AA Group vs AA Meeting
The AA Group is any group of two AA members or more, is not affiliated with any non-AA entities and wishes to call themselves an AA group. This group may hold more than one AA meeting throughout the week, and while the AA meeting may end, the group entity continues to exist outside of AA meetings.
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Some AA groups are large and consist of service positions to facilitate carrying the message to alcoholics who are still suffering. The usual service positions of an AA group are the chairperson, secretary, treasurer and literature rep. The chairperson of the AA group is not necessarily the same as the person who “chairs” or leads an AA meeting. Their function is most noticeable when business meetings are held, as they are the ones who chair these meetings where “group conscience” decisions are made.
An AA meeting, on the other hand, is an AA meeting attended by AA members (or non-alcoholics if it’s an “open” meeting) with the sole function of providing an AA meeting.
Why Form and Sustain an AA Group?
By having an AA group in the Philippines, it becomes connected to other groups throughout the country via the AA General Service Office (GSO) of the Philippines. GSO serves as the hub whereby other groups can know of each others’ existence, learn from one another and also partake of the services rendered by the GSO to facilitate carrying the message to alcoholics who are still suffering.
What is a GSR?
A GSR is the AA group’s General Service Representative to AA GSO Philippines. They represent their group to GSO meetings where decisions and votes are made pertaining to services that could be rendered to groups throughout the country. By registering with AA GSO Philippines, the group has a voice in business decisions or ideas that can help other groups or AA, as a whole, in carrying the message of AA’s program of recovery to alcoholics who are still suffering throughout the country.
How Does Your Group Connect to GSO
An AA group connects to GSO simply by having a GSR that attends regular meetings of AA GSO Philippines, where their group concerns, needs or votes may be voiced.
How to Register Your AA Group with AA GSO Philippines
Simply fill out the registration form here: AA Group Registration Form
How Does GSO Serve AA Groups?
The structure of GSO and how it relates to groups is a bottom up hierarchy. GSO exists and aims to serve the needs of all AA groups in the country. There is no one person deciding, unlike some organisations where there’s a CEO making decisions for the company. For each group’s purpose, including GSO, there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern (tradition two). Thus, GSO doesn’t dictate or tell groups what to do as each group is autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole (tradition four); decisions are made via the group conscience (vote by each GSR).
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GSO can be thought of as a repository of information that can be shared with groups throughout the Philippines. There are AA groups, for example, that are well-versed in coordinating with and bringing AA meetings to treatment facilities — such knowledge can be shared with other groups, but how would such groups know, if they’re disconnected from the whole? The hub-like role of GSO is conducive to sharing of knowledge and eliminating duplication of effort and “reinventing of the wheel”, thus facilitating the carrying of the AA message in various ways and to various entities, whether it be to suffering alcoholics, professionals, the general public or loved ones.
Currently, GSO has three active committees: Literature, Public Information and Cooperation with the Professional Community. Each one of these committees specialise in a specific service or target audience that could be informed of AA’s program of recovery. AA groups can partake of these services to improve in carrying the message to alcoholics or professionals in their local area.
Future committees to be formed are Treatment and Accessibility and Corrections. The former involves information and guidelines on how to cooperate and coordinate with treatment centers in order to bring AA meetings to their facilities. Accessibility pertains to providing accommodations/accessibility to those who have special needs, such as the hearing impaired, deaf, blind etc. Corrections entail information and guidelines on how to coordinate and bring AA meetings to Correctional facilities.
How to Start an AA Group
All that’s needed is two or more AA members who would like to start a group, provide an AA meeting(s) and basically help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. If your group would like to be connected with other groups and partake of GSO services, fill out the registration form below. Listed also are some guideline pamphlets and link to the group registration form. Note that the pamphlets are designed for North American AA groups; most of the concepts still apply to Philippines-based AA groups.
The AA Group Handbook
The following pamphlet is a guideline for AA groups in North America. This is a general guideline, as the AA structure is much simpler in the Philippines.
The AA Group