benign anarchy: no musts, only the parachute
There are, by ratified tradition, no ‘musts’ in Boston AA. No doctrine or dogma or rules. They can’t kick you out. You don’t have to do what they say. Do exactly as you please—if you still trust what seems to please you.
Context
The program's paradoxical governance: it enforces nothing and forbids nothing, yet is "sub-rosa dogmatic," because the suggestions are optional in exactly the way a parachute is optional to a person already falling. The trap in "Do exactly as you please" is the conditional that follows — "if you still trust what seems to please you" — which the addict, by definition, cannot. AA's authority works by handing the will back to a person whose will is the disease, knowing the offer is really no offer at all: it's all optional, do it or die.