Our membership ought to include all who suffer from alcoholism. Hence we may refuse none who wish to recover. Nor ought A.A. membership ever depend upon money or conformity. Any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 563
Prior to A.A., I often felt that I didn’t “fit in” with the people around me. Usually “they” had more/ less money than I did, and my points of view didn’t jibe with “theirs.” The amount of prejudice I had experienced in society only proved to me just how phony some self-righteous people were. After joining A.A., I found the way of life I had been searching for. In A.A. no member is better than any other member; we’re just alcoholics trying to recover from alcoholism.
From the book Daily Reflections
Copyright © 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.