The Web Committee is pleased to run an article written by Jay M. from the Akron Beginners Group for our July blog ~

Recently I was speaking with a friend who happens to be on the Nominating Committee.  She was lamenting the fact that so many people she asked to consider serving on the Executive Board did not even think about it before answering “I’m too busy!”  Another excuse she received as “No way I am getting involved in all the politics.”

Now I am not foolish enough to think that everyone is able to serve on the Board, either because of time or temperament.  But everyone is able to render some service to Alcoholics Anonymous.  If you go to the Council meetings, or look at the makeup of the various committees, or even the roster of those who volunteer at the Office, the cast of characters is pretty much the same all the time.

And what of sponsorship?  A young woman who I met at my home group finally found a sponsor after being turned down six or seven times.  The excuse?  In every case they told her they were too busy.

Really.  Isn’t it a good thing for those folks that whoever was their first sponsor wasn’t too busy?  Isn’t it a good thing that all the people who kept the doors open when those folks wandered into their first meeting weren’t too busy?  Isn’t it a good thing that when they were confused and scared in the early days that members of the Fellowship weren’t too busy to help?

And politics?  They make it sound like it is the U.S. Congress.  Politics in AA is called reaching an informed group conscience.  Politics in AA is what took one side who wanted an entirely Christian Big Book and the other side who wanted no mention of God whatever and ended up with God as we understand Him.  Politics in AA is what has put together every piece of Conference approved literature.  Politics in AA, if done on principles and not personalities, is a spiritual exercise.

As for being too busy?  Your job and family and hobbies leave no time for service work?  I ask how busy would you be if you were not sober?  Would you be busy with a job you were fired from and a family that left?

Copyright Akron Intergroup News; June, 2008

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.