Tradition 1 · January 27

Led, Not Pushed

Daily Traditions · January 27

Before the Tradition

The first A.A.s learned early that drunks cannot be held together by pressure, and the lesson cost them a friendship. Until 1937 the New York alcoholics met alongside the Oxford Groups, a religious movement Bill had joined when he got sober. Bill W. wrote (A.A. Comes of Age): "But in the latter part of that year we most reluctantly parted company with these great friends." Why? The drunks would not stand for being run. "They always had to be led, not pushed." They would not accept the Oxford Groups' team guidance over their private lives: "It was too authoritarian for them." Authoritarian means demanding obedience. Bill did not hide what the parting cost: "Our debt to them, nevertheless, was and is immense, and so the final breakaway was very painful." So A.A.'s unity was never going to be the kind enforced from above. It had to be the kind the Long Form describes (Big Book, p. 563): "Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole." Nobody is the boss of the whole. Today the pushing comes back as program rules dressed up as A.A.: check in, report your progress, be told what to share. Test it tonight: ask whether anyone in your room is pushing a member to do something A.A. never asked of anyone.

Sit with

A.A.'s first members parted from friends they owed a great deal rather than push drunks around. Is anyone in my room being pushed?

Grounded in: Long form, Tradition 1 (Big Book, p. 563); A.A. Comes of Age (parting from the Oxford Groups, 1937).

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 26Material Things Tradition 1All of January January 28 →So We Had to Evolve

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).