WHAT CAN I GET FROM INTERGROUP?

The question of how an intergroup can best be of service has recently arisen and was discussed in detail in yesterday’s local intergroup meeting. One item of feedback was that people did not see how the groups, and indeed themselves personally, benefited from intergroup. I feel that this attitude basically misunderstands the purpose of the service structure which the groups have created, and to a degree the groups’ purpose also. Intergroup does not exist for the purpose of benefiting individual AAs, or indeed the groups. The primary purpose of the entire service structure, including the individual groups, is to ensure that the still suffering alcoholic has the best chance of finding a way to lasting sobriety (Tradition Five). That being said, it is only through my participation in the group, by sharing with other alcoholics in a meeting, that I personally obtain the support needed to stay sober myself. It is the Twelfth Step in action. By sharing my experience, strength and hope (ESH), I can transmute my fears and uncertainties into a path of change for myself and, through identification, for my fellow members also. By giving of myself, I get to find and keep sobriety.

At first, I attended meetings to find a way to stop drinking, not because I was at all interested in others. But I was told, and then discovered for myself, that I could only maintain my sobriety by changing, by wanting to help others, by wanting to be of service. My initial attendance at intergroup was not therefore to get something for myself. I entered the service structure to give something back; to make sure that the next person that entered the Rooms would have the same chance I did, and, where possible, to make it easier for them to find the help that was being offered. Intergroup, Region, Conference and the other service bodies are all attempts to ensure that the alcoholic can find the help that we offer as easily as possible, and before she or he has plumbed the depths that some have had to explore. To consider intergroup therefore only in the context of what I can get out of it is returning to my old alcoholic thinking, when it was always about me, me, me. One group with multiple meetings has suggested that they become their own intergroup; others have suggested that they restrict themselves to working only with other groups in their immediate area. I ask myself; will these groups achieve anything more for the stillsuffering alcoholic through being called an intergroup? Will they reach more persons in need?

These groups already run a lot of meetings, and are active in Public Information. But there are smaller groups too, not physically near other groups, that need support, ideas, feedback and encouragement.

My personal feeling is that groups can achieve more for alcoholics in need by sharing their ESH, and working together over a more extended area rather than working in more insular structures.

An example of this occurred in yesterday’s meeting, when a group asked for ESH on running hybrid AA meetings during the pandemic. The possibility to obtain feedback from 18 groups, rather than only from members inhouse, benefited all present. So, for me, the question should be more about how can the intergroup improve its outreach and try to reach the maximum number of alcoholics in need. Are there ways to do this better? And how can we do it? But here I must paraphrase a well-known saying, “Ask not what AA can do for you; ask what you can do for AA.”. Because it is my own, and my group’s, commitment to helping the alcoholic that is going. to be called upon. Because intergroup is an AA group with groups as members. We have no leaders, no employees. Intergroup is made up of people doing service of their own free will, because they know that through working the Twelfth Step, they can improve their chances of remaining sober. And that is how I personally benefit from intergroup.

STEVE, Cologne