Kicking off the season, we dive into A.A.'s history and structure with words from co-founder Bill W. and interviews with GSO staff. Learn more about the unique and central role of self-support, the organization’s diverse membership, and the importance of service, revealing how this worldwide fellowship carries the message of Alcoholics Anonymous.

- The views and opinions expressed

during this podcast are

those of our guests.

No one person speaks for AA as a whole.

- In 2018, researchers discovered evidence

of a 13,000 year old brewery.

While we don't know for sure

if ancient peoples were getting

drunk, there's a pretty

good chance they were.

Throughout the centuries, societies

around the world have warned

of possible severe consequences

of excessive drinking.

Of course, most people

can drink responsibly

or stop if they want to,

but some people just can't For them,

consuming alcohol creates a physical

and psychological dependency

that renders the strongest

willed individuals powerless

to control their cravings for it.

They have a disease,

it's called alcoholism.

Hi, my name is Nathan

and I'm an alcoholic.

This is our primary

purpose, a podcast produced

by the General Service Office

On behalf of the Fellowship

of Alcoholics Anonymous

in the US and Canada.

We'll take a close look at

what goes on at the

General Service Office,

or GSO as we call it,

as well as the people

and organization it serves.

Whether you're a member of AA

or just want to learn more

about this almost 90-year-old

organization, we welcome

you to this journey.

We have a lot to explore.

So let's get started.

Welcome to GSO.

Let's start at the

beginning of the AA story.

How did AA start?

How does AA continue to flourish

around the world? Today?

I've invited Sandra, director

of Staff Services at GSO

to help me tell this story. Hi, Sandra.

- Hi, Nathan.

- Sandra, how was addiction

to alcohol treated before

Alcoholics Anonymous?

- Well, Nathan, in the time

before AA in medical

support became available

for alcoholics in the 20th century.

Alcoholism was primarily

considered a moral failing,

and the treatments were often barbaric.

Chronic alcoholics were

locked up in prisons

and insane asylums.

They were subjected to all kinds

of experimental treatments.

Many were unsuccessful and often tortures.

We also saw the rise

of the Temperance Movement

in the 19th century.

Outta this movement came a

group called the Washingtonians.

It was started by six alcoholics

who thought they could stay

sober by joining together

and supporting one another.

Their ideas caught on at first,

but eventually the group fell apart

because of fighting over the

social issues of the day.

Then comes prohibition in

of alcohol in the United States.

- Then Prohibition ends in 1933.

- Yes, and W enters our story.

- Bill W is a 38-year-old

struggling businessman living in

Brooklyn, New York, and

suffering from severe alcoholism.

He had been hospitalized

numerous times for his drinking

and would chronically return to the bottle

after being released.

- At this point, bill is desperate.

A later description said

that terror, self-hatred

and suicidal thoughts were

his constant companions.

It was at this low point

when Bill was visited

by his friend, Eby T,

- Old drinking buddies.

- Bill immediately offers Eby a drink,

- Gin and pineapple juice,

- But Eby declines.

Bill knows Eby to be a hardened

alcoholic like himself,

but here he was sober sitting

at Bill's kitchen table.

When Bill asked how he had done it,

Eby says he accepted

the spiritual principles

of something called the Oxford Group.

- Right off the bat, bill

doesn't like the idea

of anything religious.

When Eby asks him,

why don't you choose your

own conception of God?

Bill's resistance begins to melt,

- But this isn't enough

to keep Bill sober.

Less than a month later, bill is admitted

to Towns hospital in New

York City for treatment.

Again. Here he meets

Dr. William d Silkworth.

The doctor shares his belief

that alcoholism is not a moral failure,

but a physical allergy to

alcohol causing a compulsion

and mental obsession to drink.

Here, bill experiences a

profound spiritual awakening,

and he never has another drink again.

- That's not to say that the temptation

to drink disappeared.

- That's right. Bill learns

that in order to stay sober,

he needs to take action as well

and connect with other alcoholics.

- Bill makes that connection.

In spring 1935 on an unsuccessful

business trip to Akron,

Ohio, he's struggling

and finds himself in the

lobby of the Mayflower Hotel,

tempted by the party in the hotel bar.

Bill has an overwhelming

urge to drink, but,

and this is an important

moment in the history of aa,

he remembers that talking to

another alcoholic might help.

