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In Alcoholics Anonymous, each AA group shares its experience and conscience with the wider Fellowship. Through the General Service Structure, the experience and conscience of groups are carried forward to the annual General Service Conference, where recommendations help guide AA services nationally.
The General Service Representative (GSR) is the trusted servant elected by a group to carry that voice into the service structure.
Through the GSR, a group shares its experience, concerns and ideas with the wider Fellowship, helping ensure that AA services remain guided by the collective conscience of AA groups.
What is a GSR?
A General Service Representative (GSR) is an AA member elected by their home group to represent that group within AA’s General Service Structure.
The GSR participates in District meetings and Area Assemblies, where information flows between local AA groups and the wider Fellowship.
In this way, the GSR helps ensure that discussions and decisions affecting AA services reflect the informed group conscience of AA groups.
What does a GSR so?
A GSR’s responsibilities typically include:
- Sharing the group’s conscience at District meetings and Area Assemblies
- Carrying information between the group and the wider Fellowship
- Encouraging awareness of service within the group
- Helping the group stay connected to AA as a whole
Through this communication, the GSR helps maintain a vital link between individual AA groups and the broader Fellowship.
Where does the GSR fit in the AA Service Structure?
AA’s service structure connects individual groups with the wider Fellowship so that services such as literature, public information and communication can function effectively.
Communication typically flows through the structure in the following way:
AA Group
↓
General Service Representative (GSR)
↓
District Committee Member (DCM)
↓
Area Assembly & Area Delegate
↓
General Service Conference
↓
General Service Board
↓
General Service Office
Through this structure, the experience and conscience of individual groups help guide AA services across the country.
Why is the GSR role important?
AA’s service structure exists to support the Fellowship’s primary purpose:
“Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.”
— Tradition Five Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
The GSR helps ensure that the voice of each AA group can be heard within the wider Fellowship and that decisions affecting AA services remain rooted in the experience of AA members.
Service and the Three Legacies of AA
Service in Alcoholics Anonymous is often described as part of the Fellowship’s Three Legacies:
- Recovery – the Twelve Steps
- Unity – the Twelve Traditions
- Service – the general service structure that helps carry the message
The Australian AA Group Handbook explains that service is described in the AA Service Manual and the Twelve Concepts for World Service, which outline how the service structure supports AA groups.
Principles that guide AA Service
The spiritual principles behind AA’s service structure are outlined in the Twelve Concepts for World Service, written by AA co-founder Bill W.
Concept I explains that:
Final responsibility and ultimate authority for AA world services resides in the collective conscience of the Fellowship.
This principle means that AA groups — through roles such as the GSR — ultimately guide the services that support the Fellowship.
Learn more
To learn more about the GSR role and AA service structure, see:
- The Australian AA Service Manual
- The Australian AA Group Handbook
- Twelve Concepts for World Service
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
These publications explain how AA’s service structure works and how trusted servants help carry the message.
