September 28
A Place at the Table
Outside the meeting, titles can decide who receives attention. Some people are accustomed to being consulted; others are accustomed to being overlooked. Those habits can follow us into A.A. We may lean toward the confident professional and quietly pass over someone whose circumstances look less impressive. No one needs to say that there are ranks for the room to begin acting as though there are.
The spirit of anonymity gives us a chance to meet without asking worldly position to establish anyone's worth. Experience with alcoholism and recovery does not follow the usual social arrangements. The person we overlook may know something we badly need. Nor do they have to produce a wonderful insight to justify belonging. We can appreciate abilities and experience without carrying the world's whole seating chart into the meeting. There is relief in having somewhere we are allowed to be simply another alcoholic.
Whose standing outside A.A. influences the attention I give them inside it?
There is a chair here without a title on it.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Tradition Twelve; Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV.