Our Primary Purpose
I was at a meeting last night, and as I listened to the pre-amble being read, something came to me. I've heard this a thousand times and it didn't strike me until last night how inconstitent this statement is with our literature and what we are about:
"Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to carry our message to the alcoholic who still suffers."
I have been able to stay sober. My sponsor told me that he couldn't show me how to stay sober, but that he could, as was wonderfully stated on another thread, "Put my hand in God's hands."
Bill Wilson said that we alcoholics don't stay away from a drink, we grow away from a drink. In meetings I often hear how important it is stay away from the first drink. I have never able on my own power to stay away from a drink because I don't have the choice. I will always drink. I haven't spent the last almost seventeen years staying away from a drink. In the darkness of active alcoholism, seperated from my source, there is no choice but to drink. In the sunlight of the spirit, there is no choice to drink because the problem has been removed.
Doctor Silkworth comments on what he saw. He saw a true fellowship growing up, based on one alcoholic working with another, not on going to meetings. He saw men transformed. He said that there was no profit motive. In other words, staying sober wasn't the motive anymore. That motive was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves for others. The doctor also states how the community spirit he saw was inspiring to him. My whole life has been about me getting mine. Community spirit means that I give that motive up and help you get yours. I f I help you get yours, I automatically get mine. As I said, the doctor saw a true fellowship, spiritual in its aim and altruistic in its purpose.
Our traditions make mention of the fact that each AA group ought to be a spiritual entity and that we have a primary spiritual aim. Nowhere in any of our literature does it say that our primary purpose is to stay sober.
My primary spiritual aim is lead an alcoholic to God. If I stick to my primary spiritual aim, staying sober isn't an issue.
Jim