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Tradition Two
"For our group purpose there is
but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express
Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted
servants, they do not govern."
In Narcotics Anonymous, we are often concerned
with protecting ourselves from ourselves. Our Second Tradition
is an example of this fact. "By nature, we are strong-willed,
self-centered people, thrust together in NA; mismanagers all;
not one of us is capable of making consistently good decisions."
[Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, 5th Edition, English, page 60].
We avoid many of the pitfalls awaiting us in PI work by adhering
to the spirit of this Tradition.
First, our PI subcommittees must work within our
service structure in order to receive the guidance of our
ultimate authority, a loving God. A subcommittee that reports to
its area or regional committee and actively seeks involvement of
members from the groups of areas it serves will be functioning
in the spirit of this tradition. Those of us who are given the
opportunity to serve need to remind ourselves that we do not, in
fact, govern.
But let us not be paralyzed by this Tradition.
That is not its purpose. PI subcommittees need not be afraid to
act if the actions are in the spirit of all our traditions. In
fact, if we don't act at all, we are not truly serving our
Fellowship. Public information service work is vital to our
primary purpose of carrying the message of recovery. Once the
group conscience has spoken through our election process, we
must trust our elected trusted servants and support them to get
the job done. If our trusted servants don’t do it, who will?
This Tradition tells us how to go about finding direction for
what needs doing.
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