Recently, it became clear to me that I needed to write a post about how power is shared in the 12 step community because, at times, it is one of the more non-hierarchical spaces that I’ve experienced. It feels continues to feel difficult to write about power. My educated guess it that I have been socialized not to analyze it so as not to question those who hold it, myself included! There is also a discouragement within the program not to question why it works. Are these related? I do know that the sharing of power is tricky and there is no guaranteed method, only approximations.
If you’re not super familiar with the world of recovery, I encourage you to read the full version 12 traditions in tandem with my breakdown. The link is to AA’s website, but these traditions carry over to all 12 step programs. This document is basically a guide to help individual meetings make decisions around how to operate. Within this guide, there are several references to how they have achieved what approximates a non-hierarchical system.
Here’s a list of these elements as I understand them:
- Common welfare comes first. The health of the group is a Priority.
- God (or the faith moniker of your choosing) is the only authority. The important piece here is that part of being in recovery is discovering your personal experience of faith and that is a personal journey so the word ‘God’ is a placeholder. (The constrictions/power dynamics of the Christianity of the program are for another conversations ; )
- The only requirement to be here is a shared purpose. What is more uniting, leveling, than a shared goal?
- Each group is autonomous. There is a recognition that only so many guidelines can be applicable to everyone and there is space created for folks to be collectively creative in individual group settings.
- Similar to #3, reiterated the shared purpose.
- Addresses money and the power that it carries. Through guiding members of the program not to invest financially in anything outside of recovery in connection to it, this guideline protects members from having power struggles over how funds are spent. Please refer to my Money as Power post for more discussion.
- Similar to #6 containing the complications of power that money brings.
- AA should remain non-professional. Addressing the power that comes with being considered an expert of some kind.
- We may create service boards that are directly responsible to those we serve. The accountability to all members of the group is clearly outlined. Whether or not this is upheld may vary.
- AA has no opinion on outside issues. This prevents members from having to align with particular political or social issues that could create an imbalance of power and potentially result in segregation of the group which may take away from tradition #1.
- Attraction rather than promotion. It is against guidelines to advertise outside of the fellowship. The idea is that those in relationship with members of recovery will witness the benefits and organically make a decision if it might be a fit for them. We are, hopefully, not trying to dominate others with our recovery. The exception here being that there are mandates within our legal system that sometimes require individuals to attend.
- Principles before personalities. This is one of my favorite traditions. To me this has meant being welcoming and tolerant of everyone so that the experience of cliques and hierarchical social systems is as limited as possible.
It is my desire that these guidelines allow for another peek and perspective into the way power is navigated in what has grown into a fairly large and prevalent community over the last 95 years. While not perfect, progress not perfection, there is a lot to be learned about wielding power from how this community operates. Within each individual meeting, you may even find some nuanced lil nuggets, including those addressing the hierarchy of christianity.
Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash
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