Tradition 9 · September 26

Officials

Daily Traditions · September 26

The threat

A.A. got its first officials by accident, from a signature on a lease. New York's early members wanted a home, so they took over a former artists' club on West 24th Street (P-17, p. 19). "A couple of older members signed the lease. We painted and we scrubbed. We had a home." Then the headaches Bill lists on the next page: dictators ran amuck, steering committees "tried to nominate their friends to succeed them" and found, to their dismay, that even sober drunks couldn't be steered. And the sentence that is the whole problem (p. 20): "A corporation was formed to take over the clubroom lease so we then had" — Bill's own quotation marks here — officials. "Should these" directors "run the club or would it be the A.A. rotating committee?" Two authorities where there had been one, and nobody had intended a second. They only needed a signature. The lesson A.A. drew was not never sign anything. It was: hold property and business apart from the group, by people who answer for the property, so a group never has to ask which of its two authorities is the real one. Today's version needs no lease. A facility owns the room, the schedule, and the chair, and calls what happens in it A.A. That is directors running the club. The Tradition already answered which authority wins: neither. A group is not run.

Sit with

A lease needed a signature and A.A. woke up with officials. Who owns the room I sit in, and do they think they own the meeting?

Grounded in: P-17, A.A. Tradition: How It Developed (pp. 19–20).

Tradition 9

"A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve."

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 9 → Get the app →

← September 25The Name, Incorporated Tradition 9All of September September 27 →Safe, Even From Me

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).