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From: [email protected]
Category: Category 1
Date: 07 Feb 2000
Time: 15:34:13
Remote Name: ip4.atlanta.ga.pub-ip.psi.net
Night stuff 4 February 7, 2000
Since I was a child, it bothered me to see a big kid beating up a smaller kid. By the same token, I dislike it intensely when I see people use or misuse information to advantage themselves at the expense or others, especially in certain circumstances where the people injured trust those who betray them in a help situation.
As the flow of funds increased and pressure to get certain jobs done while keeping the whole thing together, certain strains developed within NA World Services. We all knew parts of what was happening but it was hard to assemble a full fledged picture so that conclusions could be drawn and policies formulated to correct the problem areas without unexpected side effects that would only create new problems. In this way the love and devotion of thousands of NA members directly involved were neutralized and prevented from helping the situation.
Frankly, as the dust settles from the ninties, the only thing I see is that world services has done a good bit of translations and held some outstanding world conventions. Otherwise, our service structure is sort of gone from uncertain to highly theoretical. What is supposed to happen at regional, area and group level is in a state of flux and what is supposed to happen at world level is supposed to be revealed in new policies that are yet to be revealed. Well, let's get some revealing! It is still OUR fellowship and the general membership is still the basic repository of our strength and knowledge. It is my hope and belief that the Fellowship will follow through to the extent that they finally regain control of their systems and processes. Frankly, complicating the situation only delays this reckoning. We need to ask simple questions and get directly responsible answers.
Questions like the following would be an excellent place to start:
1) How is work on the guidelines to world service going? When will we see something in writing?
2) What basic categories of service do we as a Fellowship provide with percentiles and costing.
Like, a list of five or ten items: literature, translations, efforts to communicate with treatment, efforts to make NA available to incarcerated addicts, efforts to make the media, law enforcement and others significant parts of the government aware of our existence in a positive manner. How much money does it cost WS to operate? How much does each of these service areas cost beyond the basic operating expenses? Letting the Fellowship get a clear picture of what is happening and using their responses to formulate courses of action is, I think, the ideal way for NA to run itself.
3) What is being done to encourage volunteer service efforts of all types? Is the Fellowship doing anything worthy of support or interest from World Services?
4) How is retailing literature and service materials lining up with the Seventh Tradition? Are we allowed to sell to agencies outside NA? If so, where is the line drawn? Do we sell through amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, or just Hazelden? How much is literature marked up beyond the cost of printing and distribution? Is it ok to use the mark up to ‘fund world services' or is this just accepting an outside contribution? If it is ok to accept outside contributions, perhaps we should go for the big bucks and get a major grant from the Federal Government? What is wrong with this idea?
5) How is the proposition of ‘delegating authority' working out in practice. It is a new term and concept that was never mentioned before 1990 when everything changed. Direct responsibility was the watchword for NA service workers before that. RSR's had to vote the conscience of their home regions, ASR's had to vote as instructed by their areas, etc. Delegating these people the ‘authority' to make decisions in the absence of their knowledge or participation was considered a breach of trust. Not knowing this may be a key area of concern for members who want to understand what is going on in NA today. When the linkage between members, groups and representatives was broken, members stopped coming to ‘group conscience' meetings of their home group. How basic can you get? Why did this happen? I have my own ideas, naturally, but really, what do you think?
6) The way for the Fellowship to regain control of its affairs is to stop being stupid. Don't go after the finances, that makes a thief only more careful to cover their tracks. Make WS a save place for trusted servants by setting goals, like two books in every library. Special H&I meeting packets for incarcerated members, so they can have their own meetings. Emphasis on positive goals requires members in WS to be empowered to do these things, money to be allocated, and so on. Then, the positive type members become more numerous and the whole system benefits. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the situation. It will always be easier to say, "Ah, don't bother me with details when questions should be asked and to proper state of our service structure maintained." Admittedly, the situation had gotten very sticky by the late eighties, but the inventory of the nineties shut everything down. Well, except for the WSO. That had to go on didn't it. But the Conference Sub-committees were deemed ineffectual and the independent Board of Trustees was absorbed into the system, so that accountability was compromised. Who can challenge their boss successfully? Ever try to fire your boss? Ever try to limit your bosses expense account? Well? But finances only show part of the picture. We want the money we put into the system to help people. Whether it is though the basket, overage from a convention or in literature sales, the money is ours and it should be used with all due care and concern to achieve Fellowship goals.
It is better all around for us to more forward towards positive, achievable goals and establish a positive direction and momentum. It will get us going again. I read recently an interesting set of interactions on the WS page devoted to NA events. Actually, this should have been called NAWS events because it didn't involve the Fellowship, only corporation employees. But the real trouble was that most of the things happened some time ago and there were only a few for a whole decade. These events could have taken place in a single year. We are slowing, not growing. The beauty of general Fellowship involvement is the capacity to move on many fronts, at all levels of society, to get the word out that we exist, that we are an asset and that recovery is a real solution and option for many, many citizens. That's what they need to know. Our people get what they need in the meetings.
6) Sharing information, asking questions, internalizing the information to see how you feel about it, all this will help build a stronger Fellowship that can manage its affairs without the necessity for becoming a pawn in a chess game. To a certain extent, the corporation cannot be blamed for the current situation. It did what it had to do to survive. Many NA members in different stages of growth and understanding participated in the huge stew of ideas and competing philosophies of the eighties and nineties. But in the end, what is it to be? Are we democratic or autocratic? Do we abide by group conscience or are we really run by a small group of dictators? Is God in charge, or do we do what we are told? Is WS open to creative ideas and new approaches? Or do you get fired for challenging the corporation? It has been a while since I heard anyone say they got struck off the list of people getting travel and hotel after the deadly sentence, "We can't do this. We have to ask the Fellowship for guidance in this area." I think WS is of the opinion that they won so conclusively that no successful challenge is possible. I think God is handling the situation very well. Members now routinely ignore what is happening. Members who try to get or disseminate information are regarded with fear and superstition, as if it is wrong to ask...
7) A member in Atlanta used to figure it was his job to tell me everytime he saw me that he liked the book we were working on but didn't like the way we were doing it. Then he was elected lit chair for his area. After his experiences as lit chair, he came up the other night and said, "When the Fellowship wakes up, they will have a new book." So, there is great progress. We have been quite lucky to escape all the temptations to set others straight and find a way to go forward in peace.
8) The good news this year is that we are coming up on 28,000 NA meetings. The love and caring of NA is still being carried and passed along to others. As we grow and add to our numbers, it is important that we grow inside the Fellowship as well. We have to keep in mind some important items about who and what NA is. First, it is a message that recovery is possible. Second, our message declares any addict who wants to stay clean must grow spiritually. Third, our message is that we have to help others who seek recovery.