Can an A.A. group be named after a treatment centre or a person?
In short:
- The 1946 Long Form doesn't mention group names. What it says is that a group may cooperate with anyone but must never go so far as "affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied" (p. 564), and that a group counts as an A.A. group only if, as a group, it has "no other affiliation" (p. 563).
- The specific naming advice comes later, from P-16 (2018): a group meeting in a treatment facility, a church or a prison should not use the institution's name, so it's clear the group only rents space there.
- P-16 also reports a General Service Conference recommendation that no group be named after any actual person, living or dead, as a way to place "principles before personalities."
- These are recommendations from group experience. The Long Form leaves each group's own affairs to its own conscience (p. 563).
What the Long Form says (1946)
A group has no other affiliation. Tradition Three: any two or three alcoholics gathered together for sobriety may call themselves an A.A. group, "provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation" (p. 563).
Not even an implied link. Tradition Six: "While an A.A. group may cooperate with anyone, such cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied" (p. 564). "An A.A. group can bind itself to no one" (p. 564). The same paragraph says outside facilities such as clubs and hospitals "ought not to use the A.A. name" (p. 564), and that hospitals and other places of recuperation belong "well outside A.A." (p. 564).
Principles before personalities. Tradition Twelve: anonymity reminds A.A. "to place principles before personalities" (p. 566).
The group decides its own affairs. Tradition Four: in its own affairs each group "should be responsible to no other authority than its own conscience" (p. 563), but should consult neighbouring groups when its plans affect them, and should confer with the trustees before any action that might greatly affect A.A. as a whole (p. 563).
None of this mentions what a group calls itself. A name, though, is the most public thing a group has. A group named after the treatment centre it meets in looks like part of that centre, which is the "implied" affiliation the Sixth Tradition warns against.
What later group experience recommends (P-16, 2018, dated)
The pamphlet The A.A. Group (P-16) has a section on naming (P-16, pp. 17–18):
- Groups have learned to avoid any affiliation with or endorsement of any outside enterprise, "No matter how noble the activity or institution" (P-16, 2018, p. 17).
- "Even the appearance of being linked to any organization, club, or political or religious institution needs to be avoided" (P-16, 2018, p. 17).
- So a group meeting in a correctional or treatment facility or a church should not use the institution's name "but to call itself something quite different" (P-16, 2018, p. 18). That shows the group isn't affiliated with the place but "simply rents space there for meetings" (P-16, 2018, p. 18).
- The General Service Conference has recommended that no group be named after "any actual person, living or dead, A.A. or non-A.A." (P-16, 2018, p. 18).
P-16 also covers the reverse case. A treatment facility or halfway house should not carry the A.A. name, or a name like "Twelfth Step House" that wrongly implies A.A. endorsement (P-16, 2018, p. 41).
What the text settles, and what it doesn't
The 1946 Long Form settles the principle: no affiliation, not even an implied one, and principles before personalities. It doesn't contain a naming rule. The naming guidance is later (P-16 is © 2018), and it's worded as experience and as a Conference recommendation, not a rule a group can be made to follow. No one in A.A. can force a group to change its name (see Tradition Nine: is A.A. organized? Who runs it?). A group choosing a name is weighing its own conscience against the Long Form's warning about implied affiliation.
Read it yourself
- Appendix I, the Long Form of the Traditions (pp. 561–566), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicei.pdf
- P-16, The A.A. Group ("Naming an A.A. Group," pp. 17–18): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/p-16_0723.pdf
- Related: Tradition Six: can an A.A. group partner with a treatment centre? · What does "no outside affiliation" mean in practice? · Tradition Four: can GSO tell a group what to do?
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| The Twelve Traditions, Long Form, Traditions Three, Four, Six and Twelve (Big Book Appendix I) | 563–566 | AA Grapevine, 1946; in the Big Book from 1955 |
| P-16, The A.A. Group, "Naming an A.A. Group" and "Who Runs Halfway Houses…?" | 17–18, 41 | © 2018 (revised 2022) |
Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). P-16 page numbers are the pamphlet's printed numbers (2023 printing, as on aa.org).
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book and P-16 are © A.A. World Services, Inc.
These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.