{"product_id":"the-gift-of-the-exile-one-aa-group-reclaimed-its-conscience-9798995860105","title":"The Gift of the Exile: One A.A. Group Reclaimed Its Conscience","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn September 2025, a majority vote separated an online A.A. community from the home group it had built over five years.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn March 2020, when the pandemic shut down a long-running A.A. group's meeting room, one member printed flyers and set up a phone-in meeting. Twenty people called in on St. Patrick's Day morning. They thought the arrangement would last a few weeks. It lasted five and a half years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen restrictions eased, some members returned to a new in-person location. Others kept meeting online every morning at 7:00. For four years, the two communities coexisted under a single umbrella, sharing a fragile sense that they were still one group.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn September 2025, the in-person members called a vote to separate. Four weeks' notice, no rationale. It passed by three votes. Fifty-four online members were left with a blank page.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcross eight Saturdays of formation meetings, those fifty-four built something none of them had belonged to before-the group they had been seeking all along. They wrote their membership statement word by word. They chose their name by ranked-choice vote. They sought the group's conscience through consensus rather than majority rule and read A.A.'s Traditions for their spirit rather than the letter. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe questions they worked through are not unique to A.A.: how we decide together, who belongs, what we owe each other. Any community that governs itself by shared principles will recognize the dynamics in these pages, whether a church, a nonprofit, a civic organization, or a recovery group.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Gift of the Exile is a case study in what happens when a community loses its conscience, and what it takes to rediscover it. Jim Beach, a founding member of the group that became Our Fellow Travelers, tells the story from the inside.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Gift of the Exile is the story of what they lost, what they reclaimed, and what any community can learn from how they did it\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Roadpainter Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/23\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798995860105\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 144\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.38lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.34d","brand":"Beach","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52734003675317,"sku":"9798995860105","price":13.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-gift-of-the-exile-one-aa-group-reclaimed-its-conscience-9798995860105","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}