Spiritual Suggestions from the Twelve Traditions

Spiritual Expansion Study of
A.A’s Twelve Traditions Book
Tradition One Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
129- unity – our most cherished quality / the life-giving grace of God; / A.A. – guards the individuals right to think, talk, and act as he wishes. No A.A. can compel another to do anything; nobody can be punished or expelled.
130- The A.A. member has to conform to the principles of recovery. His life actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles. If he deviates too far, the penalty is sure and swift; he sickens and dies. / a way of life he really wants to live. / no personal sacrifice is too great for preservation of the Fellowship. / desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group. / the group must survive or the individual will not.
131- Each needed to consider the others, and in abiding faith they knew they must find their real strength.
Tradition Two 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.
132- no A.A. can give another a directive and enforce obedience, / channel spirituality to newcomers,
134- a group conscience / rotating committee / They are servants. / the group conscience decree the terms upon which its leaders shall serve.
135- “elder statesmen” and “bleeding deacons.” The elder statesman – sees the wisdom of group’s decision – holds no resentment – willing to sit quietly – patiently / The bleeding deacon – is – surely convinced that the group cannot get along without him – connives for reelection – consumed with self-pity. / elder statesmen – they lead by example.
136- my head doctor, Silkworth, began to tell me of the idea of helping drunks by spirituality.
137-138 a matter of life and death / I listened, and – thank God – I obeyed.
Tradition Three The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.
139- no matter how low you’ve gone – how grave your emotional complications – how twisted or violent you may be. – you get the same chance for sobriety
141- we must never compel anyone to pay anything, believe anything, or conform to anything / alcoholics trying to hold their faces up to the light.
143- I am the victim of another addiction even worse stigmatized than alcoholism, you may not want me among you. Or will you. / “‘What would the Master do?’”
144- he talked – against God. “Leave him alone! Let him try it by himself for once; maybe he’ll learn a lesson!” (Relapsed). / in a cheap hotel. / This is the end…nothing is left.
145- touching a book. Opening the book, he read. It was a Gideon Bible. / He hasn’t had a drink since. / the hand of Providence early gave us a sign
Tradition Four Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
146- the grace of God, has brought us to where we stand today. / the group – the individual, must eventually conform to whatever tested principles would guarantee survival.
147- The A.A. group would have to stick to its course or be hopelessly lost. Sobriety had to be its sole objective.
Tradition Five Each group has but one primary purpose – to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
150- better do one thing well than many badly.
151- The only thing that matters is that he is an alcoholic who has found a key to sobriety. / legacies of suffering and recovery are easily passed among alcoholics, / our gift from God. / we can seldom keep the precious gift of sobriety unless we give it away. / one high mission – to carry the A.A. message to those who don’t know there’s a way out.
153- humility was the main key to sobriety. / I wanted him to find the grace in his own religion that would aid his recovery.
154- sold me one idea, and that was sobriety.
Tradition Six 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.
157- We of Alcoholics Anonymous could not be all things to all men, nor should we try.
159- Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life, and it comes first. / we could not lend the A.A. name to any other cause than our own.
Tradition Seven Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
160- it was high time – now sober – paid our own way.
161- we were astounded to find that we were as tight as the bark on a tree.
162- simple services would require small sums of money which we could and would pay ourselves. / Would they send us a dollar a member a year? / There was a place in A.A. where spirituality and money would mix, and that was in the hat!
165- A.A. must always stay poor. Bare running expenses plus a prudent reserve would henceforth be the Foundation’s financial policy. / by making financial independence part of its tradition, Alcoholics Anonymous had revived an ideal that its era had almost forgotten.
Tradition Eight Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
166- the ancient words “Freely ye have received, freely give.”
169- they could not be expected to carry this load day in and day out. / So we hire A.A. staff members.
171- We see that we have no right or need to discourage A.A.’s who wish to work as individuals in these wider fields. / Our Twelfth Step is never to be paid for, but those who labor in service for us are worthy of their hire.
Tradition Nine A.A. as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
172- no membership rules?
173- Alcoholics Anonymous is an exception. / its General Service Conference, its Foundation Board, nor the humblest group committee can issue a single directive to an A.A. member and make it stick, / “This is life for us; you can’t keep us out.” / “How I do my Twelfth Step work is my business. Who are you to judge?” / they could do no more than make suggestions / you are at perfect liberty to handle this matter anyway you please.
174- Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. / drunkenness and dissolution – they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles. / Unless there is approximate conformity to A.A.’s Twelve Traditions, the group, too, can deteriorate and die. So we of A.A. do obey spiritual principles – we love the kind of life such obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are A.A.’s disciplinarians;
175- the aim of each A.A. member is personal sobriety, the aim of our services is to bring sobriety within reach of all who want it.
Tradition Ten Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
176- we must never – publicly take sides in any fight,
177- we do not enter into public controversy, because we know that our Society will perish if it does. / it is imperative that we preserve in full strength our means of survival.
178- The Washingtonian Society, / almost discovered the answer to alcoholism. The early members foresaw that they should dedicate themselves to this sole aim. / But this didn’t happen.
179- As we surveyed the wreck of that movement, early A.A. members resolved to keep our Society out of public controversy.
Tradition Eleven 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.
181- we had to rely upon the principle of attraction rather than of promotion. / composed almost entirely of promoters – we knew we had to exercise self-restraint.
182- rare in the world – a society which said it wished to publicize its principles and its works, but not its individual members.
183- personal ambition has no place in A.A. In it, each member becomes an active guardian of our Fellowship.
Tradition Twelve Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
184-The spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrifice. Because A.A.’s Twelve Traditions repeatedly ask us to give up personal desires for the common good, we realize that the sacrificial spirit – well symbolized by anonymity – is the foundation of them all.
185- Clearly, every A.A. member’s name – and story, too – had to be confidential, if he wished. / “How anonymous should an A.A. member be?” / we couldn’t be a secret society,
186- When opportunities to be helpful came along, he found he could talk easily about A.A. to almost anyone. / A.A. groups would have to reach quickly as many despairing alcoholics as they could. / groups began to hold meetings which were open to – the public, so that the average citizen could see for himself just what A.A. was all about.
187- newspapers and magazines / Film companies / Radio – television / The promoter instinct in us might be our doing. / Here, principles would have to come before personalities, without exception. These experiences taught us that anonymity is real humility at work. It is an all-pervading spiritual quality which today keynotes A.A. life everywhere.