AA has a lot of language that makes sense after you have been around awhile and almost none of it is obvious the first time you hear it.
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12th Step call
Plain English: AA members making direct contact with an alcoholic who wants help, sharing their experience and helping connect that person with AA. Local practice and safety guidance vary.
Why you may hear this: You may hear older members talk about “going on a Twelfth Step call.” It is service, not professional treatment or detox care.
Where AA explains it
AA Grapevine / La Viña
Plain English: AA Grapevine and La Viña are AA's international journals. Grapevine is often called a meeting in print; individual issues are not “Conference-approved” in the same way GSO literature is.
Why you may hear this: You may see Grapevine used for meeting topics, stories, literature displays, or service.
Where AA explains it
Alternate DCM
Plain English: A trusted servant who supports the DCM and commonly serves when the DCM cannot. Local duties vary.
Why you may hear this: Areas and districts use alternates for continuity, support, and service development.
Where AA explains it
Alternate GSR
Plain English: A member elected to support the GSR and commonly to serve when the GSR cannot. Exact duties vary by group and area.
Why you may hear this: Groups use alternates to maintain continuity and help another member learn the service role.
Where AA explains it
Amends
Plain English: An effort to repair harm where appropriate—not merely an apology or a way to make our own guilt disappear.
Why you may hear this: You will hear this especially in Steps Eight, Nine, and Ten. Experienced guidance matters because an attempted repair can sometimes cause additional harm.
Where AA explains it
Anniversary / chip
Plain English: A way many AA groups recognize periods of sobriety. Chips, medallions, and anniversary customs vary and are not requirements for AA membership.
Why you may hear this: You may hear “picking up a chip” or “celebrating an anniversary.” The exact milestones differ from group to group.
Where AA explains it
Anonymity
Plain English: A spiritual and practical principle protecting members' privacy and placing principles before personalities. Public anonymity has specific importance in AA's Traditions.
Why you may hear this: It does not mean that unsafe or criminal behavior must be concealed, and it is not a rule that members can never know one another's full names.
Where AA explains it
Area
Plain English: A geographic part of the U.S./Canada general service structure made up of districts and groups. Each Area elects a Delegate to the General Service Conference.
Why you may hear this: Area assemblies bring GSRs, DCMs, officers, and other trusted servants together for general service business.
Where AA explains it
Autonomous group
Plain English: Under Tradition Four, an AA group makes its own decisions except where its actions affect other groups or AA as a whole.
Why you may hear this: This is why meeting formats and local customs can differ so much—and why autonomy is not the same as freedom from all responsibility to the Fellowship.
Where AA explains it
Business meeting
Plain English: A meeting where members handle the practical affairs of an AA group: service positions, money, format, supplies, group problems, and other group decisions.
Why you may hear this: You may hear that a subject “belongs in the business meeting” rather than in the recovery meeting.
Where AA explains it
Carrying the message
Plain English: Sharing AA recovery with alcoholics who still suffer, especially through personal contact, meetings, sponsorship, and service.
Why you may hear this: It is central to Step Twelve and to AA's primary purpose.
Where AA explains it
Central office
Plain English: A local AA service office supported by participating groups in some communities. It often performs intergroup-style local services.
Why you may hear this: Some places say “central office,” some say “intergroup,” and some have different arrangements.
Where AA explains it
Closed meeting
Plain English: A meeting for AA members and for people who have a drinking problem and a desire to stop drinking.
Why you may hear this: Closed meetings provide a setting focused specifically on people who may belong in AA.
Where AA explains it
Conference-approved literature
Plain English: Written or audiovisual material approved by the General Service Conference for publication by GSO.
Why you may hear this: Members may use the phrase when distinguishing official GSO literature from other recovery writing. Not everything used in AA meetings is Conference-approved.
Where AA explains it
DCM
Plain English: District Committee Member. The elected trusted servant who works with the GSRs in a district and connects district activity with the Area.
Why you may hear this: You may hear the DCM give reports, help GSRs, or bring district concerns to the Area.
Where AA explains it
Delegate
Plain English: The trusted servant elected by an Area to participate in the annual General Service Conference and carry the Area's conscience into that process.
Why you may hear this: Delegates also bring information and Conference experience back to their Areas.
Where AA explains it
Discussion meeting
Plain English: A meeting where members share their experience around a topic, reading, Step, or other recovery subject.
Why you may hear this: The chair may introduce a topic and then invite members to share. Local formats vary.
