When and where were the Twelve Traditions adopted?

At A.A.'s first International Convention, in Cleveland, Ohio, in July 1950. Bill W. puts attendance at about 3,000 and records the Convention's "unanimous voice of consent" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). The Big Book says the principles "had become so widely accepted by 1950 that they were confirmed by our first International Conference held at Cleveland" (p. xix).

The 12 Traditions · 1937–1950

How the Twelve Traditions
Came About

Q: When were the Twelve Traditions written?

Bill W. first published them in the A.A. Grapevine of May 1946, in the form now called the Long Form, under the title "Twelve Points to Assure Our Future" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957; pamphlet P-17). The short form was condensed from it starting around 1947, and A.A.'s first International Convention confirmed the Traditions at Cleveland in July 1950. The Big Book calls the short form "a condensed version of the original 'long form' A.A. Traditions as first printed in 1946" (Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, p. 561).

Q: Who wrote the Twelve Traditions?

Bill W., A.A.'s co-founder, wrote them with the help of the staff at A.A.'s New York office. He said he had not been their author: "I had merely put them on paper in such a way as to mirror principles which had already been developed in A.A. group experience" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Their ideas came from the letters groups wrote to the office about their quarrels. The short form was the idea of Earl T., founder of the Chicago group, in 1947 or thereabouts.

Q: Why were the Twelve Traditions written?

Because A.A. nearly came apart as it grew. Between 1939 and 1941 it went from about 800 recovering alcoholics to 8,000 members, and the Big Book's Foreword to the Second Edition describes quarrels over membership, leadership and money, strivings for power and prestige, and the danger of schisms (pp. xviii–xix). The Traditions are the lessons of those years. The Big Book says they answer two questions: "How can A.A. best function?" and "How can A.A. best stay whole and so survive?" (p. 561).

Thirteen years, from a group that told Bill W. no in 1937 to a convention that said yes in 1950. Told only from the sources: the Big Book, Bill W.'s Grapevine essays of 1946–1947, and A.A. Comes of Age.

In short

The Twelve Traditions are what A.A.'s groups learned the hard way in their first years, written down so the next group wouldn't have to learn it the same way. The Big Book says they answer two questions: "How can A.A. best function?" and, "How can A.A. best stay whole and so survive?" (p. 561).

Bill W. put them on paper as "Twelve Points to Assure Our Future," the Long Form, in the A.A. Grapevine of May 1946, and explained them in Grapevine essays through 1946 and 1947. They were cut down to the short form starting around 1947, and A.A.'s first International Convention, in Cleveland in July 1950, confirmed them.

The dates

1937 The New York members talk Bill W. out of becoming a paid therapist. He takes three principles away from that night.
1939–1941 A.A. grows from about 800 recovering alcoholics to 8,000 members (Big Book, p. xviii).
1945 Letters about group quarrels fill the New York office. A friend suggests turning that experience into a set of principles.
May 1946 The Long Form, "Twelve Points to Assure Our Future," appears in the A.A. Grapevine.
1946–1947 Bill W.'s Grapevine essays explain the points, one problem at a time.
1947 or so Earl T. of Chicago suggests a short form, as short as the Steps.
July 1950 The First International Convention, in Cleveland, confirms the Twelve Traditions.

1937: the first lesson was a no

In 1937 money was tight at Bill and Lois W.'s home at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn, with several alcoholics living there (A.A. Comes of Age). Charlie Towns offered Bill an office at his hospital, "a decent drawing account, and a very healthy slice of the profits" to work there as a lay therapist (A.A. Comes of Age).

Bill had all but said yes. That night, at the meeting in his home, the members heard him out and turned him down. "Don't you realize," one said, "that you can never become a professional?" and "we can't tie this thing up with his hospital or any other" (A.A. Comes of Age).

"Thus spoke the group conscience," Bill wrote. "The group was right and I was wrong" (A.A. Comes of Age). He counted three principles in that evening: "The common welfare must come first," "A.A. cannot have a class of professional therapists," and "God, speaking in the group conscience, is to be our final authority." A fourth was implied: "Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern" (A.A. Comes of Age). Read beside the Long Form, those are the seeds of Traditions One, Two and Eight, nine years before any of it was written down.

