If an alcoholic comes to
an A.A. meeting under the influence of alcohol,
how do you treat him or handle him during the
meeting?
Answer
Groups will usually run
amuck on that sort of question. At first we are
likely to say that we are going to be supermen
and save every drunk in town. The fact is that a
great many of them just don't want to stop. They
come, but they interfere very greatly with the
meeting. Then, being still rather intolerant,
the group will swing way over in the other
direction and say, "No drunks around these
meetings." We get forcible and put them out of
the meeting, saying, "You're welcome here if
your sober." But the general rule in most places
is that if a person comes for the first or
second time and can sit quietly in the meeting,
without creating an uproar, nobody bothers him.
On the other hand, if he's a chronic "slipper"
and interferes with the meetings, we lead him
out gently, or maybe not so gently, on the
theory that one man cannot be permitted to hold
up the recovery of others. The theory is "the
greatest good for the greatest number." (Yale
Summer School of Alcohol Studies, June 1945)
