In the months since the Global Members Subcommittee came into being, we have had so many experiences and learned so many lessons. Our strength has always been our Higher Powers, our Inner Children, our group decision-making using the Global Members’ ‘heartstorming’… Our strength has been our recovery program in action. Finally, our hope is to carry the message world-wide with gentleness, humor, love, and respect. It is always about blameless progress with us. Here are just a few examples of how we have gone global.
A spiritual awakening after the Toronto AWC-ABC in 2018 became a World Service Organization (WSO) Subcommitte under the Member Services Committee. This service coming from love has grown into one of the largest and busiest areas of the WSO. We introduce ACA into countries using a ‘Lights On’ program. During ‘Lights On,’ we learn about languages and time zones and cultures and needs. Most importantly, we listen to the expressed needs of new members and how to share our program of recovery effectively. We surrender and we model surrender to the best of our ability.
We found that the Big Red Book (BRB) our text, is very big and therefore costs quite a bit to ship. We have found that the words in the BRB can be difficult to understand for many members around the world. These precious words are also difficult to translate into concepts that are spiritual and impactful. We collaborate with the Trusted Servants volunteering in Literature and Translations and budgeting. We also found that cooperation with other 12 Step Fellowships does help move us forward by learning from their successes and failures. The costs for our literature and the effort to translate our literature has opened our eyes to the need to be explicitly equitable in world-wide recovery.
We are learning to go global spiritually as we say the Serenity Prayer in our native languages and dialects. The voices are profoundly moving. We may discover inner children that prefer to speak in the tongue of our ancestors. We are going beyond borders and we cannot even imagine the outcomes. We can faithfully do the footwork. And so, we spiritually connect to the Principles of our ACA program- like faith, courage and service from the 12 Steps; Unity, trust and neutrality from the 12 Traditions and principles like equality and dialogue from the Concepts of Service. We look forward to “…spiritual awakenings… across cultures and across continents.”