Along with the 12 steps, there are also 12 traditions. Just like the steps, the traditions are suggestions. There are no rules in aa, no musts, no have tos. Every group is autonomous.

That's actually part of tradition four. The fifth tradition states that each group has but one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. The seventh tradition states, every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. In the early pioneering years of AA groups primarily met in people's homes, but the fellowship expanded quickly, and as Bill w himself will tell you, - Well, after a while, Holmes got too small.

We had to move into halls and we can all smile. As we think of the great cries that went up from us drunk, when landlords actually had the nerve to charge us money for those halls, the heartless things, why we said to the landlords, we can't mix money with spirituality. The landlord said, well, that's all right for me, but you don't get the hall. So it cost a little something, and we began to drop money in the hat.

- We began to drop money in the hat, meaning we were collecting money from each other, self-support straight from the GSO archives. That recording was Bill W speaking at the International Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, 1955. Now, nearly 70 years later, the necessity of self support remains the same for why and how GSO implements this practice. We take you to the source affectionately known around the office as Zenni.

- My name is Zenida Medina and I am the controller at the General Service Office. - Last name? - Yes. That's okay. I'm not a member of aa. - So you don't need to be a member to work at GSL? - No, not all positions are required to be a member of AA in the finance department. No one is required to be a member. - What does the controller do?

- As the controller of aa, I go over the day-to-day activity of the accounting department to make sure that our reports are accurate so that the CFO can report accurately to the board. - So you know a thing or two about self-support in aa. - I've been around quite a while, so yes. - What do we mean by self-support? - Self-support means accepting contributions only from AA members. - How do we support ourselves? - So we do have two revenue streams.

Our first is literature sales. We sell recovery literature. We are a wholesaler, so a lot of treatment centers, hospitals, as well as groups and intergroup central offices. All purchase literature from us - And anyone can purchase literature. - Anyone can purchase literature. And then the other stream of revenue is contributions. We accept contributions only from AA members. - What about AA entities? Like AA groups or districts?

- Right, so there is no limit to AA groups, conferences, areas, districts, assemblies, events. We also receive contributions as long as we know that they're all from AA members and that has no limit. The only other limit there is is for bequest, which is anyone leaving money to us in their will. There's a $10,000 limit to that. - So how can you tell if a contribution is coming from a member?

- So we have a couple of different methods that we use to try to navigate all of the contributions that we receive. We receive more than 4,000 physical checks to the office on a monthly basis. - Wow. - 20% of our contributions comes from online and online. Everybody can put in all the information, but as soon as you go in, the first thing that it asks you, are you an AA member? Once you click that, then you can move on to the next steps in giving the contributions.

But we don't have that feature when we receive that physical checks to the office. If there is no information on the check, we look to see if they've done a contribution in the past to see if we have history of this person in our system. And then if we can't tell at all and there's just no way of telling, we actually return the contribution with a letter and the return envelope asking, you know, this is what we're doing. We're sending it out to ask if you're a member of aa.

And then once they tell us and and they can return the check, then we'll actually go ahead and put it into the system. We've returned hundreds of thousands a year, and that's kind of hard, you know, as an non AA member to see a check in front of you and you have to return it. But I stopped feeling that way because it works. It just works. - So in essence, this is exactly what we mean by self-support.

- Absolutely. It's just declining outside contributions, just accepting contributions from AA members. - But financially speaking, it seems like AA could really benefit from outside contributions or lifting the max amount. Why is it so important to maintain this tradition of self-support? - It's important to maintain the integrity of the organization.

If one person, or you know, multiple people contribute vast amounts of money, it's definitely gonna try to influence the program, and that's not something that we accept. - And why don't we accept that? - Because it interferes with the primary purpose, which is to help alcoholics achieve sobriety. Self-support is something that I didn't know about before working for the program of aa. I didn't understand it. I didn't know the reason for it or why it even existed.

It didn't make any sense as an accountant. 'cause I was just hired for my skills. That's it. So I had to learn a lot. But working at the office, interacting with visitors, definitely reading the literature and just working on a daily basis here really, really taught me a lot about why the program is the way that it is and why it works. - Thanks, zani. - Thank you, Nathan. - In this podcast, we respect the anonymity of AA members. Last names are shared only for those who are not in aa.

