Daily Reflections · October 31
Avoiding Controversy
Out of the fight: two sentences from Bill W.’s essay on Tradition Ten, and what Bill learned in 1935 by trying to make other drunks believe as he did.
Today’s reading
The reading for October 31 in Daily Reflections, AA’s book of short readings by members. Its passage comes from Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 176, the paragraph after October 30’s.
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Themes and asks
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Drawn in
The passage takes the long view, across history, at whole nations and movements that broke up in a fight. Read beside today’s title, avoiding controversy starts well before the shouting does.
- What fight have you been drawn into lately that isn’t really yours?
- Where does an argument start for you: in the room, or in your head on the way there?
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Sure of it
The passage’s other warning is about self-righteousness, and the groups it brought down. Bill W. knew the feeling from his first months sober; Behind the words tells it.
- Whose life are you sure you could run better than they do?
- What would change if you turned out to be wrong about it?
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Not asked
Today’s reflection comes from a sponsor, wary of what opinions can do in someone else’s life.
- What advice have you given lately that nobody asked for?
- Where does your experience end and your guessing begin?
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Your own story
In 1935, as Bill remembered it, Dr. Silkworth told him to quit preaching and tell his own story. Read beside today’s title, a story of your own leaves nobody anything to argue with.
- When did someone’s story reach you where advice hadn’t?
- What part of your story could you tell this week, with no lesson attached?
Behind the words
A crusade of one
The passage comes from the second paragraph of Bill W.’s essay on Tradition Ten in the Twelve and Twelve, a few lines after the oldtimer’s remark in October 30’s. Its two sentences take the long view, over all of history; the ones after it come down to the wars of Bill’s own time, and the fear of another. A paragraph later come the lines October 28 and October 29 draw on.
The passage’s warning about self-righteousness was one Bill knew from the inside. In 1960, in AA Today, a book the Grapevine published for AA’s twenty-fifth anniversary, he looked back on his first months sober. He had been sure, he wrote, that he was meant to sober up nearly every drunk there was, and he insisted that each of them have a spiritual experience much like his own. In effect, he wrote, he had told them, “You must be as I am, believe as I believe, do as I do.” He found fault with them, they bristled, and in six months no one got sober. Then Dr. William D. Silkworth told him to quit preaching and tell his own story, and in Akron he did, with Dr. Bob.
Advice in the same spirit was in the Big Book by 1939, in its chapter “Working with Others,” for anyone working with a newcomer: “Never talk down to an alcoholic from any moral or spiritual hilltop.” Set out what worked for you, it says, and let him look it over; if he’d rather find his way to God by some other road, that’s his to choose. A later chapter, “The Family Afterward,” sent readers with health problems to doctors and psychologists, and warned against belittling good doctors and psychiatrists.
Seven years after the book, Bill proposed a rule in the same spirit for AA as a whole. In April 1946 he set out twelve points of tradition in the Grapevine. The tenth asked that no group or member, in any way that would implicate AA, give an opinion on outside controversies, “particularly those of politics, alcohol reform, or sectarian religion.” The same words are printed today as Tradition Ten’s long form, at the end of the essay today’s passage comes from.
More on Dr. Silkworth’s advice and Bill’s six months: Stop preaching, in The Little Doctor. On the chapter for the one doing the helping, before anyone called it sponsorship: Working with Others, in You Had to Be Sponsored. On the twelve points of 1946: Twelve Points, in Rule 62.
One rule, two sizes
The same restraint at two sizes. The pairing row by row is this page’s; neither text mentions the other.
- One to oneThe Big Book’s chapter “Working with Others” (1939), for members working with other drunks
- As AAThe tenth of Bill’s twelve points (1946), now Tradition Ten’s long form, for any group or member whose words could be taken as AA’s
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Causes
One to oneShow no “passion for crusade or reform.”
As AATake no side in outside quarrels in any way that implicates AA.
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Religion
One to oneIf he’d rather take another spiritual road, let him. “We have no monopoly on God.”
As AANo views on sectarian religion.
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Fights
One to oneMembers had “stopped fighting anybody or anything.”
Today’s passage is written at the larger size. Today’s reflection is written at the smaller one.
Threads
Each one opens the calendar with its days lit up.
Sources
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. AA Grapevine and Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing, 1953. The essay on Tradition Ten.
- The Language of the Heart. AA Grapevine, 1988. Bill W., “Twelve Suggested Points for AA Tradition,” April 1946, and “The Language of the Heart,” July 1960, from the Grapevine’s anniversary book AA Today.
- Alcoholics Anonymous. Works Publishing, 1939; fourth edition, AA World Services, 2001. “Working with Others” and “The Family Afterward.”
- Daily Reflections. AA World Services, 1990. October 31 · aa.org
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Daily Reflections is AA’s book of readings for every day of the year, each written by a member about a favorite passage from AA’s literature. A Daily Reprieve gives each day questions to sit with and the story behind its words.