Where AA explains it
District
Plain English: A local grouping of AA groups within an Area for general service purposes.
Why you may hear this: GSRs from groups in the district meet together, and the district is commonly served by a DCM.
Where AA explains it
General Service Conference
Plain English: The annual service meeting in the U.S. and Canada where Area Delegates and other Conference members consider matters affecting AA as a whole.
Why you may hear this: It is part of AA's general service process, not a governing authority over local groups.
Where AA explains it
Group conscience
Plain English: The way a group seeks a collective decision by hearing members, considering AA principles and relevant facts, and allowing its shared conscience to emerge.
Why you may hear this: In AA, important group decisions are not supposed to be simply whoever argues best or a leader issuing orders.
Where AA explains it
GSR
Plain English: General Service Representative. An elected member who links a home group with AA's wider general service structure and carries information in both directions.
Why you may hear this: GSRs attend district meetings and area assemblies and bring the group's voice into general service.
Where AA explains it
Home group
Plain English: The AA group where you choose to belong, participate regularly, and take particular responsibility for the group's life and service.
Why you may hear this: You may hear members say “my home group” when talking about business meetings, service positions, a GSR, or where they feel rooted in AA.
Where AA explains it
Informed group conscience
Plain English: A group conscience reached after relevant information has been considered and different views—including minority views—have had room to be heard.
Why you may hear this: You may hear this phrase when a group wants to slow down, gather facts, or hear more experience before acting.
Where AA explains it
Intergroup
Plain English: A local service body through which participating AA groups cooperate on services that one group may not be able to provide alone. Structure and services vary widely.
Why you may hear this: Intergroups may help with meeting information, phones, literature, websites, events, or other local services. They are related to, but not the same as, the general service chain of GSR–district–area–Conference.
Where AA explains it
Inventory
Plain English: A deliberate look at our own conduct, motives, fears, resentments, harms, and other matters as part of Step work and ongoing recovery.
Why you may hear this: AA uses inventory in several contexts: the written Fourth Step, daily Tenth/Eleventh Step practice, and sometimes group inventory.
Where AA explains it
Minority opinion
Plain English: The viewpoint of members who did not support the prevailing decision. AA group-conscience practice values hearing those views before final action is settled.
Why you may hear this: You may hear a chair ask whether the minority wishes to speak after a vote or before reconsideration.
Where AA explains it
Open meeting
Plain English: An AA meeting that nonalcoholics may attend as observers as well as AA members and people who think they may have a drinking problem.
Why you may hear this: A family member, professional, student, or friend may be able to attend an open meeting with you.
Where AA explains it
Primary purpose
Plain English: The focus named in Tradition Five: an AA group's purpose centers on carrying the AA message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
Why you may hear this: Groups often return to primary purpose when deciding whether an activity or project properly belongs to the group.
Where AA explains it
Rotation
Plain English: The practice of members moving out of service positions after a period so responsibility can pass to others.
Why you may hear this: Rotation helps keep service from becoming personal ownership and gives more members the opportunity to serve.
Where AA explains it
Service position
Plain English: A responsibility accepted for a period of time to help a group or service body do needed AA work.
Why you may hear this: Examples range from coffee and setup to GSR, treasurer, district committee work, and area service.
Where AA explains it
Singleness of purpose
Plain English: AA's focus on recovery from alcoholism and carrying that message, rather than trying to become an answer for every problem a member may have.
Why you may hear this: You may hear it when groups discuss outside issues, meeting focus, or cooperation with treatment and other organizations.
Where AA explains it
Speaker meeting
Plain English: A meeting where one or more AA members tell their recovery stories at greater length.
Why you may hear this: You may hear less back-and-forth discussion and more of one person's experience, strength, and hope.
Where AA explains it
Step meeting
Plain English: A meeting focused on one or more of the Twelve Steps, often using AA literature.
Why you may hear this: It is one common way groups study how the recovery program is practiced.
Where AA explains it
Tradition meeting
Plain English: A meeting focused on the Twelve Traditions and how AA groups live and work together.
Why you may hear this: Traditions are especially relevant to group life, unity, money, public relations, and service.
Where AA explains it
Trusted servant
Plain English: AA language for someone entrusted with a service responsibility. Tradition Two emphasizes service rather than governing.
Why you may hear this: You may hear members use this term for group officers, GSRs, DCMs, committee chairs, and many other service roles.
Where AA explains it
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