A Vacancy for Tea

Audio Version

"Ranjan, come on we're off for a beer." My work colleague's head appeared round the library partition where I had hidden to concentrate on reading. "You can read later." Of, course I didn't, I just couldn't say no. So the book went unread, deadlines were missed, opportunities went knocking, employments terminated, relationships abandoned, children ignored, health uncared for, sanity lost and the whole crazy show blossomed.

"Hey, Ranjan, can I buy you a drink?" A friend crossed the road to greet me, one Thursday lunchtime as I was en route to a Camden rendezvous. He rarely bought anyone a drink so I wasn't going to say no. I hadn't seen him for a few months, hadn't wondered what he'd been up to, but now he was here looking much better than last time, smiling, clean and trim, and offering to buy me a pint. We went entered and he bought me a pint of IPA and a lemonade for himself ?! After telling me about why he was not drinking, that he was an alcoholic, which wasn't news and that he was in something called recovery, at which my eyes glazed over, he dropped the bombshell, "And I think you need to have a look at your drinking. There's a meeting at the Community Centre tonight, I think you should go." Once the shock waned, I gave it due consideration, and dismissed it in favour of going to Camden, but, I went the following week, to satisfy the growing legions of those, who like my friend, said I had a drinking problem, that I at least had investigated the proposition.

At that meeting though repelled by what I saw, heard and read, the seed was sown, the phrases reverberated, and after 18 ever more miserable months I eventually surrendered. "We have a vacancy for Tea, does anyone want to take it on?" My sponsor's eyes slowly swept the room, and as they locked onto mine, his lips rose along with my right arm. Powerless, I was utterly powerless. His smile complete, my arm straight, my fate was sealed. I was now fully part of the Fellowship. As a result over the next year I learnt more about myself than in the previous 32, as I worked the Steps, went to meetings galore and learnt how to make tea with grace and good humour at the group in Chelsea and do the Literature at another in Peckham. Service my sponsor said keeps you sober, but I didn't appreciate how Service also deepened and developed my sobriety for many years. As tea maker that meant making eye contact, remembering and matching names, faces, clothing and shoes, ailments, peculiarities, quirks, shirks, shrieks, griefs, graces, guffaws, giggles, sniggers, wheezes and cheers, assets and defects, rages and resentments, gratitudes with attitudes, and pearls of wisdoms in briefest of breaths, learning how to be social via the medium of beverage and biscuits. In the course of this socialisation I found a voice and was able to articulate in and out of the rooms, able to ride the fear and express myself, and deal with the consequences, good and bad. However, the truth of the miracle of the Fellowship, one that I vocal about in the rooms, was the one which in that wider world, I stayed schtum.

"Ranjan, you work in a hospital," said a Fellow AA member, "Would you like to become Health Liaison Officer?" He towered over me and I couldn't and didn't refuse. And so, as Health Liaison Officer I presented, expressed and shared this deepest dearest truth to the outside world, to Doctors, Nurses, Practice Managers and Receptionists, then Lawyers, Police, Probation Officers, Council Leaders, MP's and Lords. People in positions of authority, whose reactions hitherto I was petrified or resentful of, but whose astonishment in the Programme of AA and its efficacy, astonished me. These non-alcoholics gave me a new insight into how miraculous our daily miracles were, as they struggled vainly with the disease of alcoholism, seeing the seemingly hopeless case transformed by our Fellowship. Being able to share the Fellowship and Programme of Alcoholics Anonymous and see it received with such awe, created a spontaneous elation and humility such that service was a thrill and not a duty.

So I continued to not refuse service, and with each opportunity of, election and rotation into Region, Conference and on the Board Sub-Committee, steadily grew the feeling that I couldn't live a life without service. The Joy of being on a Committee! the Joys of a Plenary Session! The Joy of disagreeing without being disagreeable. The Joys of being with another sober alcoholic bent on the same goal of making our Fellowship better than the previous day, better at carrying the message, better at keeping us all sober, progressing not regressing, the Joys of all that, would I ever want to give that up?

So a friend told me that the Eighth General Secretary was due to retire and would I consider applying to be the Ninth. A fantastical notion so being a fantasist who couldn't say no, I applied, and by the machinations of a God that I increasingly do not understand I was chosen. So a God of my misunderstanding continues to help me do what I could not do for myself, stop and staying stopped drinking in the first instance, and then to be of service, that which I always wanted, but did not know how. To be of service, to be part of, to live in the spirit.

Gratitude can be expressed in words and deeds and I hope that as my time as General Secretary is expressed as gratitude in words and deeds in service to the Fellowship that has given me a Life Beyond My Wildest Dreams.

RANJAN, General Secretary

My full title is the Company Secretary and Chief Executive to the Board and General Secretary to the GB AA Fellowship, Secretary of the European Information Centre.

I have an Overview of dealings between the three AA offices, (General Service Office in York, the Southern Service Office in London and the Northern Service Office in Glasgow) and the Fellowship and communications from within and outside the Fellowship. I ensure efficient execution for all Board decisions, attending Board Meetings, Conference and European Service Meeting. I manage GSO York, NSO Glasgow and SSO London with eleven full-time and six part-time members of staff. I deal with all legal aspects of the General Service Board including consultation and filing of annual financial reports with the Charities Commission and Companies House.