Ask For Help and Accept It

“Ask For Help and Accept It”

From Program Slogans that work; BRB p. 52

“Remembering I am a trusted servant; I do not govern

“I perform service so that my program will be available for myself, and through those efforts, others may benefit.”

From the Suggested Commitment to Service; BRB pp 601-602

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I’m asking for help.

As Intergroup chair I am often reminded of how service and recovery intersect. It supports recovery. It puts people in my path that can be very supportive. It creates purpose, energy, ideas, goals to strive for.

It also challenges my recovery, testing my boundaries, testing the responses I reach for that often grow right out of our ACA traits and challenges me (to at least try) to learn new responses to questions, situations and interactions that come my way.

I find service is a valuable way to make what might be a fragile recovery more robust and enduring. Recovery shouldn’t be a china doll, put on a high shelf where it won’t get bumped and possibly broken but something more bullet proof that protects me rather than me having to gingerly protect it.

While there are many ways to serve, from making coffee, leading your local meeting, putting the chairs in a circle, I would like to highlight service on an Intergroup (IG) level today, particularly as Group Representative.

An Intergroup is not a necessary organization in the ACA structure, many areas do not have an Intergroup, however we in the Chicagoland and Southern Wisconsin area have had an active Intergroup for many years. Intergroups are usually formed to do some of those things that no single local group has the resources to do alone. They have the ability and resources to explore ideas on how best to carry the message to the larger community, including but not limited to meetings and speakers with a larger context, retreats, dissemination of information, carrying the message into treatment centers, the ideas are are varied as the minds that come together for the mission.

Each group in the West Great Lakes area has the opportunity to elect and send a representative to the Intergroup business meeting. The more representatives we have that gather together, the more ideas, the more energy, the more impact we can bring to our area.

Therein lies my concern. At our latest count we have around 60 active meetings in our area (we are still firming up that number since there were so many changes going into and now coming out of the pandemic). Given that many groups, we should be able to generate more energy and ideas than we could possibly use, however in the last few Intergroup Business meetings we have barely made (or weren’t able to make) quorum. To conduct business we are required to have representation from 7 groups and we’ve struggled to make sure we have enough to conduct business. Not only does it limit our ability to conduct business, it limits the brainpower that energizes our work together.

Here is where I ask for help.

Do you know who the IG rep for your meeting is? Does your meeting have one? It can’t hurt to ask the question. Does that person need help? Are they able to attend the IG meetings? Does your Group need an alternate or a primary Rep. One of the things that concerns me is that we need a certain number of people to collaborate on the tasks and direction of the Intergroup, otherwise we run the risk of needing to govern (see the commitment to service, above) rather than serve, together.

Thanks. I look forward to having more input in what we do and you and your group are part of the excitement we can create together.

Jeff F., Chair, West Great Lakes ACA Intergroup