A Price on the Name
Daily Traditions · July 23
Imagine the group selling A.A.-branded t-shirts to raise cash — the name on merchandise, someone pocketing the margin. It feels harmless, even fun. But the A.A. name isn't the group's to sell; it belongs to a Fellowship that guards it precisely so it can't be turned into a product or a pitch. The Long Form warns against solicitation "using the name of Alcoholics Anonymous." Put the name on a price tag and you've made A.A. a brand — and brands answer to the market, not to the still-suffering alcoholic.
What am I tempted to turn into a product that's worth more left alone?
Grounded in: Long form (name / solicitation).
This is a hypothetical. The situation described above is illustrative — an imagined scenario used to think a Tradition through. It is not a real group, not a report of anything that happened, and not a rule we invented. The Traditions belong to A.A.; we're only reading them plainly.
Tradition 7
"Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions."
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.
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).