He sees the church directory

posted on the wall in

the hotel lobby.

Bill's call to a church

eventually leads him

to meet another alcoholic, Dr.

Bob. Yes, when they meet

Bob plans to talk with

Bill for only 15 minutes.

He has a severe hangover,

but they end up talking

long into the night.

It was a profound experience for both men.

For the first time,

there is another person

who really understands their drinking

and their many failed

attempts to get sober.

- Now, Dr. Bob does keep drinking,

but with Bill's help, he

finally has his last drink.

On June 10th, 1935, a date

that marks the beginning

of Alcoholics Anonymous,

- Bill and Bob soon

realized that the best way

to help other alcoholics was

to talk about their own drinking

and the idea that

alcoholism was a disease,

not a moral failing.

- Later that summer,

bill returns to New York

and begins to have success

with patients from Towns hospital.

He and his wife Lois,

welcome alcoholics at their small Brooklyn

apartment just as Dr.

Bob and his wife Anne were

doing in their home in Akron.

By late 1937, bill and Dr.

Bob are astonished to find that

after two years of working

with dozens of alcoholics,

about 40 were staying sober.

AA was up and running.

- Now they look for ways to

carry this message of hope

to even more suffering alcoholics.

They agree to write a book.

Here we come to the

pivotal story of how Bill,

through his connections, ends up meeting

with John d Rockefeller, Jr.

To ask for a $50,000

contribution to the book Project.

Rockefeller was a prominent

financier and philanthropist.

He agrees only to a $5,000 contribution

after one of his advisors

asks, isn't money going

to spoil this thing?

A light bulb goes on for Bill,

and the idea of AA

self-support takes root.

More to come on that in this episode,

- But back to Bill and Dr.

Bob's book project.

After more than a year of writing,

bill thinks we need a definite statement

of concrete principles

that these drunks can't wiggle out of.

So he writes a first

draft of the 12 steps.

The book, which is officially

titled Alcoholics Anonymous,

is published on April 10th, 1939,

4,650.

Copies of the first edition

roll off the presses

- Today, the book is known

by millions as the big book.

It has sold more than 40

million copies in English alone

and is available in 75 languages in 1940.

The first general service

office is established in lower

Manhattan to provide general service

to the rapidly growing organization.

By 1950,

there are a hundred thousand

recovering alcoholics in

AA worldwide.

- The growth of AA since that

time has been pretty amazing.

AA is active in more than 180 countries,

and our publications have

been translated into 110

languages and counting.

Today, the general service

office in New York City serves

AA in the United States and Canada,

and also offers services to

AA internationally, especially

to countries where there's

no service structure.

Since we're a large

nonprofit organization,

we do have board governance,

but our service structure is unique.

It's a bottom up versus top down structure

and involves members

throughout the organization.

- We'll hear more about

our service structure

later in the episode.

Sandra, thank you for that

glimpse of AA history.

- Nathan,

- It has been my pleasure.

For more information about aa,

please visit our website@aa.org.

- Briefly mentioned in the

AA story were the 12 steps.

These steps are suggested

as a program of recovery,

and they're a big part

of what AA is all about.

Along with the 12 steps,

there are also 12 traditions.

Just like the steps, the

traditions are suggestions.

There are no rules in aa,

no musts, no have tos.

Every group is autonomous.

That's actually part of tradition four.

The fifth tradition

states that each group has

but one primary purpose

to carry its message

to the alcoholic who still suffers.

The seventh tradition

states, every AA group ought

to be fully self-supporting, declining

outside contributions.

In the early pioneering years

of AA groups primarily

met in people's homes,

but the fellowship expanded quickly,

and as Bill w himself will tell you,

- Well, after a while,

Holmes got too small.

We had to move into halls

and we can all smile.

As we think of the great cries

that went up from us drunk,

when landlords actually had

the nerve to charge us money

for those halls, the heartless things,

why we said to the

landlords, we can't mix money

with spirituality.

The landlord said, well,

that's all right for me,

but you don't get the hall.

So it cost a little something,

and we began to drop money in the hat.

- We began to drop money in the hat,

meaning we were collecting

money from each other,

self-support straight

from the GSO archives.

That recording was Bill W

speaking at the International

Convention in St.

Louis, Missouri, 1955.

Now, nearly 70 years later, the necessity

of self support remains the same for why

and how GSO implements this practice.