1939–1945: growing pains

The Big Book came out in 1939. By the end of that year about 800 alcoholics were "on their way to recovery," and "By the close of 1941, A.A. numbered 8,000 members" (p. xviii).

The Foreword to the Second Edition calls what came next "a fearsome and exciting adolescent period." Would there be "quarrels over membership, leadership, and money," "strivings for power and prestige," "schisms which would split A.A. apart"? "Soon A.A. was beset by these very problems on every side and in every group" (pp. xviii–xix).

Membership was one of the fights. The New York office once asked the groups to send in their membership rules, and "They took a great many sheets of paper." Bill's conclusion: "If all of these edicts had been in force everywhere at once it would have been practically impossible for any alcoholic to have ever joined Alcoholics Anonymous" (Bill W., "Who Is a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous?", Grapevine, 1946; P-17, p. 12).

Looking back, Bill said the early scares, slips and romances, turned out to be survivable. The real dangers were "the desires for power, for domination, for glory, and for money" (A.A. Comes of Age).

Money was settled one decision at a time. In 1945 the Alcoholic Foundation wrote to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the guests of his 1940 dinner that A.A. "would no longer need their financial help." "This meant that we had finally declared for full self-support" (A.A. Comes of Age).

1945: the letters

Every quarrel seemed to end up in the mail. "It seemed as if every contestant in every group argument wrote us during this confused and exciting period," Bill wrote, and "The basic ideas for the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous came directly out of this vast correspondence" (A.A. Comes of Age).

In late 1945 "a good A.A. friend," whom Bill doesn't name, suggested putting all that experience into a set of principles (A.A. Comes of Age). Bill was clear about what such a code could and couldn't be: "A code of traditions could not, of course, ever become rule or law. But it might act as a guide for our Trustees, Headquarters people, and especially for A.A. groups with growing pains" (A.A. Comes of Age).

May 1946: "Twelve Points to Assure Our Future"

Bill and his helpers at the office did the writing. "The Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous were first published in the so-called 'long form' in the Grapevine of May, 1946" (A.A. Comes of Age). The title was "An Alcoholics Anonymous Tradition of Relations — Twelve Points to Assure Our Future" (P-17, Foreword, p. 7).

Bill called it "our first attempt to state sound principles of group conduct and public relations," which he was asked to publish, "together with supporting articles, serially" in the Grapevine (P-17, Foreword, p. 6).

It opens the way the Big Book still prints it: "Our A.A. experience has taught us that:" Then the first point: "Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. A.A. must continue to live or most of us will surely die" (p. 563). Each point is set down as something experience taught, not as a plan made in advance.

Bill never claimed them as his own. "Nobody invented Alcoholics Anonymous. It grew," he wrote, and its lessons were adopted "first as policy and then as tradition" (P-17, Foreword, p. 6). Of the Traditions themselves: "I had merely put them on paper in such a way as to mirror principles which had already been developed in A.A. group experience" (A.A. Comes of Age).

1946–1947: the essays

"Additional Grapevine pieces then explained the Traditions in detail. These continued to appear for several months" (A.A. Comes of Age). The pamphlet P-17, A.A. Tradition — How It Developed, reprints a number of them, each with the Tradition it stands behind:

"Who Is a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous?" (1946): "Tradition Three grew out of this piece" (P-17, p. 12).
"Money" (1946): "What led up to the writing of Tradition Seven" (P-17, p. 28).
"Anonymity" (1946): one of the first articles on the anonymity Traditions, Eleven and Twelve (P-17, p. 42).
"Hospitals and A.A." (from "Adequate Hospitalization," 1947) and "Clubs in A.A." (1947): background for Tradition Six (P-17, pp. 16, 18).
"Dangers in Linking A.A. to Other Projects" (1947): dangers "that Traditions Six and Eight recognize" (P-17, p. 24).
"Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government?" (1947): the background to Tradition Nine (P-17, p. 38).

They are frank about how unsettled things were. "In Alcoholics Anonymous, does money make the mare go or is it the root of all evil? We are in the process of solving that riddle" (Bill W., "Money," 1946; P-17, p. 28). And why would groups keep principles nobody can enforce? "Groups see they would disintegrate if they didn't" (Bill W., "Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government?", 1947; P-17, p. 39).

