A great deal of time and effort went into the creation of the Tradition-based structure of the AA and other programs to ensure that hierarchies were kept to a minimum. There are requirements that people such as Trustees (for example) should have certain qualifications, but most of us in recovery will never have heard of Trustees, much less know who they are. For the everyday member, our 12-Step Program is presented as a collection of equals ... almost.

For the fact is that, as human beings, we love to create hierarchies, and we'll create informal ones if there aren't any actual ones to belong to. We can indeed count ourselves fortunate if the group we belong to has no all-wise old-timers, who are unofficially looked to as the guardians of the real wisdom of the group; if our group pays no real heed to length of time in recovery and rarely talks about it; if the hesitant contribution of the person with six months is listened to as carefully as the confident outpourings of the person with thirty years; if we do not have members who speak as self-appointed authorities or in order to amuse.

Some of us, though, are lucky enough to be able to attend groups whose focus is the last three Steps of Program, and here something very different seems to happen. There appears to be no premium on time, since it's possible to start working these three Steps effectively within months -- sometimes weeks -- of joining a 12-Step fellowship. Since it's impossible to become any kind of expert on Steps 10 thru 12, everyone in the meeting seems to be at the same point -- that is, on the verge of exploring yet another new dimension of their spiritual nature. These are true meetings of equals, and those of us privileged to attend them are indeed fortunate to experience something so rare.