Tradition 6 · June 29

A Flyer on the Table

Daily Traditions · June 29

How a group breaks it

A group can endorse something without ever voting to, just by letting it sit on the literature table. Picture a member, years sober and well liked, who starts a business as a paid recovery coach. He asks to leave his cards next to the pamphlets. The secretary, a friend, mentions it during the announcements. Somebody adds his page to the group's website under local resources. Nobody voted on any of it. A newcomer picks up the card from a table full of A.A. literature, hears it read out at an A.A. meeting, finds it on the group's own page, and concludes that A.A. recommends paying this man to keep him sober. That is the opposite of what A.A. is: one drunk carrying the message to another, free, wanting nothing back. The Long Form saw this slide coming. A group may cooperate with anyone, but never as far as affiliation or endorsement, and it ends that sentence with three words (Big Book, p. 564): "actual or implied." Implied means said without being said out loud. A card on an A.A. table says it. Test it tonight: look at what's on your group's literature table and in its announcements, and ask whether a newcomer could mistake any of it for something A.A. recommends.

Sit with

A business card on an A.A. literature table is an endorsement nobody voted for. What on my group's table or website speaks for us without our say?

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 →

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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).