We take you to the source

affectionately known

around the office as Zenni.

- My name is Zenida Medina

and I am the controller at

the General Service Office.

- Last name? - Yes. That's

okay. I'm not a member of aa.

- So you don't need to be

a member to work at GSL?

- No, not all positions are

required to be a member of AA

in the finance department.

No one is required to be a member.

- What does the controller do?

- As the controller of aa, I

go over the day-to-day activity

of the accounting department to make sure

that our reports are accurate so

that the CFO can report

accurately to the board.

- So you know a thing or two

about self-support in aa.

- I've been around quite a while, so yes.

- What do we mean by self-support?

- Self-support means accepting

contributions only from

AA members.

- How do we support ourselves?

- So we do have two revenue streams.

Our first is literature sales.

We sell recovery literature.

We are a wholesaler, so a

lot of treatment centers,

hospitals, as well as groups

and intergroup central offices.

All purchase literature from us

- And anyone can purchase literature.

- Anyone can purchase literature.

And then the other stream

of revenue is contributions.

We accept contributions

only from AA members.

- What about AA entities?

Like AA groups or districts?

- Right, so there is no limit

to AA groups, conferences,

areas, districts, assemblies, events.

We also receive contributions

as long as we know

that they're all from AA

members and that has no limit.

The only other limit

there is is for bequest,

which is anyone leaving

money to us in their will.

There's a $10,000 limit to that.

- So how can you tell if a contribution is

coming from a member?

- So we have a couple of

different methods that we use

to try to navigate all of the

contributions that we receive.

We receive more than 4,000 physical checks

to the office on a monthly basis.

- Wow.

- 20%

of our contributions comes

from online and online.

Everybody can put in all the information,

but as soon as you go in, the

first thing that it asks you,

are you an AA member?

Once you click that, then you can move on

to the next steps in

giving the contributions.

But we don't have that

feature when we receive

that physical checks to the office.

If there is no information

on the check, we look

to see if they've done a

contribution in the past

to see if we have history of

this person in our system.

And then if we can't tell at all

and there's just no way of telling,

we actually return the

contribution with a letter

and the return envelope asking, you know,

this is what we're doing.

We're sending it out to ask

if you're a member of aa.

And then once they tell us and

and they can return the check,

then we'll actually go ahead

and put it into the system.

We've returned hundreds

of thousands a year,

and that's kind of hard, you

know, as an non AA member

to see a check in front of

you and you have to return it.

But I stopped feeling

that way because it works.

It just works.

- So in essence, this

is exactly what we mean

by self-support.

- Absolutely. It's just

declining outside contributions,

just accepting contributions

from AA members.

- But financially speaking,

it seems like AA could really benefit from

outside contributions or

lifting the max amount.

Why is it so important to maintain this

tradition of self-support?

- It's important to maintain the integrity

of the organization.

If one person, or you

know, multiple people

contribute vast amounts of

money, it's definitely gonna try

to influence the program,

and that's not something that we accept.

- And why don't we accept that?

- Because it interferes with

the primary purpose, which is

to help alcoholics achieve sobriety.

Self-support is something

that I didn't know about

before working for the program of aa.

I didn't understand it.

I didn't know the reason for

it or why it even existed.

It didn't make any sense as an accountant.

'cause I was just hired

for my skills. That's it.

So I had to learn a lot.

But working at the office,

interacting with visitors,

definitely reading the literature

and just working on a

daily basis here really,

really taught me a lot about

why the program is the way

that it is and why it works.

- Thanks, zani.

- Thank you, Nathan.

- In this podcast, we respect

the anonymity of AA members.

Last names are shared only

for those who are not in aa.

For more information on Grapevine

and Lania, including the

magazines podcast, Instagram

and apps, please visit aa grapevine.org

and aa levina.org.

- Well, I think we're off

to a pretty good start.

We've talked about what

alcoholism is, the history

of Alcoholics Anonymous

and how AA supports itself.

Now, a big question remains,

who is sailing the ship?

Who runs this thing? Does AA

have a president or a CEO?

No, it does not. There

is no one leader of aa.

So who's in charge? Who

keeps this boat afloat?

The answer is all of us.

The great fellowship of

Alcoholics Anonymous.

Here's how it works.

