The Message Spring 2015

Area G Alcoholics Anonymous TheArea Message G Sydney’s Eastern suburbs and Inner West region of SPRINGAlcoholics 2015 Anonymous Live Sober. Live Free. Area G AA Sydney is Online! Visit the Area G AA website for all the latest news and information about what is happening in your Area. Find out about events and service opportunities and make contact with other members in service. Sign up for regular updates. Stay informed. Get involved. www.areagaa.org Meditations on People (excerpts from the 12steps 12 traditions, steps 1-9) - Why all this insistence that every AA must hit rock bottom First? The answer is that few people will sincerely try the AA program without hitting bottom first. P24 - You can if you wish, make AA itself your higher power. Here’s a very large group of people who have solved their alcohol problem. P27 - In belaboring the sins of some religious people, we could feel superior to them all. Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own shortcomings. P30 - Power flows just where it is needed. Silently and surely, electricity, that strange energy that so few people understand, meets our simplest daily needs, and our most desperate ones too. P36 - If we were pretty nice people all along, other than our drinking, what need is there for a moral inventory now we are sober? We also clutch at another wonderful excuse for avoiding an inventory. Our present anxieties and troubles we cry, are caused by the behavior of other people – people who really need a moral inventory. P45 - People who are driven by pride of self unconsciously blind themselves to their liabilities. P46 - We had to see that every time we played the big shot, we turned people against us. - Where other people were concerned, we had to drop the word ‘blame’ from our speech and thought. P47 - What people were hurt, and how badly? P48 - Did I take it out on other people? P51 - Either we insist upon dominating people we know, or we depend upon them far too much. If we lean too heavily upon people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human too, and cannot meet our incessant demands. P53 - They always discovered that relief never came by confessing the sins of other people. Everybody had to confess his own. - The practice of admitting ones defeats to another person is of course very ancient . it characterizes the lives of all spiritually centered and truly religious people. P56 - Even before our drinking got bad and people began to cut us off, nearly all of us suffered the feeling that we didn’t quite belong. P57 - When we reached AA, and for the first time in our lives were among people who truly seemed to understand, the sense of belonging was tremendously exciting. P57 - It is worth noting that people of very high spiritual development almost always insist on checking with friends or spiritual advisors the guidance they feel they have received from God. P60 - Self-righteous anger can also be very enjoyable. In a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from the fact that many people annoy us, for it brings a comforting feeling of superiority. P67 - Some people, of course, may conclude that they are indeed ready to have all such defects taken away from them. But even these people, if they construct a list of still milder defects, will be obliged to admit that they still prefer to hang onto some of them. P68 - Many people haven’t even a nodding acquaintance with humility as a away of life. P70 - But we are sure that no class of people in the world has ever made a worse mess of trying to live by this formula than alcoholics. For thousands of years we have been demanding more than our fair share of security, prestige and romance. P71 - In many instances we are dealing with fellow sufferers, people whose woes we have increased. If we are now about to ask forgiveness for ourselves, why shouldn’t we start out by forgiving them, one and all? P77 - To define the word ‘harm’ in a practical way, we might call it the results of instincts in collision, which cause physical, mental, emotional or spiritual damage to people. P80 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would cause harm or injury to others. P81 - Then we are ready to go to these people, to tell them what AA is and what we are trying to do. P84 - The generous response of most people to such quiet sincerity will often astonish us. P81 2 General Service Structure Information Session Report. As part of an enacted topic of conference from 2014, General Service Office of AA has conducted a series of Information Sessions in Areas across Australia. The Area G (inner west, CBD and East Sydney) session took place in Newtown on Sunday 26 July. The session began with an introduction from Paul B, our Eastern Region Trustee, who described the breakdown of the board, trustees and core of servants who, because of our upside down structure, are at the bottom of our service structure. The twelve trustee positions on the board are broken down as class A and class B – Class A Trustees are non-alcoholic friends of the fellowship invited onto the board because of the special skills they bring in health, communication, law etc. Being non-alcoholics, they can also serve as the face of AA to the broader community without breaking anonymity. Bill W always sought out the best people he could find to serve our society. There are four non- alcoholic positions on the board. Currently we only have two. Class B Trustees are AA members. Six are Regional Trustees. They bring perspectives from each region of the country. Once on the board, however, they represent AA as a whole. There are also two General Service Trustees. These are AA members with particular skills in business and administration. These Trustees are required to live within commuting distance of Sydney as they are required to attend the monthly business meetings at the GSO. There are also two international delegates who are non-voting members of the board and finally, we have a Trustee Emiratis, Vanda Rounsefell, who attends board meetings but does not have a vote. Paul then spoke of the warranties, to me a little known but truly inspired part of the concepts written by Bill W to address AA controversy. The warranties, which constitute Article 12 of the Conference Charter, are the fellowships ‘Bill of rights’. They are as follows; “In all its proceedings, the General Service Conference shall observe the spirit of AA Tradition, taking great care that the Conference never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds, plus an ample reserve, be it’s prudent financial principle; that none of the Conference Members shall ever be placed in a position of unqualified authority over any of the others; that all important decisions be reached by discussion, vote and whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that no Conference actions ever be personally punitive or an incitement to public controversy; that though the Conference may act for the service of Alcoholics Anonymous it shall never perform any acts of government; and that, like the society of Alcoholics Anonymous it serves, the Conference itself will always remain democratic in thought and action.” Chris S from GSO conducted an informative illustration ‘how one bright idea . ‘ where attendees role play how a member can make a difference in ideas and service to the still sick and suffering alcoholic. 3 different scenarios illustrate how an alcoholic can be helped (or not) by the presence of something as small as a pamphlet with the AA number in a hotel room, and how an AA member can make a piece of AA literature available in places and situations to help an alcoholic in need in the right place and time with the help of our service structure. Leigh F, our national coordinator of Public Information coordinator gave a great presentation of different areas and what they are doing to further the primary purpose. Leigh has incredible insight and knowledge with the fellowship far and wide and collects fantastic ways our members are making a difference with Public Information ideas and how to let folks know about our treatment of alcoholism. A very informative day, please email [email protected] for any questions, ideas or contacts. NickR Area G delegate 3 Happy, Joyous and Free in Atlanta “You Are Their Legacy” The International Convention, held July 2-5 in Atlanta, Georgia, drew approximately 57,000 alcoholics to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. International Conventions, steadily growing in size, have been held every five years since 1950, when 3,000 alcoholics gathered in Cleveland to hear speakers ranging from Warden Clinton Duffy of San Quentin to Bill W. and Dr. Bob—the latter, ill with the cancer that would take his life the following November, gave a brief but now-famous address placing “love” and “service” at the heart of A.A. Love and service were in ample display in Atlanta. The flags of 94 countries were paraded through the Georgia Dome at the Convention’s official opening on Friday night; there followed a three-speaker meeting simultaneously translated into seven languages. Marathon meetings were held continuously from midnight on Thursday to 7:00 am, Sunday; there were 250 meetings in all, in a host of languages. In this truly international Convention, messages of gratitude and support were sent to the staff of the General Service Office from countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia and China.

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