Limited to Alcoholics

Before there was a written Tradition 3, the first alcoholics in New York walked away from the movement that had helped them get sober, because staying tied to it would cost the drunk. Bill W. had joined the Oxford Groups when he left the hospital. Then (A.A. Comes of Age): "Until the middle of 1937 we in New York had been working alongside the Oxford Groups. But in the latter part of that year we most reluctantly parted company with these great friends." Why? "Naturally enough, they did not think too highly of our objective, limited as it was to alcoholics." Bill never called them anything but friends: "Our debt to them, nevertheless, was and is immense, and so the final breakaway was very painful." Gratitude did not buy an affiliation. Nine years later the Long Form wrote down what New York had already done (Big Book, p. 563): two or three alcoholics may call themselves an A.A. group, "provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation." Today the friend is a program that really did help, and now wants its name beside the meeting's. Test it tonight: if your group owes someone a debt, is it paying with thanks or with its name?