For more information on Grapevine and Lania, including the magazines podcast, Instagram and apps, please visit aa grapevine.org and aa levina.org. - Well, I think we're off to a pretty good start. We've talked about what alcoholism is, the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and how AA supports itself. Now, a big question remains, who is sailing the ship? Who runs this thing? Does AA have a president or a CEO? No, it does not. There is no one leader of aa.

So who's in charge? Who keeps this boat afloat? The answer is all of us. The great fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here's how it works. So first, you gotta imagine the structure of a typical organization as a triangle, standing tall with a tiny pointy top where a select few folks hold all the power. They're the decision makers calling all the shots for everyone else down below the wide base of the triangle, who are mostly just along for the ride.

Well, the general service structure of Alcoholics Anonymous flips that triangle on its head. The pointy top is now on the bottom. The broad base is on top and is now the final authority. That final authority is the AA groups. An AA group is two or more, sometimes many more people who come together to help each other stay sober and to share this program of hope and recovery with other problem drinkers. That's the only goal of an AA group recovery from alcoholism.

Anyone who wants help with a drinking problem is welcome in aa, and it's free. There are no fees or requirements of any kind. The collective opinion of an AA group is known as a group conscience. There are hundreds of thousands of groups in the US and Canada that choose to participate in this service structure. Their collective opinions affecting AA as a whole are heard and funneled all the way down to the bottom point of our upside down triangle, which is the General Service Board of trustees.

How does it get there? The service structure of Alcoholics Anonymous in the US and Canada is divided into 93 areas once a year. Elected representatives from those 93 areas known as delegates, bring those collective opinions with them and come together here in New York City to consider, discuss deliberate debate and vote on these matters of importance to AA as a whole. This event is called The General Service Conference. What kinds of decisions are made at the conference?

All kinds. Should we publish a new book or other piece of literature? Should we create a podcast? These are decisions made at the conference level. Now, how are the actions implemented? The answer to that and much more is exactly what we'll be exploring in this podcast. We'll explore the many ways GSO supports the AA fellowship to carry the message of hope and recovery to the suffering alcoholic, which is our primary purpose.

- To find a meeting near you or a meeting online, download the Meeting Guide app on your mobile device. - One of the best parts of working at GSO is getting to meet visitors from around the world. - Hi, I'm Danielle. I'm an alcoholic and I am 10 months and three days sober. I drank for almost 20 years, pretty much constantly. If I wasn't at work, I was drunk. And I finally found myself in the rooms of AA because I tried everything else to get sober and nothing else worked.

So I thought that I would just try aa. I finally went to my first AA meeting. I got a sponsor. My sponsor wanted me to get a home group. It's part of the, you know, the, the triangle is unity Service and recovery. You know, an important part of that is the unity part. So I joined a home group and it was a women's group, and I was kind of advised by my sponsor and some other people that I knew in the program just to jump in. So I became GSR for my home group.

- That's the general service representative. You were elected to represent your group at district and area assemblies? - I can't say no. That's what I used to do was just say no to everything and everyone and just drink. Now, when people ask me to do things in aa, I, I always agree because it, it just keeps taking me to bigger and better things. And so - Here you are at GSO. - Here I am at GSO. You know, it's a beautiful area and everyone who works here has been really nice.

And we kind of got to meet some people. We got shown like all the different departments, the shipping and mailing room also, which was cool because they had like the big book in every single language. So that was, that was pretty cool to see that actually being here in GSO makes me feel even more connected and even more a part of the people in GSO are just, are just like anyone else that you would find at a meeting. They're just regular people.

You know, there was a, a young woman that, you know, I I, me and her kind of connected right away. I mean, she has a neck tattoo, which is great. I mean, you know, there's people in the office of, you know, all ethnicities, all age ranges. And it's really cool that there's a meeting here. There's like a conference table and we just sit there and just have a meeting. And it was, it was a really, it was a really good meeting. I'm so grateful for aa, I mean, I owe a, I owe my life to aa.

I honestly, I honestly do like it's real for me. - Thank you Danielle, for sharing your experience, strength, and hope. And thank you listener for sharing your time and attention in this our inaugural episode of our primary purpose. We are just cracking the surface of what we have in store for you. So be sure to subscribe so you can keep coming back.

- Thank you for listening to our Primary Purpose, a podcast produced by the General Service Office on behalf of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in the US and Canada.