Not everyone was grateful. "When first published the Traditions got a mixed reception," Bill remembered: a violent reaction "especially in groups that had long lists of 'protective' rules and regulations," and much "apathetic indifference" elsewhere (A.A. Comes of Age). When he traveled to talk about them, the members "were obviously bored," and one letter asked for his drinking story instead: "But please don't talk any more about those damned Traditions" (A.A. Comes of Age).

1947–1950: the short form

The short form was the idea of Earl T., founder of the Chicago group, who turned up at Bill's home "One day in 1947, or thereabouts" (A.A. Comes of Age). After "a week of wrestling" they had a first draft "which much resembled the Twelve Traditions as they are today," and after "several months more of consultation and refining, the final draft was ready" (A.A. Comes of Age).

The Grapevine then printed the new wording "in every issue," and by the time of Cleveland "the understanding and approval of the Traditions had become general throughout our society" (A.A. Comes of Age). The Big Book still describes the short form as "a condensed version of the original 'long form' A.A. Traditions as first printed in 1946" (p. 561), and prints both: the short form on p. 562, the Long Form on pp. 563–566.

July 1950: Cleveland

"In the summer of 1950 we held our first international convention in Cleveland, Ohio. About 3,000 were in attendance" (A.A. Comes of Age). It was Dr. Bob's last appearance (A.A. Comes of Age).

Those there sensed that Dr. Bob, and many early members after him, would soon be gone. "In the future we could no longer depend upon the authority and influence of our pioneering people for A.A. unity. Henceforth we would have to rely upon spiritual principles, as set forth in the Twelve Traditions" (A.A. Comes of Age).

Several speakers presented the Traditions. Bill summed them up and asked for approval, and the Convention gave its "unanimous voice of consent." "It was a fine hour in that month of July, 1950" (A.A. Comes of Age).

The Big Book's own account is one sentence: "Though none of these principles had the force of rules or laws, they had become so widely accepted by 1950 that they were confirmed by our first International Conference held at Cleveland" (p. xix).

What the history shows

The Traditions were not handed down. They are the record of what went wrong in groups, written for groups, so A.A. could stay in one piece. That is why they speak to A.A. groups and to A.A. as a whole: in the Big Book's words, they answer how A.A. can "best function" and "best stay whole and so survive" (p. 561). Both forms, word for word, with what each one means: The 12 Traditions, what they actually say.

What the sources don't say

The month of the first Long Form. Bill's own accounts disagree: A.A. Comes of Age (1957) says "the Grapevine of May, 1946"; his A.A.'s Legacy of Service (P-44) says the "Grapevine of April 1946." This page follows A.A. Comes of Age.
The day in July 1950. Bill gives only "that month of July, 1950" and "the summer of 1950" (A.A. Comes of Age).
Who the friend was who suggested a code in late 1945. Bill doesn't say.
When exactly Earl T. came with the short-form idea: "1947, or thereabouts" is as close as Bill gets.
Which Grapevine issues the 1946–1947 essays ran in. P-17 gives the year only.
The count at Cleveland. "About 3,000" is Bill's figure (A.A. Comes of Age).

Read it yourself

Appendix I, "The A.A. Tradition," both forms (pp. 561–566), free from A.A.: aa.org
Foreword to the Second Edition (pp. xv–xxi): aa.org
P-17, A.A. Tradition — How It Developed, Bill W.'s foreword and Grapevine essays: aa.org
Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age (1957), Bill W.'s history, sold by A.A. World Services: onlineliterature.aa.org

The 12 Traditions, both forms → Read a Tradition a day → The Long Form, p. 563 →

Page numbers are from Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition. The Grapevine essays are cited by title and year, with their page in the pamphlet A.A. Tradition — How It Developed (P-17), which reprints them. A.A. Comes of Age is Bill W.'s 1957 history. Quotations are short and attributed; everything else is Recovery Starts' own words. Recovery Starts is an independent recovery-awareness project: not official A.A. literature, not an A.A. group, not affiliated with A.A.W.S., and not medical advice. Get the book, or read the Traditions free at aa.org. If you're in crisis, call or text 988.