Acting Within the Traditions

WHERE DOES cooperation stop and affiliation begin? This is a question that has troubled AAs for many years, and as facilities for the care of alcoholics and people to staff these facilities increase, it will become increasingly necessary to answer satisfactorily. The demonstration by AA that recovery is possible for a significant proportion of the victims of alcoholism, the broadening but still inadequate acceptance by society and government of their responsibility to provide medical care, the inadequacy of training in professional schools regarding alcoholism, and the consequent shortage of trained personnel to develop and staff treatment facilities--all these factors have drawn individual AAs more and more into the middle of the dilemma.