FAQs

Intergroup meetings essentially combine two purposes. That of a meeting of the GSRs (Group Service Representatives) to discuss the needs of their groups and conference questions and a meeting of the Liaison Officers to report on and discuss their activities. The service representatives include a number of different service disciplines whose role it is to carry the AA message into organisations and the community. Facilitating these business-style meetings are the four service positions of Chairperson, Vice-chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer.

Group Service Representatives are voted into the position by their group, Liaison Officers and Intergroup service positions are voted into their positions by the GSRs and existing Liaison Officers. All AA members are welcome and indeed encouraged to attend Intergroup meetings as observers but they may not vote and speak only at the invitation of the Chairperson.

The aims of an Intergroup are to aid the constituent Groups in their common purpose of carrying the AA message to the still suffering alcoholic and, by using their combined strength and unity, to improve and maintain good relations with all organisations in the community.

© AA Structure Handbook for Great Britain 2013, p.86

You can also find a presentation about Intergroup here.

We are a fellowship of people who have lost the ability to control our drinking and have found ourselves in various sorts of trouble as a result of drink. We attempt - most of us successfully - to create a satisfactory way of life without alcohol. For this we find we need the help and support of other alcoholics in AA.

No. AA keeps no membership files, or attendance records. You need disclose nothing about yourself. No one will bother you if you don't want to come back.

They will be there for the same reason you are there. They will not disclose your identity to outsiders. At AA you retain as much anonymity as you wish. That is one of the reasons we call ourselves Alcoholics Anonymous.

An AA meeting may take one of several forms, but at any meeting you will find alcoholics talking about what drink did to their lives and personalities, what actions they took to deal with this, and how they are living their lives today.

We in AA know what it is like to be addicted to alcohol, and to be unable to keep promises made to others and ourselves that we will stop drinking. We are not professional therapists. Our only qualification for helping others to recover from alcoholism is that we have recovered ourselves. Problem drinkers coming to us know that recovery is possible because they see people who have done it.

We in the fellowship of AA believe there is no such thing as a cure for alcoholism. We can never return to normal drinking, and our ability to stay away from alcohol depends on maintaining our physical, mental, and spiritual health. This we can achieve by going to meetings regularly and putting into practice what we learn there. In addition, we find it helps us to stay sober if we help other alcoholics.

You are an AA member if and when you say so. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking, and many of us were not very wholehearted about that when we first approached AA

There are no dues or fees for AA membership. An AA group will usually have a collection during the meeting to cover running expenses, such as rent, coffee, etc., and to this all members are free to contribute as much or as little as they wish.

No. Nor is it allied to any religious organisation.

The majority of AA members believe that we have found the solution to our drinking problem not through individual willpower, but through a power greater than ourselves. However, everyone defines this power as he or she wishes. Many people call it God, others think it is the collective groups of AA, still others don't believe in it at all. There is room in AA for people of all shades of belief and non-belief.

Family members or close friends are welcome at 'open' AA meetings. Meeting which are open are detailed in our meeting directory and on our national site.

In our experience, the people who recover in AA are those who:

• stay away from the first drink;

• attend AA meetings regularly;

• seek out the people in AA who have successfully stayed sober for some time;

• try to put into practice the AA program of recovery.

You can call us in complete confidence on 0800 9177 650 or email us at help@aamail.org.

Intergroup meetings essentially combine two purposes. That of a meeting of the GSRs (Group Service Representatives) to discuss the needs of their groups and conference questions and a meeting of the Liaison Officers to report on and discuss their activities. The service representatives include a number of different service disciplines whose role it is to carry the AA message into organisations and the community. Facilitating these business-style meetings are the four service positions of Chairperson, Vice-chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer.

Group Service Representatives are voted into the position by their group, Liaison Officers and Intergroup service positions are voted into their positions by the GSRs and existing Liaison Officers. All AA members are welcome and indeed encouraged to attend Intergroup meetings as observers but they may not vote and speak only at the invitation of the Chairperson.

The aims of an Intergroup are to aid the constituent Groups in their common purpose of carrying the AA message to the still suffering alcoholic and, by using their combined strength and unity, to improve and maintain good relations with all organisations in the community.

© AA Structure Handbook for Great Britain 2013, p.86

You can also find a presentation about Intergroup here.

Information about the role of the GSR can be found in the pamphlet Now that I'm a GSR and here on the Intergroup website. Click here to view the page. We also have a presentation explaining the role of the GSR here.

AA meetings take a variety of forms depending upon the wishes of the group members. Some last an hour and others last up to an hour and a half. Many meetings are in the evening but daytime meetings are also common. Refreshments are usually served before meetings. All meetings are run by AA members and are self-supporting through the contributions of the group members.

Primarily they come in two forms, open and closed meetings. Closed meetings are for alcoholics only whereas open meetings are, as the name suggests, open to anyone who may wish to attend. They may be partners, friends or family of a member or people who may have a professional interest in AA such as doctors, spiritual leaders and social workers.

In either of these meeting types the AA message may be discussed and presented in a variety of ways. Some meetings read portions of AA literature, often about the Twelve Steps of AA, and then discuss the topics this raises or share their experience with the AA program of recovery. Others have a speaker or ‘chair’ who will speak for a while about what their life was like before recovery, how they recovered and what their life is like now. Members are then often invited to share also. Members and visitors can choose to participate or not.

The suggested Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were devised in the early days of the fellowship and are now used by a multitude of organisations world-wide. You can find more about the Twelve Steps in our fellowship's main text Alcoholic Anonymous.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous were born out of the early, often turbulent, experiences of our fellowship.

They were first introduced to the fellowship in a Grapevine article (the fellowship magazine in the United States) in 1946 and were formally ratified at the first International Conference of AA in 1950.

You can read more about the Twelve Traditions in the AA book The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

Today they continue to serve our fellowship well.

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.

2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.

3. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.

5. Each group has but one primary purpose-to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

6. An AA group ought never endorse, finance or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

7. Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.

9. AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve

10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.

11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of  press, radio and films.

12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

AA’s Twelve Steps are principles for personal recovery. The Twelve Traditions ensure the unity of the Fellowship, the Twelve Concepts for World Service provide a group of related principles to help ensure that various elements of AA’s service structure remain responsive and responsible to those they serve.

The short form of the Concepts, which follows, was prepared by the 1974 General Service Conference.

You can read the essays associated with each concept in the AA publication The A.A. Service Manual Combined with Twelve Concepts for World Service.

1. Final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship.

2. The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs.

3. To ensure effective leadership, we should endow each element of A.A.–the Conference, the General Service Board and its service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives–with a traditional “Right of Decision”.

4. At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional "Right of Participation," allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.

5. Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.

6. The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board.

7. The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness.

8. The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.

9. Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.

10. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined.

11. The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.

12. The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government, and that, like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.