Tradition 6 · June 24

The Group's House

Daily Traditions · June 24

How a group breaks it

A group that houses newcomers has gone into business, and the business soon decides who gets helped. Picture a group moved by the men sleeping in cars outside its meeting. It votes to rent a house out of the treasury: four beds, a no-drinking rule, a meeting in the kitchen on Sundays. For a few months it feels like carrying the message with a roof on it. Then a resident drinks, and the business meeting has to vote on whether he is put out. Another can't pay his share, and the treasurer is chasing a sick man for money. The neighbours complain, the landlord phones the group's secretary, and the insurer wants to know who the owner is. Half the members stop coming to business meetings because they are sick of the house. The house was not a wicked idea. It was the wrong job for an A.A. group. The Long Form says so in ten words (Big Book, p. 564): "An A.A. group, as such, should never go into business." As such means acting as a group. A group that runs a house becomes a landlord to the very drunks it exists to reach, including the one it just put out on the street. Test it tonight: is your group's treasury paying for anything that isn't the meeting itself or A.A.'s own services?

Sit with

A group that runs a house becomes a landlord to the drunks it exists to reach. What is my group's money paying for besides the meeting and A.A.'s own services?

Grounded in: Long form, Tradition 6 (Big Book, p. 564).

Tradition 6

"An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose."

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 6 → Get the app →

← June 23Regardless of Anyone Tradition 6All of June June 25 →Known as A.A.

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).