‘What’s Bill W. got to do with it?’ said one of the committee members to the others as they discussed how best to ban people from meetings.

This is a bit like saying ‘What’s L. Ron Hubbard got to do with it?’ at a Scientology convention, or ‘What’s Jesus got to do with it?’ at a church service. Oh no, wait, that’s exactly what they might end up saying at a Church of England gathering. They are moving towards gender neutrality, so at some point Our Father and the Son of God may have to be replaced by Our Heavenly Parent and a Daughter of God called Jess who never existed but will have to be invented to keep the snowflakes happy.

As for the atheistic cult who have seized control of AA in Surrey, they are becoming as power-crazed as the transgender lobby.

Having managed to ban several people from meetings under the guise of ‘safeguarding’, they are emboldened. There are five or six of them running this committee that is somehow running 78 meetings that ought to be running themselves. They have managed to turn the fellowship in this area into an authoritarian private members’ club.

I drive miles to go to meetings in another area, and I’ve heard of others who do the same, or just don’t go at all any more, which is appalling.

My friend the bricklayer, who has criminal convictions, has been told he makes women feel uncomfortable. He’s been banned from a dozen meetings. Another friend of mine was ejected unceremoniously after it was decided he was too religious in his outlook. Mentioning God is now likely to get you ticked off if one of the ruling clique hear you say the G-word in your sharing. It did me, anyway.

The issue of God, as they call it, is often discussed by this lot and it is always decided that even though the word is mentioned throughout the programme it is a good thing to airbrush it out, on the basis that no one in society is religious any more. This is incorrect, and small-minded, because lots of people are still religious. AA won’t attract most ethnic minorities, which it says it wants to, by declaring that God does not exist.

This committee also don’t much like the 12 traditions, the framework that has arguably prevented the fellowship from descending into a cult for 88 years. They dislike tradition three in particular: ‘The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.’

Which brings us to what Bill Wilson, co-founder of AA and author of The Big Book,will have to do with any of it if this lot are taking over. In an email exchange between committee members, one of them remarked that he did not get the relevance of quoting remarks by Bill W. as they held no bearing on anything.

This statement was not challenged, so little wonder when a month later the same thirtysomething ingénu wrote his own version of the programme, which was proudly circulated by another committee busybody on a social media platform with a message advising members throughout the south-east of England to use it. It has jaunty language and pictures of non-binary-looking youngsters with funky hairdos. Naturally, it gives God a good kicking.

All this should be a matter of concern for the trustees of AA, who are meant to preserve it, you would think. But the General Service Board in York maintains complete silence on the activities of the Surrey Safeguarders. They have refused to comment on any of it, including the bans, except to say that there is nothing they can do because these committees are autonomous.

Recently, some old-timers put a petition before an assembly of all the meetings in Surrey, and after impassioned speeches the groups found their courage and stood up to the committee, voting to hold a debate on the practice of banning. But this brief stand went nowhere. Members turned up for their debate a few months later, as scheduled, but the chairman of the committee sat in his big throne of a chair up front and made a speech cancelling it, ‘for legal reasons’.

When a few objected, he threw all his toys out of the pram and called a motion of no confidence in himself, whereupon one of his sidekicks ostentatiously put his hand up and said: ‘Let’s make that a vote of confidence!’ And everyone fell back into line.

It is baffling to watch a democratic organisation with a noble purpose getting itself into such a mess. I fear it is because the sorts of egomaniacs who join committees to run the show are the very ones who ought to be disqualified. Whereas God-fearing people with principles run a mile.