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)
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