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My Name Is…

As a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m obligated by some proprieties of membership. Among those proprieties are what folks familiar with AA call Traditions. One of those Traditions says that AA members need to “maintain personal anonymity” at a public level like this website. That means I can tell you who I am, but not that I’m a member of AA, or I can tell you I’m a member of AA, but not who I am. My choice.

In this forum, I’d like to converse as a member of AA, so I’ll remain anonymous. Lloyd Grafton is a nom de plume, as they used to call it.

My Aim Is…

The aim, here, is to inspire more members to look more closely at AA’s sole Program of Recovery: 200 words that caused a paradigm shift about addiction and its treatment.

Is that Program of Recovery still effective, or is it becoming archaic? Can it be improved? Is it still used, as is, to gain recovery or, in practice, is it changed? Do the words of the Program mean the same to all its adherents, or is it widely interpreted?

We don’t want to alter the Program “for light and transient causes,” while we also need to be on guard for fear of change–in a world where “change is the only constant.”