Where are the Traditions in the Big Book?
In short:
- The Twelve Traditions are in Appendix I at the back of the Big Book, "The A.A. Tradition," pages 561–566 in the fourth edition.
- Page 561 introduces them, page 562 gives the short form, and pages 563–566 give the original "long form."
- They aren't in the first 164 pages, because they didn't exist yet when the book came out in 1939. They were first printed in 1946.
Page by page
Page 561: the introduction. Appendix I begins by saying why the Traditions matter and what they are: the best answers experience has given to "How can A.A. best function?" and "How can A.A. best stay whole and so survive?" (p. 561). It then explains that the next page has the short form, "the form in general use today" (p. 561), and that the original long form is reproduced too, because it "is more explicit and of possible historic value" (p. 561).
Page 562: the short form. All twelve Traditions in their short wording (p. 562), the version the appendix calls "the form in general use today" (p. 561).
Pages 563–566: the Long Form. The original wording, headed "Our A.A. experience has taught us that:" (p. 563). Where each one is:
| Tradition | Long Form page |
|---|---|
| One (common welfare) | 563 |
| Two (one ultimate authority) | 563 |
| Three (membership; what a group is) | 563 |
| Four (each group's own affairs) | 563 |
| Five (one primary purpose) | 563 |
| Six (money, property, outside enterprises) | 563–564 |
| Seven (self-support) | 564 |
| Eight (nonprofessional) | 564–565 |
| Nine (least possible organization) | 565 |
| Ten (no opinion on outside issues) | 565 |
| Eleven (public relations, attraction) | 565 |
| Twelve (anonymity) | 565–566 |
The first five are short enough to fit together on page 563. Six is the longest and runs onto page 564.
Why they're at the back
The main text of the Big Book, Chapters 1 to 11, comes from the first edition of 1939, when A.A. was "more than one hundred men and women" (p. xiii). The Traditions grew out of the problems of the 1940s and were first printed in 1946 (p. 561). They were added to the book later. The Foreword to the Second Edition (1955) summarizes them and points the reader to where they're "stated in full" in the back of the book (p. xix).
What the 1939 text does have is the seed of a few of them, in the Foreword to the First Edition: no fees or dues, "an honest desire to stop drinking" as the only requirement for membership, no alliance with any sect, and anonymity in the press (pp. xiii–xiv).
Other places to find them
The Long Form also appears, in its original 1946 wording, at the front of the pamphlet P-17, A.A. Tradition — How It Developed, as Bill W.'s "Twelve Points to Assure Our Future" (P-17, Foreword, 1955), with the short form printed under each one. The two copies differ in small ways; see What is the Long Form?
Read it yourself
- Appendix I, "The A.A. Tradition" (pp. 561–566), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicei.pdf
- P-17, A.A. Tradition — How It Developed: https://www.aa.org/aa-tradition-how-it-developed
- The full book, Alcoholics Anonymous, is sold by A.A. World Services at https://onlineliterature.aa.org
- Related: What is the Long Form, and why read it? · Were the Traditions written with the Steps?
Sources
| Source | Pages | First published |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Appendix I, "The A.A. Tradition" | 561–566 | Long Form text 1946; in the book by the 2nd edition (1955) |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Foreword to the First Edition | xiii–xiv | 1939 |
| Alcoholics Anonymous, Foreword to the Second Edition | xix | 1955 |
| P-17, Foreword ("Twelve Points to Assure Our Future") | — | dated 1955 in the pamphlet; Points from 1946 |
Page numbers are from the fourth edition (2001). Other editions may number these pages differently; the title "The A.A. Tradition" is the way to find it in any edition.
Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book is © A.A. World Services, Inc.; the P-17 articles are © AA Grapevine, 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.