Idealists

TRADITION SIX

“We’d form groups of depressive and paranoid folks; the deeper the neurosis, the better we’d like it. It stood to reason that if alcoholism could be licked, so could any problem.

It occurred to us that we could take what we had into the factories and cause laborers and capitalists to love each other. Our uncompromising honesty might soon clean up politics. With one arm around the shoulder of religion and the other around the shoulder of medicine, we’d resolve their differences…

We might transform the world…bankrupt idealists…

According to Webster dictionary:

Idealism—the attitude of a person who believes that it is possible to live according to very high standards of behavior and honesty.

Grandiose—seeming to be impressive or intended to be impressive but not really possible or practical; characterized by affectation of grandeur or splendor or by absurd exaggeration.

This sounds familiar 🙂

“We are all perfectionists who, failing perfection, have gone to the other extreme and settled for the bottle and the blackout. Providence, through A.A., had brought us within reach of our highest expectations. So why shouldn’t we share our way of life with everyone?

Whereupon we tried A.A. hospitals—they all bogged down because you cannot put an A.A. group into business; too many busybody cooks spoil the broth. A.A. groups had their fling at education, and when they began to publicly whoop up the merits of this or that brand, people became confused. ” (AA Daily Reflections 6/29)

What’s really interesting today, is that I attended two AA meetings and neither of which discussed AA Tradition 6.  It mentions the word “prestige” and everyone missed the context.