One Drunk to Another Trusted Servants
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Illustration · An imagined stone church at night, at the side door to its basement: a folding sign on the walk for tonight’s AA meeting, the door lit through its window, a lantern, a coffee can on the step for the smokers, and the basement windows lit in their wells at ground level. Not drawn from a photograph.

Trusted Servants

Who runs AA

AA has no one in charge, yet someone answers its mail, pays its bills and decides what goes in its books, and this is how that came about, one piece at a time.

“Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.”

Tradition Two · Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 1953

AA’s service structure is the part of AA most members never see: the trustees who look after its money and its name, the office in New York that answers its mail, the Conference of delegates that meets each spring, and the committees, central offices and archives in between. Bill W. called it AA’s Third Legacy, service, after recovery and unity.

It was built a piece at a time, often in a hurry, and most of it was argued over. The first trustees were mostly nonalcoholics, in case the drunks got drunk. The office ran on the Big Book’s earnings when the groups didn’t pay. Delegates were chosen by a two-thirds vote, or out of a hat. Bill’s principles for all of it, the Twelve Concepts, were accepted in 1962 by a Conference that outvoted him the same spring.

This piece tells each part in the order it began, from the trustees of 1938 to the archives of 1975, and ends with the structure today. Each part closes with a short note on how that piece of service works now. It’s built chiefly from Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age and The Language of the Heart, with Pass It On, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers and Lois Remembers; from the Conference’s own advisory actions since 1951, AA’s newsletters Box 4-5-9 and Markings, and the Grapevine; and from Bob P.’s unpublished history of 1985 and Arthur S.’s timeline. Where the sources disagree, these pages say so.

Start with 1 · Class A and Class B

When each piece began

  1. 1938In New York, AA’s trust, the Alcoholic Foundation, is set up with its nonalcoholic friends in the majority.
  2. 1939In Cleveland, AA members set up a committee of seven to run the groups’ common business, and take turns at it.
  3. 1940AA’s office moves to 30 Vesey Street in lower Manhattan.
  4. 1941The office first asks the groups for money: a dollar a member a year.
  5. 1944The office moves to 415 Lexington Avenue, across from Grand Central, and its mail goes to Box 459.
  6. 1950Bill W. and Helen B. of the office staff draw up the plan for a General Service Conference.
  7. 1951The first General Service Conference meets in New York.
  8. 1955At St. Louis, Bill W. hands AA’s services to the Conference, under a charter that ends with six promises.
  9. 1962The Conference accepts Bill W.’s Twelve Concepts for World Service.
  10. 1971Bill W. dies in January, and the board reaches its full twenty-one, fourteen of them AA members.
  11. 1975AA’s archives open in New York on November 3.
  12. 1992The office moves to 475 Riverside Drive.
  13. 2024The board elects an AA member as its chair, by AA’s count the first.

One piece at a time

Each part has a short story, a one-minute audio stop, and a closer look for anyone who wants to go deeper. Read them in order, or start anywhere.

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