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Illustration · An imagined hotel ballroom set for the General Service Conference before a session: tables in rows with area placards, folders and water glasses, a floor microphone in the aisle where members line up to speak, and the chair’s table and lectern at the far end. Not drawn from a photograph.

New York · 1971 and after

Legacy

With both founders gone, AA’s service went on running from the groups up, and its Conference still argues, votes and holds its own board to account.

“… the good sponsor, the wise old-timer—willing to let go of us before we were willing to let go of him.”

Dr. John L. Norris, the board’s chairman, on Bill W., at the first Conference after his death · quoted in Bob P.’s history, 1985

From the groups up

Bill W. died on January 24, 1971. (Legacy, in Number One Man, tells of his last years.) In April, at the Hotel New Yorker, the General Service Conference met for the first time with both founders gone. Dr. John L. Norris, the board’s nonalcoholic chairman, told the delegates that Bill believed AA’s wisdom “came out of church basements and not from the pulpit; that it was directed from the groups up through the delegates and the Conference structure, rather than the other way around.”

In 1972 the Conference took up Lois W.’s offer of their home, Stepping Stones. After what Bob P.’s history calls “lengthy and emotional discussion,” its members voted unanimously not to accept it. The Conference’s own record gives the reason: “In accordance with A.A.’s Tradition of self-support.” The Stepping Stones Foundation, founded in 1979, keeps the house today.

The structure kept the shape Bill gave it, and grew into it. From 1975 trustees and office staff went out to Regional Forums to meet members where they lived. In 1992 the office moved to 475 Riverside Drive, and its mail still goes to Box 459. For most of its history the board chose a nonalcoholic as its chair; in 2024 it elected Scott H., by AA’s count the first AA member to hold the post. (Class A and Class B tells that change.)

And the Conference still argues. It met by video in 2020 and 2021. It voted in 2021 to change the Preamble’s “men and women” to “people,” in 2023 asked its own board to take an inventory, and approved a Plain Language Big Book in 2024 and the Big Book’s fifth edition in 2026. (Go deeper sets out the votes.)

Listen Legacy About 1 minute

From the group to the board

Upside down

AA’s service structure today, drawn the way AA’s own pamphlets draw it: a triangle standing on its point, with the groups across the top and the board and its offices at the bottom.

The numbers are AA’s own, as of the dates given. Its estimates come from the groups listed with the office, so they leave out groups that never write in.

  1. The groups

    Each group runs its own affairs and pays its own way. In the words of AA’s pamphlet The A.A. Group, “the ultimate responsibility and final authority for world services resides with the groups.”

    71,138 groups in the U.S. and Canada at the end of 2021, and 120,455 worldwide, by AA’s estimate.

  2. General service representatives

    Each group may elect a GSR, who “serves as the communication link between the group and the larger Fellowship,” carrying its conscience to the district and the area and the Conference’s news back.

    One for each group that elects one.

  3. Districts

    The GSRs of nearby groups meet as a district and elect a district committee member, the DCM, who sits on the area committee.

    We found no published count.

  4. Areas

    An area’s assembly of GSRs and DCMs elects its delegate by written ballot and two-thirds of the vote, as in 1951, and if nobody gets there, from the hat.

    93 areas in the U.S. and Canada, in eight regions.

  5. Delegates

    Each delegate serves two years, in panels that overlap so about half the delegates are new each spring. (Panel Two tells how that began.)

    93 delegates. Panels 75 and 76 sat in 2026.

  6. The Conference

    Delegates, trustees, the directors of AA’s two companies and staff of the office and the Grapevine meet for a week each spring. Any item that gets two-thirds of the vote “becomes a Conference Advisory Action.”

    136 members in 2026, 93 of them delegates; 13 committees and 70 agenda items.

  7. The trustees

    The General Service Board looks after AA’s services between Conferences: nonalcoholic Class A trustees and Class B trustees who are AA members, among them a regional trustee for each region.

    22 trustees in 2024, seven of them nonalcoholics.

  8. The offices

    AA World Services publishes AA’s books and runs the General Service Office; AA Grapevine publishes the Grapevine and its Spanish-language sister, La Viña.

    93 employees at the office at the end of 2019; at 475 Riverside Drive since 1992, its mail still to Box 459.

Groups on top

On AA’s own chart the board sits at the point and the groups across the top. The groups choose the delegates, and the delegates outnumber everyone else at the Conference, 93 of its 136 members in 2026.

For a closer look

Go deeper

How AA came to draw itself upside down; why the Conference turned down Stepping Stones; and the Conference’s votes since 2020.

