Regarding the work here at Central, I’m not the one who started calling this operation the General Service Office. Other members and groups began referring to it in that way, apparently because it was serving that function, since most of our members are from other Twelve Step programs, such as AA, and know about AA’s GSO in NYC.
From the beginning, I have followed the principle of “least possible organization” (Ninth Tradition long form) when it comes to organizational structure at the national level, which is the principle most groups follow at the group level. That’s the principle that worked so well in AA. As AA developed in Akron and NYC, then started to spread, it had no organizational structure whatever. It was a spiritual entity that grew from the inside out.
After SA first went national in June of 1981, another member and I spent a month visiting groups trying to get started around the country. (What a marvelous time we had! And we both got unlimited air mileage for $398, another of those small “coincidences” that we have been party to since we launched out on “a wing and a prayer.”)
Like just about everything else in SA, it seems the book “wasn’t supposed to happen that way.” Here’s how what we now are calling our SA booklet came about and is still coming about. It was written piece by piece over time, each piece responding to or arising from some need in the fellowship.
To All SA Members, Hi everybody! And welcome to all the new members!
We were just about to get this letter out when we got a call from J.A. in Brunswick, Georgia, telling us about the new SA group there, which we didn’t even know existed. She was sharing a recent experience with me and then read what she’d written during it. I asked her if she’d share it with all of us in this letter.
1. Leaders lead and sharers share. Leaders of meetings are servants of that meeting; they don’t “carry” the meeting; they merely facilitate it.
Here are some principles thrown out for suggestion/feedback: SA members commit themselves to SA Meetings. They attend every SA meeting they can. On time. Meetings; on time. Why this emphasis?
Under Traditions One and Three, each SA group has the right and responsibility to bring up issues that bear on membership, group unity, and meeting quality. The following are merely suggested for debate and feedback, supporting the idea that if we don’t look out for our unity — both group and SA as a whole — who will?
As we look at ourselves, we see we have a long way to go: 1. There are lots of newcomers (in many groups) and initial interest and even great honesty.
