A Basic Primer on Touching Hot Metal Surfaces

Tradition Ten states that " . . . A.A. ought never be organized . . .  " and the 12 & 12 has a number of - in retrospect - pretty hilarious anecdotes about the shit that self-righteous but well-meaning alcoholics tried to pull early on in our history.  We often mean well or at least we try to hide self-serving motives under a patina of well-meaning motives.

There's a lot of text that sounds contradictory.  We are quick to point out that most A.A.s, once established, are willing to take advice, while emphasizing that those stubborn individuals who aren't quite as willing to take advice from self-righteous long-timers have every right to ignore advice but  still sit in a meeting.  And have you ever written or called our Central Office in New York?  Invariably there counsel is along the lines of " . . . the majority experience is this or that, but you, of course, are free to do whatever you want as long as A.A. as a whole isn't adversely affected . . . "

One of the recovery precepts that has really stuck with me is the idea that if an alcoholic doesn't follow our spiritual principles then any set-backs that may occur is because of this unwillingness to follow our Program as it's outlined in the Big Book and not a punishment meted out by A.A. itself.  The 12 & 12 says it better than I can: "His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalities inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles."  If someone tells you that a plate is hot and you touch it anyway and get burned don't get mad at the person who told you the plate was hot.  And don't get mad at the plate, either.  Sure as shit don't get mad at me for telling this long and barely interesting story.  If you need to get mad get mad at the laws of thermodynamics.  I'm not intimately familiar with them but one of them explains that hot shit burns skin, something like that. 

More from the Step: "So we of A.A. do obey spiritual principles, first because we must, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings.  Great love and great suffering are A.A.'s disciplinarians; we need no others."