- Our common welfare should come first; personal
recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
- For our group purpose there is but one ultimate
authority--a loving God as He may express Himself in
our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted
servants; they do not govern.
- The only requirement for A.A. membership is a
desire to stop drinking.
- Each group should be autonomous except in
matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
- Each group has but one primary purpose--to carry
its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
- An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or
lend the A.A. name to any related facility or
outside enterprise, lest problems of money,
property, and prestige divert us from our primary
purpose.
- Every A.A. group ought to be fully
self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
- Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever
non-professional, but our service centers may employ
special workers.
- A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we
may create service boards or committees directly
responsible to those they serve.
- Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside
issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn
into public controversy.
- Our public relations policy is based on
attraction rather than promotion; we need always
maintain personal anonymity at the level of press,
radio, and films.
- Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our
traditions, ever reminding us to place principles
before personalities.
|
Video
Bill Wilson Discusses the 12 Traditions
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Originally published in 1952, this classic
book is used by Alcoholics Anonymous members and groups around the
world. It lays out the principles by which Alcoholics
Anonymous members
recover and by which the fellowship functions. The basic
text clarifies the Steps which constitute the A.A. way
of life and the Traditions, by which Alcoholics
Anonymous maintains its
unity.
|
| The Twelve Traditions began as a series of articles that Bill Wilson, co-founder of
Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote for the Alcoholics Anonymous periodical The Grapevine. Over a period
of about 5 years the membership of Alcoholics Anonymous adopted these as the governing principles
of the organization, culminating in their formal adoption at AA's First
International Convention in 1950. In 1952 Wilson's book on the subject,
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, first saw print. The latter half of this
book consists of a series of tales detailing how the twelve traditions were "hammered
out on the anvil of experience." According to Wilson, they were born solely as
lessons learned from mistakes made. The Traditions are widely credited within
Alcoholics Anonymous as having provided the fellowship a
practical, yet idealistic organizational framework that has served it well. In
many ways, they contain revolutionary ideas of arenas of spirituality, political
science and economic theory as applied to the lives of members. |
