PO Box 1980

In AA meetings throughout the country, alcoholics of every description laugh at the same stories and share the same experiences. Whatever other problems we may have, as alcoholics we are really all the same. And yet in our zeal to confront issues like smoking (see "Butting Out" in the February issue), we may be creating a kind of caste system in which smokers and others with similar problems are regarded as second-class citizens in their own Fellowship. Have Traditions Three and Five been amended? Sobriety through the practice of the Twelve Steps, it seems, is no longer enough. We have to quit smoking, swearing, drinking caffeine, and eating white sugar, as well as address "childhood issues," practice saying "I love you" to ourselves in the mirror, and do aerobics, or we're not really "working the program." (But which program?) The notion that we have to quit everything to recover from alcoholism is not contained in the message that Bill and Bob carried to Bill D., AA number three, as we can read in his own story. And at the end of Chapter Nine, we're warned about the problems that can arise when we nag each other about things like coffee and cigarettes.