Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

by Alcoholics Anonymous

two classes known in A.A...

willing to sit quietly on the sidelines

connives for

self-pity.

principle—they ge...

spirituality,

therapist.

Brooklyn

principal teachers of patience and tolerance?

universal tradition.

reputation.

Ed.

Ed not only stayed, he stayed sober—month after month.

kept dry,

“Have you fellows had your morning meditation?”

“They have deserted me. I have been deserted by my own kind. This is the end …nothing is left.” As he tossed on his bed, his hand brushed the bureau near by,

Gideon Bible. Ed

A.A.

#1, Rule #62.” Once

“Don’t take yourself too damn seriously.”

singleness of purpose.

paradox of A.A. that we know we can seldom keep the precious gift of sobriety unless we give it away.

‘Nothing at all.’

“no angle”

“My sponsor sold me one idea, and that was sobriety. At the time, I couldn’t have bought anything else.”

Truthfully this is who they are just be the best you & not the brainstorm and the grouch

Watching alcoholics committed willy-nilly to prisons or asylums, we began to cry, “There oughtta be a law!” A.A.’s

We of Alcoholics Anonymous could not be all things to all men, nor should we try.

SELF-SUPPORTING alcoholics?

I realized that my five-dollar gift to the slippee was an ego-feeding proposition, bad for him and bad for me.

“Freely ye have received, freely give.”

our Twelfth Step, the result has been exactly the same: Our single purpose has been defeated.

help and be helped.

She was not professionalizing the Twelfth Step; she was just making it possible. She was helping to give the man coming in the door the break he ought to have. Volunteer committeemen and assistants could be of great help, but they could not be expected to carry this

as a whole—should never be organized at all.

So we of A.A. do obey spiritual principles, first because we must, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are A.A.’s disciplinarians; we need no others.

Our communications lines with those who need our help would be broken.

A.A. has to function, but at the same time it must avoid those dangers of great wealth, prestige, and entrenched power which necessarily tempt other societies.

intemperance,

Outburst lack of self control

These quiet disclosures helped him to lose his fear of the alcoholic stigma, and spread the news of

breathtaking.

Five—Each Alcoholics Anonymous group ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose—that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

The Alcoholics Anonymous groups oppose no one.