Tradition 6 · June 8

Medicine Is for Doctors

Daily Traditions · June 8

The threat today

A.A. is not a treatment, and the Long Form says so by putting treatment outside it. The rumour today is that meetings are a kind of therapy, one more service a program counts in its hours. The Long Form (Big Book, p. 564) puts hospitals and places of recuperation "well outside A.A." and adds "medically supervised." Medically supervised means a doctor is responsible, not a drunk with a few years sober. Bill W. was plain about the division (A.A. Comes of Age): "We know that theology is for clergymen and that the practice of medicine and psychiatry is for doctors." Theology is the study of God, the clergy's work. Doctoring the very sick, Bill wrote, was "not and could not be A.A.'s business." A.A.'s business is one drunk carrying a message to another, free. The Big Book lists what the member's job takes (p. 97): "innumerable trips to police courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums." The doctor treats the drunk; the member makes the trip to see him. Neither becomes the other. Today the line blurs from the treatment side: a client's meeting attendance logged as treatment, staff chairing the meeting as part of a shift. Test it tonight: ask whether anyone in your room has been told the meeting is part of their treatment, and who told them.

Sit with

Bill W. left medicine to doctors and kept A.A. to the message, free. Is anyone in my room being told the meeting is their treatment?

Grounded in: Long form, Tradition 6 (Big Book, p. 564); A.A. Comes of Age (Tradition Six: medicine is for doctors; hospitals as friends); Big Book p. 97 (Working With Others).

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 7Under the Direct Auspices Tradition 6All of June June 9 →Spiritual Entities

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).