No Alcoholic Excluded

Before Tradition 3 was written down, the groups had already fought over membership, and the Big Book records what they settled. Its Foreword to the Second Edition tells how A.A. grew to thousands of members by the end of 1941, and the test that came with them (Big Book, p. xviii): "Would there be quarrels over membership, leadership, and money?" There were (p. xix): "Soon A.A. was beset by these very problems on every side and in every group." Out of those quarrels came principles for the groups, and the first one the Foreword names is about the door: "It was thought that no alcoholic man or woman could be excluded from our Society". Excluded means shut out. Not voted out, not screened out, not priced out. The groups did not learn this from a book of rules. They learned it from trying the other way in their own rooms, and the Long Form later wrote it into the Tradition that binds every group. It came out of quarrels, not out of theory, which is why it holds. Today exclusion seldom announces itself: a meeting held where only enrolled clients may enter, a door that needs a key card after hours. Test it tonight: could any alcoholic in your town walk into your meeting without asking anyone's permission?