Who drew the triangle?

No one person gets the credit. In the order it was set down:

  • 1966. Bill W., recalling 1938, pictured it the other way up: “At the top of our growing pyramid of membership, there would need to be erected a beacon light …,” the trust in New York. The Grapevine.
  • 1971. Dr. Norris: Bill believed AA’s wisdom was “directed from the groups up.” Bob P.’s history.
  • 1994. The Conference had district meetings added to “the inverted triangle” in The A.A. Group.
  • 1995. It had a paragraph put back into the same pamphlet, credited to AA’s illustrated guide to the Concepts (first printed 1986): “Alcoholics Anonymous has been called an upside-down organization,” since final authority rests with the groups.
  • 2007. It asked for “the inverted triangle graphic” to go into The A.A. Service Manual.
  • 2013. The charter itself speaks of members “below the Conference level on the inverted triangle.”
Stepping Stones

The house in Bedford Hills where Bill and Lois lived from 1941. Why AA said no, in the order the accounts were set down:

  • 1972. “In accordance with A.A.’s Tradition of self-support,” a vote from the floor, unanimous. The Conference’s advisory actions.
  • 1985. “After lengthy and emotional discussion,” the Conference voted not to accept the property, “in keeping with the Traditions.” Bob P.’s history.
  • 1985. In another chapter, Bob P. says the board had already advised against the gift, “feeling it would not be in keeping with the spirit of the Sixth Tradition,” and that Lois then offered the house to Al-Anon, “who also declined.”
  • 2009. The same words as the advisory action. Arthur S.’s timeline.

Lois kept the house. The Stepping Stones Foundation, founded in 1979, keeps it open to visitors, and in 2026 the Conference’s members planned a visit there when the week was over.

The votes since 2020

The Conference’s larger decisions of the 2020s, with the vote where an area’s or a delegate’s record gives one:

  • 2020. The Conference met by video for the first time. “If you would like to be recognized, please raise your digital hand and you will be unmuted.”
  • 2021. Again by video. The Conference voted to change the Preamble’s “men and women” to “people,” and asked for a fifth edition of the Big Book and a version of it in plain language.
  • 2023. In January the board’s chair resigned at the board’s request. In April the Conference asked the board to take an inventory, to “reestablish a relationship of trust,” 112 to 19 by one delegate’s report.
  • 2024. The Plain Language Big Book was approved, 91 to 38, and the board elected Scott H. its chair, in AA’s words “the first Class B (A.A. member) chair to serve the GSB.”
  • 2025. A motion to censure the board failed, 6 to 108.
  • 2026. The fifth edition of the Big Book was approved, the first new edition since 2001, and the word “Eskimo” was taken out of the Big Book’s seventh chapter; by one delegate’s count the votes were 125 to 9 and 112 to 22.
Sources
  • Bob P., “The General Service Conferences,” chapter 11 of his manuscript history of AA, 1985, unpublished, at silkworth.net (1971; 1972).
  • The Language of the Heart. AA Grapevine, 1988. Bill W., “The Guidance of AA’s World Affairs” (January 1966), first printed in the AA Grapevine.
  • AA World Services, Advisory Actions of the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous, 1951–2022 (M-39) (1972; 1994; 1995; 2007; 2013; 2015; 2021).
  • Bob P., “The General Service Board,” chapter 2 of the same history (Stepping Stones).
  • AA World Services, The A.A. Group (P-16), quoting The Twelve Concepts for World Service Illustrated (first printed 1986).
  • AA World Services, Estimates of A.A. Groups and Members (SMF-53), as of December 31, 2021.
  • Arthur S., A Narrative Timeline of AA History, 2009 (1972; 1992).
  • AA World Services, Final Report of the 70th General Service Conference, 2020 (the office’s employees; the 93 areas; the video Conference).
  • “Annual General Service Conference,” Box 4-5-9, Spring 2016 (the 93 service areas; the two-thirds rule).
  • “The 76th General Service Conference: ‘Humility in Action’,” Box 4-5-9, Summer 2026 (the Conference of 2026; the GSR; Box 459; St. Louis, 2030).
  • Box 4-5-9, Summer 2023 (the inventory), and the General Service Board’s letter of February 3, 2023 (the chair’s resignation).
  • Bob W., general manager, letter of June 26, 2024 (the board’s new chair).
  • Lists of the Conferences’ actions and delegates’ reports, with their votes, posted by AA’s service areas (2023–2026).
  • AA World Services, the notice of Class A trustee vacancies, June 18, 2024 (the board of 22).
  • The Stepping Stones Foundation, steppingstones.org.