On the List

It starts as a good night. Somebody in the group has a connection to a cause — a food bank, a children's ward, a family in the district who lost everything — and proposes a social. Not a meeting. A dance, a barbecue, a raffle, the sort of thing the group already puts on twice a year for its own anniversary. The only difference is a bucket by the door and a line on the poster naming where the money goes. Everyone involved is doing something decent and the sum raised will be small and real. Then the cause thanks its supporters, and the group's name appears on the list, and it now sits in public beside a set of organizations nobody in the group has examined or could vouch for. Some of them hold positions. Some will hold positions next year. A.A.'s own statement of policy keeps the door open exactly where it should be (A.A. pamphlet P-17): the movement "does not endorse any causes — although A.A. members often participate in other activities as individuals." Every person at that barbecue could have gone as themselves. The poster took the group.