Our Group Conscience

 AA continues to exist because of its Three Legacies: Recovery, Unity, and Service. Each is explored in depth as the Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions, and Twelve Concepts for World Service.

Bill W. and Bob S. had the experience of finding that one person could make all the difference in another’s life by openly sharing their own pasts and what had changed for them. It took the recognition that a Higher Power was both the base and the apex of the triangle (my interpretation). Does my strength come only from myself? Is my daily reprieve from the obsession to continue to act in ways that keep me from being my best self, or worse, in ways that harm others, from any superiority of will? Nope. That way of thinking only served to feed the wolves of despair and continual failure.

On a personal level, if I am to be the person I’m meant to be, I have to pause, take a breath, and ask my Creator how to take the next right action.

It’s the same on the group level. No one person is Leader, either chosen or self-appointed. Each person is asked to serve the whole through meaningful acts of service. Each group decides how that will look for themselves, with shared responsibilities as laid out by the Three Legacies. How that will show itself is by “group conscience”. As in daily living, willing participants ask the God of their understanding to guide them in decision-making.

Egos clash. Willingness to break through the separation thus created equals forward movement, both at the group level and in my personal life.

I choose to ask myself if what I want to do, if who I am, and if an act of service is in alignment with my Highest Good, and with that of others. The results will show me what to work on next.