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Made A Decision

              A.A. Can Not Survive Without Our Traditions 

Like most of us I had very little interest in A.A.'s Twelve Traditions in my early recovery. 

I listened to How It Works when it was read (mostly), but I tuned out the Traditions completely, focusing instead on that new guy who just came in, or on pondering a problem at work, or on worrying about unpaid bills, or whatever else crowded my monkey-mind for attention.

Learning about the Traditions came later, studying them came later still. But eventually over time in recovery I began to appreciate their value; to marvel at the job they do keeping A.A. together and strong.  I finally now regard them with the awe they deserve.

In our book The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions - known mostly as "the 12 & 12" - it states: 

On anvils of experience, the structure of our Society was hammered out . . . Thus has it been with A.A. By faith and by works we have been able to build upon the lessons of an incredible experience. They live today in the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which - God willing - shall sustain us in unity for so long as He may need us.

Your assignment today, should you choose to learn something, is to delve deeper into A.A.'s fascinating history. There's plenty of material available including what you'll find by merely reading our Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 & 12. 

But there are other books, too. Jump onto Google and find some. You'll come away from learning about our history with more appreciation of our program and the people who welded it together for us. The Traditions are a huge part of that story. 

And you'll get more than a few laughs when reading those books, too. I have found identification with my own behavior in all of them (my laughter is often rueful), and I'll bet cash money you will, too. 

In A.A. literature we find acceptance and acknowledge our immaturity, character defects, and emotional struggles. We accept our flaws and work to eliminate them, or at least reduce them to a manageable size. 

So for our earliest members, most of them low bottom drunks who drank alcoholically for decades, to have come up with our Traditions is truly a God-directed-miracle.

Don't think so? 

Sit in on a few group conscience meetings in your Home Group and listen to the things we drunks can find to argue passionately about. 

In them I am often reminded of the old joke about the guy who stopped to get gas in a very small town in the states. While the attendant was pumping the gas (I told you this was an OLD joke) he noticed two churches within view of the gas station, one on either side of the road.

"Are there enough people around here for two churches?," he asked. "Why don't they build just one bigger one?"

"Won't happen," the attendant replied. "That church over there," he said, pointing, "Sez 'there ain't no Hell and the other one sez 'the hell there ain't.'"

There was a big flap in an A.A. group recently when one member took exception to people clapping in appreciation after a guest speaker finished his share. One irritated member said applause was out of line in an A.A. meeting because it would inflate the ego of the speaker.

Another member took exception, pointing out we alcoholics often have self-esteem issues and are nervous about sharing anyway, so a warm round of applause was encouraging, not ego-building.

This difference of opinion heated up enough to make it all the way to the General Service Office for resolution. There the group was reminded of its autonomy and it was suggested members take a Group Conscience vote on how they wanted the issue handled in their own meeting.

Our Founders - Dr. Bob and Bill W. - big letter writers, shared their thoughts on these kinds of issues often. Here's one example taken from letters written in 1949 and 1956:

 We used to be skeptical about large A.A. gatherings like conventions, thinking they might prove too exhibitionistic. But, on balance, their benefit is huge. 

While each A.A.'s interest should center principally in those about him and upon his own group, it is both necessary and desirable that we all get a larger vision of the whole. 

The General Service Conference in New York also produces this effect upon those who attend. It is a vision-stretching process. 

A.A. has always had to bring itself back to the place of unity. Without it none of us would have a place to recovery from our deadly disease. So, like toddlers learning to reluctantly share our toy blocks in playschool, we learn how to practice creating unity within our groups. 

Those who initially are unable to play nice with others often leave a group and start another one. Oldtimers used to say all that was needed to start a new group was a resentment and a coffee pot. And they were right. Our amazing program didn't spread across the entire world based entirely on saintly spiritual leadership. 

As our 12 & 12 points out:  Over the years, every conceivable deviation from our Twelve Steps and Traditions have been tried. That was sure to be, since we are so largely a band of ego-driven individuals. Children of chaos, we have defiantly played with every brand of fire, only to emerge unharmed and, we think, wiser.

 These very deviations created a vast process of trial and error, which, under the grace of God, has brought us to where we stand today . . . We saw that the group, exactly like the individual, must eventually conform to whatever tested principles would guarantee survival.

We hear it said in meetings that the steps protect me from myself; the traditions protect AA from me. I've also heard that expressed as the steps protect me from killing myself; the traditions keep me from killing others.

Like every living thing A.A. grows and changes. Alcoholics easily panic at the very thought of A.A. changing in any way other than how it was when they arrived. But take just the one example of Zoom meetings. These online meetings are one of the best things to ever happen to A.A., but they frightened many when Covid lockdown forced us into them. 

Zoom meetings are living proof when something bad happens (Covid), good things can and do result. 

When we enter a meeting our Traditions require us to leave the social worries of this world outside. We are in our meeting to learn how to stay sober through both good times and bad. Period.

We might chat before and after the meeting about social issues, but we do not do so in the meeting. We might even take anger over social issues into the parking lot and do battle, which I have seen happen a time or two.

But we leave all that outside the meeting room door or zoom square.

In our meetings we talk about our spiritual growth, but we don't talk about our personal religion. 

In the rooms we may say we are having problems in our relationship, but we don't trash our partner in the process.

If we are grieving over a world series or world cup loss (or election results) we can say we are grieving a loss or are happy about a win without having to get much more specific. 

 

No matter what is going on in the outside world we have cause for happiness every day because we are sober alcoholics. Our sobriety alone is cause for gratitude, because most alcoholics in the world are still out there suffering.

God has allowed all of us the right to be wrong, but in A.A we don't shame those there we may think are wrong. We are called to ask our Higher Power for the serenity to always love the best that life and A.A. has to offer. Knowing and practicing our Traditions, both inside and outside the program, allows us do that.

Making the Traditions our groups' priority has allowed A.A. to exist as it does today. 

And, if we continue to try and place God's will first in our lives, and in our groups, A.A. will remain able to keep us all sober. It will also allow it to be there for that frightened newcomer when he or she arrives at our door.