Not-God (50 page)

But none of these schemes or projects changed the reality of A.A. World Service’s ultimate dependence on revenues derived from literature sales. The problem that arose by the late seventies and that reached crisis proportions by the late eighties has already been introduced: selling literature outside Alcoholics Anonymous at a profit was seen as “increasingly violating” the Tradition of self-support. For A.A. to balance its budget by such sales to treatment centers seemed also, less directly, to jeopardize the Tradition of non-affiliation.
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The problem had arisen almost unnoticed, but nevertheless suddenly, around 1977. At that year’s twenty-seventh meeting of the General Service Conference, the question was first raised in the Ask-It-Basket session: “Does the large amount of literature sold to outside agencies conflict with our Tradition of being self-supporting?” The concern was brushed aside: “Sales to everyone outside A.A. combined are less than 5% of our total sales.”
⁸⁶
At the 1978 Conference, a delegate questioned sales figures without adverting to the self-support concern. By this time, one brief year later, the answer had changed substantially: “About 15% [of A.A. literature is sold to non-A.A. buyers]. One facility alone buys 10%.”
⁸⁷

A decade later — as Alcoholics Anonymous prepared to confront this apparent challenge to its Tradition of self-support by choosing as the theme of its Thirty-seventh General Service Conference the topic “The Seventh Tradition: A Turning Point” — the percentage of literature sales outside A.A. has increased to just short of 50 percent, with one large treatment facility accounting for two-thirds of that figure. Meanwhile, a late-1986 appeal to groups for greater contribution support sparked several rejections for, among other things, the “slickness” of the kit supporting it.
⁸⁸

The complaints about the appeal echoed the experience of eleven years earlier, when Dr. Norris’s proposal for “regional service meetings” that would allow the General Service Board closer contact with A.A.’s grass roots was interpreted as “New York trying to dominate.” But others saw a deeper danger: “dependency on publishing income to cover the shortfall of group contributions … threatens a very basic element in Alcoholics Anonymous — that we are self-supporting and unaffiliated because of group contributions.”
⁸⁹
A late 1986 article in
Box 4-5-9
spelled out the precise peril: it involved “The Power of the Purse.”

Although not an insoluble problem, concern over self-support had been present from the unwilled beginning of that tradition in the Rockefeller refusal of 1938 — a point often recalled as representatives searched for solutions in 1986. By the spring of 1987, the pressure had been relieved, and a resolution seemed at hand. As the General Service Conference “Early Bird” edition of Box
4-5-9
reported:

As general manager John B. put it in a private conversation: “The members’ spirituality has allowed them to see the necessity of increased support, and that same spirituality has led them to respond generously.”
⁹²

A smaller, related concern that also peaked in 1986—87 had a briefer but nevertheless substantial history. This lesser problem also found less of a solution. Since 1945, A.A.’s chief means of internal communication has been
The A.A. Grapevine
. At the pivotal 1971 General Service Conference,
Grapevine
editor Jack M. painted an attractive but measured vision of the journal’s role, skirting internal controversy by noting how occasional pieces that reflected A.A.’s diversity sparked greater reader participation.
⁹³

The
Grapevine’s
problems had not begun with Bill Wilson’s death. Indeed, the magazine’s status and future had been one of the co-founder’s chief concerns as he withdrew from active management of Alcoholics Anonymous in the early sixties. Bill shared his hopes for the
Grapevine
in his 1960 correspondence with Dr. Jack Norris, letters that in many ways summarized the legacies of his retirement. Noting that the journal “has sometimes been looked upon as a profligate and troublesome stepchild, having not too much use or merit,” Wilson reiterated points he had previously made to the A.A.W.S. board:

Grapevine
history in many ways encapsulates the story of the A.A. fellowship as a whole, affording a keen summary of the problems that Alcoholics Anonymous has faced over time. As managing editor Paula C. put it in 1975, “Our magazine both records and makes A.A. history!”
⁹⁵

Despite editor Jack M.’s insistence at the same Conference that if the
Grapevine
did not reflect “the kind of controversies that occur within A.A. it would be a dull magazine,” the
A.A. Grapevine
since Bill’s death and especially since Jack M.’s retirement generally tended to avoid any topic that might displease any of the membership. Although its monthly “gray pages” continued to report goings-on outside Alcoholics Anonymous and thus afforded a useful broadening of perspective, the pages of the magazine proper included fewer pieces by non-alcoholics and carefully eschewed all but the blandest treatments of “the spiritual.” In earlier years, contributions by A.A.’s friends such as Rev. Sam Shoemaker and Dr. Harry Tiebout had helped members see themselves from different perspectives, and even awkward attempts to delve into spirituality’s depths usefully kept vivid the wealth of ways in which that essential need might be explored. In the mid-1980s, the
Grapevine’s
editors seemed most aware of the polarizations that characterized American society. In such an environment, outsiders tended to be suspected of having hidden agendas, and it seemed impossible to treat of the spiritual without treading on someone’s theological toes.
⁹⁶

