Which Drunks Go to Jail

They meant to help, and they had gone to the places where help actually gets decided. Bill W. (A.A. pamphlet P-17): "A.A. members began to take us into politics. They began to tell state legislative committees — publicly, of course — just what A.A. wanted in the way of rehabilitation, money and enlightened legislation." Everything in that sentence is defensible except two words: what A.A. wanted. Nobody had asked A.A. what it wanted, and there is no mechanism by which anyone could. Then the picture sharpens (A.A. Comes of Age). "Thus, by full name and often by pictures, some of us became lobbyists. Other members sat on benches with police court judges, advising which drunks in the lineup should go to A.A. and which to jail." Sat on the bench. Advised which drunks go to jail. Bill had watched this coming years before, when members first began saying there ought to be a law: "In full public view, some A.A.'s commenced to thump tables in legislative committee rooms and to agitate for legal reform. That made good newspaper copy but little else." Good copy, little else — and a fellowship that now, apparently, had views on sentencing.