So first, you gotta imagine the structure

of a typical organization

as a triangle, standing tall

with a tiny pointy top

where a select few folks

hold all the power.

They're the decision makers

calling all the shots

for everyone else down below

the wide base of the triangle,

who are mostly just along for the ride.

Well, the general service structure

of Alcoholics Anonymous flips

that triangle on its head.

The pointy top is now on the bottom.

The broad base is on top and

is now the final authority.

That final authority is the AA groups.

An AA group is two

or more, sometimes many more

people who come together

to help each other stay sober

and to share this program of hope

and recovery with other problem drinkers.

That's the only goal

of an AA group recovery from alcoholism.

Anyone who wants help

with a drinking problem is

welcome in aa, and it's free.

There are no fees or

requirements of any kind.

The collective opinion

of an AA group is known

as a group conscience.

There are hundreds of

thousands of groups in the US

and Canada that choose

to participate in this service structure.

Their collective opinions

affecting AA as a whole are heard

and funneled all the way

down to the bottom point

of our upside down triangle,

which is the General

Service Board of trustees.

How does it get there?

The service structure of

Alcoholics Anonymous in the US

and Canada is divided

into 93 areas once a year.

Elected representatives

from those 93 areas known

as delegates, bring those

collective opinions with them

and come together here in

New York City to consider,

discuss deliberate debate

and vote on these matters of

importance to AA as a whole.

This event is called The

General Service Conference.

What kinds of decisions

are made at the conference?

All kinds. Should we publish a new book

or other piece of literature?

Should we create a podcast?

These are decisions made

at the conference level.

Now, how are the actions implemented?

The answer to that

and much more is exactly

what we'll be exploring in this podcast.

We'll explore the many ways

GSO supports the AA fellowship

to carry the message of hope

and recovery to the

suffering alcoholic, which is

our primary purpose.

- To find a meeting near you

or a meeting online,

download the Meeting Guide

app on your mobile device.

- One of the best parts of

working at GSO is getting

to meet visitors from around the world.

- Hi, I'm Danielle.

I'm an alcoholic and I am 10 months

and three days sober.

I drank for almost 20 years,

pretty much constantly.

If I wasn't at work, I was drunk.

And I finally found

myself in the rooms of AA

because I tried everything

else to get sober

and nothing else worked.

So I thought that I would just try aa.

I finally went to my first

AA meeting. I got a sponsor.

My sponsor wanted me to get a home group.

It's part of the, you know, the,

the triangle is unity

Service and recovery.

You know, an important part

of that is the unity part.

So I joined a home group

and it was a women's group,

and I was kind of advised by my sponsor

and some other people

that I knew in the program

just to jump in.

So I became GSR for my home group.

- That's the general

service representative.

You were elected to represent

your group at district

and area assemblies?

- I can't say no. That's what

I used to do was just say no

to everything and everyone and just drink.

Now, when people ask me

to do things in aa, I,

I always agree because it, it

just keeps taking me to bigger

and better things.

And so

- Here you are at GSO.

- Here I am at GSO.

You know, it's a beautiful area

and everyone who works

here has been really nice.

And we kind of got to meet some people.

We got shown like all the

different departments,

the shipping and mailing

room also, which was cool

because they had like the big

book in every single language.

So that was, that was

pretty cool to see that

actually being here in GSO makes me feel

even more connected

and even more a part of

the people in GSO are just,

are just like anyone else

that you would find at a meeting.

They're just regular people.

You know, there was a, a young

woman that, you know, I I, me

and her kind of connected right away.

I mean, she has a neck

tattoo, which is great.

I mean, you know, there's people

in the office of, you know,

all ethnicities, all age ranges.

And it's really cool that

there's a meeting here.

There's like a conference

table and we just sit there

and just have a meeting.

And it was, it was a really,

it was a really good meeting.

I'm so grateful for aa, I mean,

I owe a, I owe my life to aa.

I honestly, I honestly

do like it's real for me.

- Thank you Danielle,

for sharing your experience,

strength, and hope.

And thank you listener

for sharing your time

and attention in this

our inaugural episode

of our primary purpose.

We are just cracking the surface of

what we have in store for you.

So be sure to subscribe so

you can keep coming back.

- Thank you for listening

to our Primary Purpose,

a podcast produced by the

General Service Office on behalf

of the Fellowship of

Alcoholics Anonymous in the US

and Canada.