Despite those difficulties, the
Grapevine
responded with alacrity and sensitivity to changes in A. A. demographics. Improved artwork attracted younger readers, and carefully crafted articles treated the specific concerns that affect women. Evidence suggests that members of these groups called such issues to each other’s attention. But the orientation toward newcomers came at a cost. Renewals by individual subscribers consistently under-performed the rates of comparable journals, and evidence also indicates that relatively few members with more than five years of continuous sobriety regularly rely on
The Grapevine
. Readers’ words of praise cluster around such responses as “keeps it simple,” “back to basics,” and the like; negative responses converge around “Doesn’t seem to help much with spiritual growth” and “Just keeps saying the same thing over and over again.” Whatever the value of such criticisms, the stark reality is that
A.A. Grapevine
circulation has remained flat or even declined in the period under consideration.
⁹⁷

Because of the growth of the fellowship’s international membership and the recent increasing concern over those handicapped in literacy, it seems fairest to compare
Grapevine
circulation with sales of the English-language
Alcoholics Anonymous
. In 1971, the
Grapevine
circulation of 59,175 represented 85.6 percent of Big Book sales for that year; the December 1986 circulation high point of 126,967, 15.6 percent. Confronted with that reality, the 1987 General Service Conference Advisory Actions urged that the
Grapevine
Corporate Board accept its responsibility to resolve the journal’s “serious management problems.” Still a “stepchild” in mid-1987, the
A.A. Grapevine’s
future appeared as murky and bleak as it had when Bill Wilson involved himself in its 1960 plight. But knowledge of that earlier history encouraged many who loved the
Grapevine
to hope for better days. Staff turned to new projects, and at least some readers began thinking more seriously of writing for the journal rather than criticizing it.
⁹⁸

Communicating with those outside its fellowship presented Alcoholics Anonymous with another task the two sides of which were not unrelated. First and most obvious came the Twelfth-Step requirement to carry the message to alcoholics outside the fellowship. Next, but in its own way as important, flowed the continuing necessity of informing new generations of the ever-increasing variety of professionals about what Alcoholics Anonymous could and could not do.

Each need was itself many-sided. Most observers reported alcoholic non-members to be far more heterogeneous than A.A. adherents.
⁹⁹
In the mid-seventies, some previously under-represented alcoholics began approaching Alcoholics Anonymous in greater numbers. Their advent refuted earlier criticisms but also raised new difficulties.

Professionals similarly afforded a constantly moving target for A.A.’s outreach efforts. Especially “the new profession” — alcoholism counselors, many of whom were A.A. members — posed both opportunities and problems for the fellowship’s traditional understanding of itself. But other professions also raised risks. Celebrities and politicians, media experts and government officials, afforded previously undreamed-of opportunities for carrying the message. The proliferation of professionals involved in alcoholism treatment settings continued. Renewed attention to drunk-driving laws, sparked by such groups as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, moved more judges to sentence offenders to A.A. attendance.
¹⁰⁰

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, A.A.’s concern to carry its message to categories of alcoholics previously unreached sparked some brief local controversies. The misunderstanding surfaced in events surrounding the 1975 international convention, when some speakers and programs incautiously referred to French-speaking Canadians as a “minority.” This did not sit well with the Quebecois. In the next few years, again responding to criticisms that they had not carried the A.A. message to other groups such as blacks or Hispanics, some local Central Services and Intergroup offices replicated the insensitivity.
¹⁰¹
Finally, at the 1982 General Service Conference, the Public Information Committee report attempted clarification. “The word ‘minority’ is used only in regard to groups of alcoholics conspicuous by their absence from A.A., depending on the community. In some areas, for example, they might be young people or senior citizens; in other communities, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, or women.”
¹⁰²

One subtle but significant shift in A.A.’s minority sensitivity occurred in 1986. Emphasis moved from “young people” to “the elderly.” As a key manifestation of the change put it in introducing the question, “How Can A.A. Reach Out to the Elderly?”: “As young people in A.A. have pointed out, alcoholism is not an age, it’s a disease. But just as young A.A.s have problems unique to their time of life, so do the elderly.”
¹⁰³
The young, in general, readily accepted that alcoholism was an illness, and this acceptance paved the way for their enthusiastic participation in Alcoholics Anonymous. More of those past mid-life had a problem with the disease concept. Earlier ways of thinking thus tended to lock those over a certain age more deeply in denial, for acknowledging the shame of alcoholism seemed to involve the abdication of a final shred of dignity. Impressions suggest that this group thus benefited most from the publicity accorded some celebrity alcoholics of their own generation. Some A.A. oldtimers meanwhile relished the irony of now being deemed “too old” for the program for which they had once been judged “too young.” As this is being written, it appears that many A.A. groups are beginning to devote increased attention to outreach to new groups of the elderly.
¹⁰⁴

Those handicapped in literacy composed another obvious, non-local minority in the sense of that term suggested by the 1982 Public Information Committee report. Because the illiterate are generally also the poor, their absence reflected a fact that discomfited some thoughtful A.A.s: the fellowship’s social composition tended to be narrowly middle class. The advent of celebrities had extended the upper end of the spectrum, although superficially so, given the realities of economic class structure. But the Alcoholics Anonymous understanding of the universality of the alcoholic malady seemed to require more.
¹⁰⁵

In the ebullient early sixties, some had been of two minds on this topic, as the National Council on Alcoholism stance in the Powell case attested. National NCA refused involvement as
amicus curiae
, fearing that such an extension of decriminalization would reinforce the stereotype of the skid-row alcoholic. Within A.A. itself, meanwhile, most members’ conviction that alcoholism was the cause of future problems rather than the result of previous ones moved them to carry even more meetings to inner-city detoxification settings.
¹⁰⁶