It is HOW we keep sober that matters most. Staying active and carrying the message to those who still suffer, as well as being a living example is how we change things.
Conservatism is a great part of this vital program. The principles we maintain go hand in hand with the results of recovery.
Unfortunately it’s also true that Bill Wilson apparently flipped out and became a full-blown communist when he was later shunned by Wall Street, and the program largely amounts to an anti-capitalist altruism cult that has very little to do with the principles we espouse here on FR...when I try to point this out to most of my fellow ex-drunks, they either cannot process it at all intellectually, or they start yelling at me, or....
Not to rattle your cage too much, but it’s also troubling when 12-steppers insist that the program is so vital, and insist that it’s really the only way to survive, etc., yet the percentage of recoveries nowadays is statistically identical to any date previous to AA’s coming into being.
I’m not saying AA is anything other than beneficial in many circumstances, but that the dogmatic and often coercive attitudes of 12-steppers, the courts, and so on can be truly damaging to an individual’s growth and even survival I’m afraid. I’ve seen people, close friends sometimes, so browbeaten by 12-steppers and so forth (though admittedly of course there’s most surely possibly much more to attribute for their demise) that they commited suicide.