Tradition 1 · January 19

Couldn't Be Steered

Daily Traditions · January 19

How a group breaks it

A group can split itself without a single argument, just by letting the same few friends keep the jobs. Picture it. The secretary hands the key to his friend, who hands it back a year later. The treasurer has been treasurer since anyone can remember. The real business happens at the friends' table after everyone else has gone home. Nobody is thrown out. The rest simply stop coming to anything but the meeting, and then some stop coming to that. Bill W. saw it at the first New York club, where the steering committees, he wrote (A.A. pamphlet P-17, p. 18), "tried to nominate their friends to succeed them" and found, to their dismay, that sober drunks would not be steered. A group run by a circle is really two groups: the circle, and everyone else. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 563) says each member "is but a small part of a great whole", and that includes the members holding the keys. Their part is no bigger for holding them. Today the circle often has an outside friend as well: the program that rents the room deals with the same two people every year, and the group's business gets done in its office. Test it tonight: ask when your group last put someone new in every service job.

Sit with

A group run by the same few friends has split in two, whether anyone noticed or not. When did my group last hand its jobs to someone new?

Grounded in: Long form, Tradition 1 (Big Book, p. 563); P-17, p. 18 (Bill W., 1947: Clubs in A.A.).

Tradition 1

"Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity."

Read the Long Form (pp. 563–566). The short form on pp. 561–562 is the one everybody quotes — but the Long Form is where the Traditions actually say what they mean. Tradition 3's "no other affiliation" clause, for instance, exists only in the Long Form. That single clause is why no treatment centre can own an A.A. group. Most of what circulates online skips it.

And a distinction worth keeping straight: the Traditions are governance, not theology. They bind A.A. groups and the Fellowship — not individuals, and not outside businesses. They were adopted in 1950 to keep A.A. from being owned or co-opted. They are not a rulebook for your personal life.

What the Traditions actually say → The Long Form, p. 563 → Search the Big Book → Every day this month →

Ask Recovery Einstein about Tradition 1 → Get the app →

← January 18No Respecter of Persons Tradition 1All of January January 20 →At His Destination

Daily Traditions is an independent educational resource from Recovery Starts — not official A.A. literature, not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, and not medical advice. The Twelve Traditions are the property of A.A. Page references are to Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book), 4th Edition: short form 561–562, long form 563–566. If you're in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).