# What is a home group, and how do the Traditions guide it?

**In short:**
- "Home group" isn't a phrase the Big Book's program, the 1946 Long Form or Bill W.'s 1946–47 essays use. It shows up in later writing: P-16 (2018) describes the home group as the one group a member belongs to, does service in and votes in.
- What the Long Form does define is the A.A. group itself: any two or three alcoholics gathered for sobriety, with no other affiliation (p. 563), "a spiritual entity" with one primary purpose, carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers (p. 563).
- Every Tradition guides a group: its own conscience decides its affairs (p. 563), it pays its own way (p. 564), it keeps the least possible organization with rotating leaders (p. 565), and it puts its purpose ahead of anyone's personality.

## Where the phrase is, and isn't

Searching every text in our sources, the phrase doesn't appear in the Big Book's first 164 pages, its forewords or appendices, in the Long Form, in P-17's essays (1946–47 and 1955), in P-43 (1971) or in *A.A. Comes of Age* (1957). It appears in a few of the Big Book's later personal stories (Parts II and III), in P-16, *The A.A. Group* (© 2018), and in the current *A.A. Service Manual*. So the home group as a defined idea comes later than the Traditions. The *group*, though, is what the Traditions are about.

## What the Long Form says a group is (1946)

- **Who can form one.** "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). Membership can't depend "upon money or conformity," and a group "may refuse none who wish to recover" (p. 563).
- **What it's for.** Each group "ought to be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose — that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers" (p. 563).
- **Who it answers to.** In its own affairs, only "its own conscience" (p. 563), with the ultimate authority for its group purpose being a loving God as He may express Himself in the group conscience (p. 563). It consults neighbouring groups when its plans affect them (p. 563).
- **How it's paid for.** By its own members' voluntary contributions (p. 564), and it shouldn't build up money beyond prudent reserves for no A.A. purpose (p. 564).
- **How it's run.** With "the least possible organization," and rotating leadership is best (p. 565); a small group may elect a secretary, a larger one a rotating committee (p. 565). Its leaders "do not govern" (p. 565).
- **What it must not do.** Go into business, or let cooperation turn into affiliation or endorsement (p. 564), or express views on outside controversial issues (p. 565).

Bill W. described the same group from experience in 1947: most groups preferred rotating committees, and each committee "carries out what it believes to be the wishes of its group" (P-17, "Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government?", 1947, p. 38).

## What P-16 says a home group is (2018, dated)

- Most members have found it important to belong to one group, "that they call their 'home group'" (P-16, 2018, p. 15), where they take on service and try to keep up friendships.
- Membership brings "the right to vote on issues that might affect the group and might also affect A.A. as a whole" (P-16, 2018, p. 15). Each member has one vote, ideally voiced through the home group (P-16, pp. 15–16).
- In the home group members learn, through the group's workings, how to place principles before personalities "in the interest of carrying the A.A. message" (P-16, 2018, p. 16).
- Joining needs no application: "Just as we are members of A.A. if we say we are, so are we members of a group if we say we are" (P-16, 2018, p. 13).
- P-16 also separates a *group* from a *meeting*. A group continues to exist outside meeting hours, "ready to provide Twelfth Step help when needed" (P-16, 2018, p. 13).

That last point connects the home group back to the Long Form's purpose. A group is defined by what it does for the alcoholic who still suffers, not by the hour it meets.

## 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* (pp. 12–16): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/p-16_0723.pdf
- P-17, *A.A. Tradition: How It Developed*: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/assets/p-17_AATraditions.pdf
- Related: *What is a group business meeting for?* · *Tradition Five: what is a group's one purpose?* · *What is the only requirement for membership?*

## Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| The Twelve Traditions, Long Form (Big Book Appendix I) | 563–565 | AA Grapevine, 1946; in the Big Book from 1955 |
| Bill W., "Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government?" (P-17) | 38 | AA Grapevine, 1947 |
| P-16, *The A.A. Group*, "The Group… Where A.A.'s Service Structure Begins" and "The A.A. Home Group" | 12–16 | © 2018 (revised 2022) |

Big Book page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). P-17 page numbers are the pamphlet's printed numbers (© 2019); P-16's are from the 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.; the P-17 articles are © AA Grapevine, Inc., reprinted by A.A. World Services.*