# What are A.A.'s Three Legacies?

**In short:**
- A.A.'s Three Legacies are Recovery, Unity and Service: the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, and the services that carry the message.
- Bill W. handed them over to the whole fellowship, speaking for himself, the late Dr. Bob and the oldtimers, at A.A.'s 20th anniversary convention in St. Louis on July 3, 1955.
- In Bill's words, by the first we recover, by the second we stay together, and by the third A.A. carries its message to all who need it.
- Bill called carrying the message, the Twelfth Step, "the basic service" (P-44); every other service, from a phone call to the General Service Office, exists to help reach the alcoholic.

## Where the idea comes from

The term isn't in the Big Book's 1939 text. It comes from 1955, after Dr. Bob's death, when A.A. was twenty years old. The Big Book's own pages show the first two Legacies (the Steps, p. 59–60; the Traditions, Appendix I, pp. 561–566) but not the name.

## The handover, July 1955

***A.A. Comes of Age* (1957)** opens with it. During the first three days of July 1955, A.A. held a convention in St. Louis for its twentieth anniversary, and "there it received from its founders and old-timers permanent keeping of its three great legacies of Recovery, Unity, and Service" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). About 5,000 people were in the Kiel Auditorium on the final afternoon (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). The General Service Conference took over custody of the Traditions and the guardianship of A.A.'s world services, and was named the permanent successor to the founders (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

The resolution the convention adopted declared the fellowship ready "to assume full and permanent possession of the Three Legacies of our A.A. inheritance" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957), and made the Conference, as of July 3, 1955, the guardian of the Traditions (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

**P-44, *A.A.'s Legacy of Service*** (Bill W., text through 1955; pamphlet © 2018) says the same in its introduction: the Legacies were announced at St. Louis in 1955, Dr. Bob was already gone, and Bill spoke for him and the other pioneers in turning over to all members "the responsibility for A.A.'s continuation and growth" (P-44).

## What each Legacy is

*A.A. Comes of Age* states it in one sentence: by the first Legacy "we recover from alcoholism," by the second "we stay together in unity," and by the third the society "functions and serves its primary purpose of carrying the A.A. message to all who need it and want it" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). The book is built on Bill's three talks at St. Louis, one for each Legacy (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

- **Recovery** is the Twelve Steps and the story of how the program came together (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Bill called it the base of the triangle, "on which everything rests and depends" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).
- **Unity** is the Twelve Traditions, which "represent the distilled experience of our past" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).
- **Service** is everything that helps carry the message. P-44 begins: "Our Twelfth Step — carrying the message — is the basic service that the A.A. Fellowship gives; this is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence." (P-44). "Hence, an A.A. service is anything whatever that helps us to reach a fellow sufferer" (P-44), from the Twelfth Step call itself to a ten-cent phone call, a cup of coffee, and the General Service Office (P-44). "The sum total of all these services is our Third Legacy of Service." (P-44).

The St. Louis banner showed a circle around a triangle: the circle for the whole world of A.A., the triangle's three sides for the three Legacies (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

## Why Service sits next to Recovery

In Bill's telling, Service is not paperwork added on top of the program. It is the Twelfth Step made practical: "We must carry the message, else we ourselves can wither and those who haven't been given the truth may die." (P-44). The question he says to ask of any service is only whether it is really needed to reach those who seek A.A. (P-44). That is the same work as Chapter 7 of the Big Book, going out to the alcoholic who is still drinking (see *What does Step 12 really say?*).

## Read it yourself
- P-44, *A.A.'s Legacy of Service*, on aa.org: https://www.aa.org/aas-legacy-service
- The Twelve Steps, Chapter 5 (pp. 58–71), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
- The Twelve Traditions, Appendix I (pp. 561–566): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicei.pdf
- *A.A. Comes of Age* is sold by A.A. World Services: https://onlineliterature.aa.org
- Related: *What does Step 12 really say?* · *What changed in A.A. between 1939 and 1950?*

## Sources
| Source | Pages | Date |
|---|---|---|
| *A.A. Comes of Age* (Bill W.'s St. Louis talks and the convention resolution) | — | talks July 1955; book 1957 |
| P-44, *A.A.'s Legacy of Service* (Bill W.) | — | text through 1955; pamphlet © 2018 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Twelve Steps; Appendix I | 59–60; 561–566 | 1939; Appendix I added 1955 (text 1946) |

All sources for the Three Legacies date from 1955 or later, after Dr. Bob's death in 1950.

*Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, P-44 and* A.A. Comes of Age *are © A.A. World Services, Inc.*