AA is turning away the very people who need it most

‘If AA wants to make its meetings safe, then maybe it should ban alcoholics,’ said the builder boyfriend and I had to admit, he had cracked it.

There was me getting all wound up about why more and more of the meetings in Surrey won’t let the bricklayer in because of his criminal convictions and a vaguely expressed malaise about his liking for the ladies, and it was actually quite simple.

In this new age of safeguarding, it’s clear that the only way you could make Alcoholics Anonymous into an organisation that passes muster for all the corporate compliance big charities either have to or want to do is by banning anyone with a drinking problem.

Because there is no one so potentially stir-fry crazy on a bad day, or, for that matter, so needy and hung up on the idea of romance than a recovering alky, which is why, nearly 100 years ago, AA founder Bill Wilson came up with the idea of bringing these tormented people together to share their common problem in a bid to stay off the booze.