Bill W's original 1948 Grapevine article on Tradition Eight:

Tradition Eight

                  Throughout the world AAs are twelfth-stepping with thousands 

                  of new prospects a month. Between one and two thousand of 

                  these sick on our first presentation; past experience shows t

                  hat most of the remainder will come back to us later on. 

                  Almost entirely unorganized and completely non professional, 

                  this mighty spiritual current is now flowing from alcoholics 

                  who are well to those who are sick. One alcoholic talking to 

                  another; that's all.

                  Could this vast and vital face-to-face effort ever be 

                  professionalized or even organized? Most emphatically, it 

                  could not. The few efforts to professionalized straight 

                  twelfth Step work have always failed quickly. Today, no AA 

                  will tolerate the idea of paid "AA therapists" or 

                  "organizers." Nor does any AA like to be told just how he must 

                  handle that new prospect of his. No, this great life-giving 

                  stream can never be dammed up by paid do-gooders or 

                  professionals. Alcoholics Anonymous is never going to cut its 

                  own lifelines. To a man, we are sure of that.

                  But what about those who serve us full time in other 

                  capacities -- are cooks, caretakers, and paid intergroup 

                  secretaries "AA professionals"?

                  Because our thinking about these people is still unclear, we 

                  often feel and act as though they were such. The impression of 

                  professionalism subtly attaches to them, so we frequently hear 

                  they are "making money out of AA" or that they are 

                  "professionalizing" AA. Seemingly, if they do take our AA 

                  dollars they don't quite belong with us AAs anymore. We 

                  sometimes go further; we underpay them on the theory they 

                  ought to be glad to "cook" for AA cheap.

                  Now isn't this carrying our fears of professionalism rather 

                  far? If these fears ever got too strong, none but a saint or 

                  an incompetent could work for Alcoholics Anonymous. Our supply 

                  of saints being quite small, we would certainly wind up with 

                  less competent workers than we need. 

                  We are beginning to see that our few paid workers are 

                  performing only those service tasks that our volunteers cannot 

                  consistently handle. Primarily these folks are not doing 

                  Twelfth Step work. They are just making more and better 

                  Twelfth Step work possible. Secretaries at their desks are 

                  valuable points of contact, information, and public relations. 

                  That is what they are paid for, and nothing else. They help 

                  carry the good news of AA to the outside world and bring our 

                  prospects face to face with us. That's not "AA therapy"; it's 

                  just a lot of very necessary but often thankless work.

                  So, where needed, let's revise our attitude toward those who 

                  labor at our special services. Let us treat them as AA 

                  associated, and not as hired help; let's recompense them 

                  fairly and, above all, let's absolve them from the label of 

                  professionalism.

                  Let us also distinguish clearly between "organizing the AA 

                  movement" and setting up, in a reasonably businesslike manner, 

                  its few essential services of contact and propagation. Once we 

                  do that, all will be well. The million or so fellow alcoholics 

                  who are still sick will then continue to get the break we 

                  sixty thousand AAs have already had.

                  Let's give our "service desks" the hand they so well deserve.

                  Copyright © The A.A. Grapevine, Inc., July 1948